Saint Martin’s hosts POWER Executive Director for this year's final Harvie Social Justice Lecture

April 8, 2010

Lacey, Washington — Saint Martin’s University will host the last of four lectures in its 2009-2010 Robert A. Harvie Social Justice Lecture Series on Friday, April 16 at 4 p.m. in Harned Hall 110 on the University’s Lacey campus (5300 Pacific Avenue SE, Lacey, Washington). The speaker will be Monica Peabody, the executive director of Parents Organizing For Welfare and Economic Rights (POWER). Peabody’s  lecture is entitled “Advocating for a Strong Social Safety Net in 21st-Century America.”

POWER is an organization headquartered in Olympia of low-income parents and allies advocating for a strong, supportive social safety net. The organization seeks to build a contemporary American where child support and care-giving are truly valued, and the devastation of family poverty has been eradicated. In addition to being executive director, Peabody is also the mother of an amazing twenty-year-old. Raising her child during the passage of welfare reform made her an avid activist. She became active with the Welfare Rights Organizing Coalition (WROC) in Seattle in the early 1990s. When she moved from Seattle to Olympia in 1995, she was shocked to discover there was no local welfare rights organization. After multiple conversations with parents who were being told they had to quit college and find low-wage work, she organized her first welfare rights meeting in Olympia in 1997. Ever since, POWER and the low-income parents POWER represents have been an integral part of our Thurston County’s fight for social justice.

The Robert A. Harvie Social Justice Lecture Series was created by Saint Martin’s University Associate Professor of Criminal Justice Robert Hauhart, Ph.D., J.D., to raise awareness of social justice issues within the community and to honor the work of Robert A. Harvie, J.D., former professor and chair of the Department of Criminal Justice at Saint Martin’s. Admission to the Harvie Lecture Series events is free and open to the public.

For more information on this event and the Harvie Lecture Series, contact Laura Hoff at lhoff@stmartin.edu. Or visit the series website at www.stmartin.edu/social_science/CriminalJustice/LectureSeries.

Saint Martin’s University is an independent four-year, Catholic, coeducational university located on a 380-acre wooded campus in Lacey, Washington. Established in 1895 by the Catholic Order of Saint Benedict, the University is one of 18 Benedictine colleges and universities in the United States and Canada, and the only one west of the Rocky Mountains. Saint Martin’s University prepares students for successful lives through its 21 majors and six graduate programs spanning the liberal arts, business, education and engineering. Saint Martin’s welcomes 1,250 students from many ethnic and religious backgrounds to its main campus, and 650 more to its extension campuses located at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Everett College, Centralia College, and Tacoma Community College.

For additional information:

Robert Hauhart, Ph.D., J.D.
Saint Martin’s University
360-438-4525
rhauhart@stmartin.edu

Genevieve Canceko Chan
Director of communications & marketing
Saint Martin’s University
360-438-4332
gchan@stmartin.edu
www.stmartin.edu