Rev. Gregory J. Boyle, a Jesuit priest who has earned national recognition for creating employment programs for ex-gang members in Los Angeles, will discuss his work at 8 p.m. on July 22 at DePaul University’s Egan Urban Center, 243 S. Wabash, Room 9100. Boyle’s presentation is free and open to the public.

The event is co-sponsored by DePaul University as part of its centennial celebration and by the Ninth World Congress of Social Economics, an international, biennial academic conference that will be held at DePaul from July 22-25.

Boyle is the founder of Jobs for a Future and Homeboy Industries, two programs for ex-gang members based on the principle: "Nothing stops a bullet like a job." Boyle created the programs when he was pastor of the Dolores Mission in the East Los Angeles, a primarily Mexican area with the largest concentration of gangs in Los Angeles. He now directs the programs full-time.

Jobs for a Future offers ex-gang members employment training and places more than 250 of them in jobs each year. Homeboy Industries employs 30 former members of opposing gangs, who work together at a bakery, silk-screen shop and a merchandising operation that sells a line of clothing featuring the Homeboy logo. The programs offer former gang members a choice of "full employment rather than full incarceration," Boyle said.

Boyle’s presentation is one of a yearlong series of academic and celebratory events DePaul is sponsoring in 1998-99 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the university’s founding. For more information on the Ninth World Congress of Social Economics, call Barbara Kraemer: 773/752-2720.

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Note to Reporters: Reporters interested in covering Boyle’s presentation should call Robin Florzak at 312/362-8592 before the event.