Image

An upcoming roundtable discussion moderated by Dr. William Leeman, associate professor in the Department of History, will focus on evaluating presidential effectiveness.

The American presidency is the most powerful and visible office in the world. Given the wide-ranging responsibilities of the president and the constantly evolving nature of the office as an institution, how do Americans – both presidential scholars and the general public – evaluate a president’s effectiveness as a leader?

The roundtable will be held at 11:45 a.m. Friday, March 23 in the O’Hare Academic Building, Room 242. Sponsored by the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy, roundtable discussions are open to Salve Regina students, faculty and staff. The Pell Center provides a free lunch.

As space is limited, those interested in attending should RSVP to (401) 341-2927 or pellcenter@salve.edu.

---

---

Sister Helen Prejean, whose best-selling book “Dead Man Walking” sparked national dialogue on the death penalty and helped to shape the Catholic church’s newly vigorous opposition to state executions, will address the graduating class and receive an honorary degree when Salve Regina celebrates its 68th Commencement Sunday, May 20.

Also receiving an honorary degree during the ceremony will be local philanthropist Hope H. “Happy” van Beuren, founder and chair emerita of the van Beuren Charitable Foundation.

Sister Helen Prejean

Sister Helen spent her first years with the Congregation of St. Joseph teaching religion to junior high school students. Realizing that being on the side of poor people is an essential part of the gospel, she moved into the St. Thomas Housing Project in New Orleans and worked at Hope House from 1981-1984.

During this time, she was asked to correspond with a death row inmate, Patrick Sonnier, at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, also known as “Angola” and nicknamed the “Alcatraz of the South.” She agreed and became his spiritual advisor. After witnessing Sonnier’s execution, she wrote a book about the experience.

“Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States” was on the New York Times best-seller list for 31 weeks. It was adapted into a 1995 movie of the same name, starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn. It has also been adapted as an opera, first produced in 2000 by the San Francisco Opera, and as a play for schools and colleges.

Sister Helen now travels around the world giving talks about her ministry, dividing her time between educating citizens about the death penalty and counseling individual death row prisoners. She has accompanied six men to their deaths. In doing so, she began to suspect that some of those executed were not guilty. This realization inspired her second book, “The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions,” published in 2004. She is presently at work on another book, “River of Fire: My Spiritual Journey.”

Sister Helen founded the advocacy group Survive to help families of victims of murder and related crimes. She served as the national chairperson of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty from 1993-1995 and helped establish the Moratorium Campaign that seeks an end to executions and conducts education on the death penalty. She has been a member of Amnesty International and an honorary member of Murder Victim Families for Reconciliation.

Hope H. van Beuren

The van Beuren Charitable Foundation was established in 1986 by John A. “Archie” and Hope H. “Happy” van Beuren with a mission to invest in the quality of life and quality of place of Aquidneck Island and its surrounding communities.

The foundation has contributed more than $67 million to the Newport region, partnering with the community to support projects and programs in four priority areas: strong starts, healthy lifestyles, community prosperity and excellence in the commons. The foundation has emerged as a strategic partner to like-minded charitable organizations and remains committed to strengthening the community in its priority areas of interest.

---

---

Gabby Rivera, author and Marvel comic writer, will discuss “Inspiring Radical Creativity: Empowering Young, Diverse Voices to Tell Their Own Stories” when she visits Salve Regina on Tuesday, March 20. Her appearance is sponsored by the Mosaic student newspaper.

Open to the University community and the general public, Rivera’s talk will be held at 7:30 p.m. in the Bazarsky Lecture Hall. A question and answer session and book signing will follow the talk.

Rivera is currently writing “America” for Marvel Comics, which features Marvel’s first Latina lesbian character, America Chavez. She is also the author of “Juliet Takes a Breath,” a critically acclaimed coming-of-age story starring a queer puertorriquena who leaves her native Bronx behind to intern, over one transformative summer, with one of her literary heroes: the feminist author Harlow Brisbane.

