in memory of... - Briar Cliff University

PRISON CHAPLAIN,
GANG COUNSELOR
TALKS ABOUT TROUBLED TIMES
For more than 30 years, Sister Janet Harris has helped troubled youths in Southern
California. While her results have been mixed, she hasn’t given up hope that young adults,
particularly those involved with gangs, can be helped.
“We went out to change this culture,” she said during her visit to the BCU campus in
October for the Sister Muriel Ford Lectureship and Sister Ruth Agnes Ahlers
Endowment. “There was such contempt for these young people.”
Harris, who gave up a teaching career to work as a prison chaplain and gang counselor, has
been a vocal critic of California’s three-strikes law, an initiative that lowers the age at
which juveniles can be tried as adults. She told the Briar Cliff audience that she became
involved in helping troubled youths by accident.
“We had a high school in our parish, and to be honest, I was tired of picking up beer cans,”
she mentioned. “On Saturdays, the school grounds were open and I would see gangs
come in, but nobody took the time to work with them.”
Even though she has received several awards for her ability to reach out to “lost children,”
including the President’s Award from the American Bar Association, Woman of the Year
in California’s 21st Senate District and, most recently, “Person of the Week” by ABC
Nightly News in April 2006, her work has often met with heartache as some kids end up
in prison or - even worse - murdered.
“If you commit yourself to something, it’s going to be very difficult,” she admitted. “You
will have success and disappointments. But one thing I guarantee you will have - miracles.
They will be great, so great you will ask God to quit showing off.”
Students continue to see that Briar Cliff
University is a place that shapes people’s
lives as enrollment of full-time undergraduate
students is at an all-time high this fall
with 978 students, a 46 percent increase
since 2000.
Buoyed by the largest incoming class since
1984, BCU’s total enrollment continues to
exceed 1,100 students, including 423 new
students. The number of students in residence
halls is close to ideal capacity with
581 residents living on campus.
“We have a large, diverse, talented freshman
class joining our campus,” said
Sharisue Wilcoxon, vice president for
enrollment management. “It gives us new
energy to do what we do best at BCU - recognize
every student’s uniqueness and
FALL
CONVOCATION
an invitation to first-year students
More than 250 first-year students participated
in Briar Cliff University’s
Fall Convocation, an annual invitation
for membership in the Briar Cliff
community that includes a matriculation
ceremony - a contemporary version
of the “Capping Ceremony” that
was used at Briar Cliff in the 1950s.
Every student in attendance received a
certificate of matriculation and signed
their name into a registry book that
will be kept in the president’s office
until Commencement May 2010.
Faculty mentors - dressed in full academic
regalia - led first-year students
into Our Lady of Grace Chapel for the
ceremony. Briar Cliff President
Beverly Wharton welcomed students
and faculty members; and Judith
Lynch Welu, Ed.D., professor of art,
delivered the convocation address
entitled “The Reed Painter.”
ENROLLMENT CONTINUES TO GROW AT BRIAR CLIFF
serve the individual.”
Forty-nine percent of Briar Cliff’s firstyear
students in 2006 are male, which is the
largest first-year percentage in Briar Cliff
history since 1972 - six years after the
school became coeducational. Briar Cliff
University’s campus continues to represent
a greater global perspective as 13.3 percent
of its first-year class is multicultural.
The Briar Cliff University Magazine
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