One of the country's most formidable opponents of capital punishment, Sister Helen Prejean, C.S.J., will deliver the commencement address for the DePaul University College of Liberal Arts and Sciences graduation ceremony June 10. The ceremony begins at 3 p.m. at Navy Pier, 600 E. Grand Ave., Festival Hall A.

Prejean is the author of "Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the U.S.," a very personal look at the rather unlikely relationship she developed with death row inmate Patrick Sonnier. The Pulitzer Prize-nominated book was made into a movie for which Susan Sarandon portrayed Prejean and won the 1996 Oscar for best actress.

     A community organizer, Prejean began her anti-death penalty activism in 1981 in her life-long home, New Orleans, La. When asked how she became involved in the death penalty issue, Prejean's response is always the same: "I got involved with poor people. The death penalty is a poor person's issue. After all the rhetoric that goes on in the legislative assemblies -- in the end, when the deck is cast out -- it is the poor who are selected to die in this country."

     A Catholic nun and member of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Medaille, Prejean began working with the poor in the St. Thomas Projects, an indigent, Black section of New Orleans. The experience opened her eyes to how economic disparity and racism render people powerless in the fight against drug infestation, homicide and other evils in their community.

     While working among the poor of St. Thomas, a friend asked Prejean if she would like to correspond with someone on death row. Thus began her journey into the world of both death row inmates and the families of the victims they are sentenced for murdering. Prejean has provided spiritual counseling to numerous inmates and has accompanied five men to execution. Her work with murder victims' families prompted her to establish a group in New Orleans called Survive.

     Prejean was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1998 and 1999. She has received numerous other awards, including the Laetare Medal from Notre Dame University, the Champion of Liberty Award from the U.S. Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Sanctity of Life Award from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. She has received more than 20 honorary degrees. In the media, Prejean has been featured in the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Atlanta Constitution, and on ABC television's "Prime Time Live," PBS's "Frontline" and the BBC's "Everyman." Mirabella magazine named her among the "One Hundred Fearless Women" in 1994.

     She is past chairperson of the board of directors of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, a member of Amnesty International and honorary chairperson of Hands Off Ciau, an international group based in Rome working to abolish the death penalty.

     Prejean travels the globe educating people about the death penalty. Currently, she is the United States' chair of a worldwide petition drive, "Moratorium 2000," which calls for a cessation of the death penalty. The drive aims to collect 1 million signatures nationwide to be delivered to the United Nations on Human Rights Day, December 10.

     Prejean will receive an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters during the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences commencement exercises at DePaul.