News Release

UNC begins year-long examination of death penalty

CHAPEL HILL – Members of the campus and local communities will examine the death penalty from all points of view during the 2007-2008 academic year at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Carolina Performing Arts will facilitate the project, “Criminal/Justice: The Death Penalty Examined.” Multiple campus units will present more than 25 arts events designed to stimulate critical thought about the issue, including exhibits, plays and films.

Readings, lectures and panel discussions also are planned, including an Oct. 16 talk by playwright and performance artist Anna Deavere Smith. Smith, who appeared on TV’s “The West Wing,” transforms herself into numerous characters in her one-person performances, exploring issues of race, community and character in America. She will speak about the role the arts can play in catalyzing UNC’s year-long discussion.

The university has no position on capital punishment but seeks, rather, to inform debate on a complex issue that is ongoing across the country and in North Carolina, officials said.

“Without in any way dictating a point of view, we nonetheless believe it is important to have a civil and informed discussion about this controversial issue,” said UNC Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Bernadette Gray-Little.

“Universities are the bedrock of free inquiry, places where beliefs are challenged and arguments are honed,” she said. “We welcome the opportunity to engage our students on one of American society’s most difficult challenges: Who should live and who – if anyone – should die in our criminal justice system?”

The project was undertaken in conjunction with this year’s summer reading program at UNC, in which new students are asked to read the same title over the summer and discuss their views about it in small groups the day before fall classes begin. This year’s book –  “The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions,” by Sister Helen Prejean – was discussed in approximately 120 groups on Aug. 20.

Prejean will lecture at UNC at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 25 in Memorial Hall, presented by Carolina Performing Arts and the James M. Johnston Center for Undergraduate Excellence.

“During this year-long examination, we will explore issues of power, justice, the individual and the state, society and equality through the universal language of the arts,” said Emil Kang, executive director for the arts at UNC. “The arts serve as a powerful vehicle for engaging perspectives, uncovering truth and confronting questions that continue to surround the practice of state-sanctioned executions.”

John Charles “Jack” Boger, dean of the UNC School of Law and a member of the planning committee for the project, litigated capital punishment cases for a decade while on the staff of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

“We at Carolina hope to offer our students an unparalleled opportunity to experience these tensions and hear these voices this year, sharing outstanding works of art as we reflect on the values we hold dearest, asking ourselves anew about what justice requires” Boger said.

Details and a complete schedule are available at http://www.carolinacreativecampus.org/, where updates will be posted throughout the year. Highlights will include:

• “The Death of Innocents,” a stage-adaptation reading of the book at 8 p.m. Sept. 8 in Memorial Hall. Sister Nancy Murray, sister of actor Bill Murray, will portray Prejean; Sister Maureen Fenlon, national coordinator for the Dead Man Walking Theatre Project, will introduce the reading, presented by the communication studies department. Joseph Megel, artist-in-residence in the communication studies department, and Chris Chiron, a doctoral candidate in the department, adapted the book for the stage; Megel will direct.

• “The Ethical Issues of Capital Punishment,” a panel discussion at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 2 in the film auditorium, Frank Porter Graham Student Union, presented by the Parr Center for Ethics in the philosophy department. http://parrcenter.unc.edu/events/seminars/fall2007/capitalpunishment/;

• “Crime & Punishment: Rethinking the Death Penalty,” 4:30 p.m. Nov. 9 through 1 p.m. Nov. 10, seminar with a philosophy professor, a law professor and representatives of defense lawyers and prosecutors, presented by the program on the humanities and human values and the UNC General Alumni Association. http://www.unc.edu/depts/human/level_3/2007_fall/Crime&Punishment.htm

• “Parade,” 7:30 p.m. Nov. 12-13 in Memorial Hall. Broadway musical on the true story of Leo Frank, a Jewish man who lived in Atlanta in the early 1900s. He was tried and convicted of the rape and murder of a 12-year-old girl. The drama examines issues of class and race relations, prejudice, anti-Semitism, the death penalty and the South. “Parade” debuted on Broadway in 1998 and won Tony Awards for best book and best score in 2000. Presented by the communication studies and music departments and Carolina Performing Arts.

• Discussion by Barry Scheck and Susan Estrich, 7:30 p.m. Jan. 17, Memorial Hall. Scheck, an attorney, co-founded the Innocence Project, a national organization that seeks to exonerate wrongfully convicted people through DNA testing. Estrich, an author and syndicated columnist, is a professor of law at the University of Southern California. They will discuss issues surrounding the death penalty and criminal justice.

• “Perspectives on Public Justice,” exhibition, Jan. 18 - May 4, Ackland Art Museum, displaying works of art that engage the theme of justice, presented by the Ackland and students and instructors from the writing program at UNC, who will help organize and interpret the exhibition.

•   “Spectacular Justice,” a media installation by Joyce Rudinsky, associate professor of communication studies, spring 2008. The installation will include video and audio recordings and images that will surround the viewer, offering thoughts about capital punishment. Presented by UNC’s communication studies department and the Renaissance Computing Institute of UNC, Duke and N.C. State universities.

• “Dead Man Walking,” a play adapted from Sister Helen Prejean’s book of that title, April 18-22, Elizabeth Price Kenan Theatre, Center for Dramatic Art, presented by the dramatic art department. The movie version won Susan Sarandon a Best Actress Oscar.

• “Witness to an Execution,” play, Elizabeth Price Kenan Theatre, Center for Dramatic Art, April 23-27, part of PlayMakers’ Repertory Company’s PRC2 season of works that invite discussion of controversial issues. The company commissioned local playwright Mike Wiley to write the play based on interviews with death row inmates in Texas. Presented by PlayMakers, the professional theater group in residence at UNC, and Carolina Performing Arts.

“Criminal/Justice: The Death Penalty Examined” is made possible in part by a grant from the Association of Performing Arts Presenters’ Creative Campus Innovations Grant Program, a component of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation of New York City. Carolina Performing Arts received the $103,165 grant in April to coordinate the project. Carolina’s project was one of eight chosen from among more than 180 proposed.

Project Web site: http://www.carolinacreativecampus.org/
Association of Performing Arts Presenters Web site: www.artspresenters.org
Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Web site: www.ddcf.org

Grant announcement news release: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/apr07/cpagrant043007.html

“Criminal/Justice: The Death Penalty Examined” project manager: Reed Colver, (919) 843-1833, rcolver@email.unc.edu
News Services staff: (919) 962-2091