To Rivera, it’s vital to encourage people of all backgrounds to create, daydream and tell their own stories – and in so doing, open a radical space for creativity. In her talk, Rivera will unpack how she navigates the world as a queer, Latinx, millennial woman; how she incorporates her heritage into her writing; how she strives to be a thoughtful ally for others; and how she celebrates the healing power of community.

Copies of “Juliet Takes a Breath” will be available for purchase during the book signing.

---

---

Award-winning writer and actress Rohina Malik will explore themes of racism, hate crime, love, Islam, culture, language and life when she presents her work, “Unveiled: A One Woman Play,” at Salve Regina on Monday, March 19.

Open to the University community and the general public, Malik’s performance will be held at 7 p.m. in the Bazarsky Lecture Hall. A question-and-answer session with Malik will follow the performance.

“Unveiled” depicts the stories of five Muslim women from different ethnic backgrounds in a post-9/11 world. A constant figure within all five stories is each character making or serving tea, which represents a symbol of hospitality and friendship.

Born and raised in London, Malik moved to Chicago at age 15 with her family and later graduated from DePaul University with a degree in comparative religions. Her playwriting career began in 2008 with a class she took on writing a one-person play, where “Unveiled” was born. The next year, “Unveiled” had its world premiere at the 16th Street Theater and Malik was offered a one-year residency at the Goodman Theater, in the inaugural group of the Goodman’s Playwrights Unit.

---

---

Faculty, staff and graduate students are encouraged to attend any or all of the dissertation proposal and defense presentations scheduled this semester. In addition, any undergraduate students who may be considering the pursuit of a Ph.D. are welcome to attend.

All presentations will be held in the McKillop Library, Room 109. The schedule is:

• Jonathan Gourley will present his dissertation proposal at 2 p.m. Monday, March 19. The proposal is titled “How to Fail in Micronesia: Cultural and Economic Entanglement on Pohnpei in the 19th and 21st Centuries.”
• Michael Junge will defend his dissertation at 3 p.m. Monday, March 19. The dissertation is titled “Pillar to Pillory: Crimes of Command in the U.S. Navy 1945-2015.”
• Todd Mele will defend his dissertation at 3:30 p.m. Friday, March 23. The dissertation is titled “Marx’s Materialist Sociology of Knowledge: Colliding Empirical Frameworks of Consciousness.”
• Teresa Testa will present her dissertation proposal at 1 p.m. Monday, March 26. The proposal is titled “The Ontological Problem of Secularity and Christianity: American Challenges and Responses, 1949-1989.”
• Gary Vaspol will defend his dissertation at 10 a.m. Friday, April 6. The dissertation is titled “Abiding the Postmodern World: An Ethical, Existential and Cinematographic Examination of ‘The Big Lebowski.'”
• Lamont Slater will defend his dissertation at 1 p.m. Friday, April 6. The dissertation is titled “Reframing the Herero/Nama Genocide: An Examination of the Genocide through the Theories of Foucault and Athens.”
• Chelsea Buffington will defend her dissertation at 3:30 p.m. Friday, April 6. The dissertation is titled “Techno Humanity: Films as a Lens for Examining How Humans and Technology Co-Shape the World.”
• Cheryl Bailey will defend her dissertation at 3:30 p.m. Monday, April 9. The dissertation is titled “Through the Lens of Accelerationist Utopia: The Critical Role of Science Fiction in the Transition to a Post-Capitalist World in Kim Stanley Robinson’s ‘Mars’ Trilogy.”
• Norah Schneider will defend her dissertation at 10 a.m. Friday, April 13.
• Don Thieme will defend his dissertation at 1 p.m. Friday, April 13. The dissertation is titled “Nation-States & Biopower: Impacts on Individuals, Empowerment, and the Limitations of Liberty.”
• Al Antosca will defend his dissertation at 3:30 p.m. Friday, April 13. The dissertation is titled “Singularitarianism and the New Millennium: Techno-theology in the Transhumanist Age of Re-enchantment.”
• Ryan Marnane will defend his dissertation at 6 p.m. Friday, April 13. The dissertation is titled “Consider the Audiobook, or The Hermeneutics of Close Listening: Literary Sound Studies and David Foster Wallace’s Literary Journalism.”

---

---