Jacqueline Lázu

JACQUELINE LAZÚ

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR & ASSOCIATE DEAN, COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

Jacqueline Lazú is a College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences' faculty member and the first Latina associate dean. In 2012, she brought the Inside-Out Prison Exchange program to DePaul as faculty director of the Community Service Studies Program. A direct reflection of DePaul’s Vincentian values of social justice and respect for human dignity, the program provides an opportunity for traditional students, incarcerated students and faculty to learn from each other. In 2017, she also co-founded the university’s criminology program, making it one of the most popular majors within the first three years of its inception. She is recognized as a leading scholar of the Young Lords Organization, a Chicago gang turned social movement, and has helped establish DePaul's Young Lords special collections archive as a destination for the study of the Rainbow Coalition, Illinois Black Panther Party, Young Patriots, and 1960's and 1970's radical social movements.
Dr. Lazú’s accomplishments fully embody the Vincentian mission, particularly St. Vincent’s service to the incarcerated. Her contributions have transformed many at DePaul, including myself. That she’s accomplished so much in just a decade makes her an essential face of DePaul.
Nominator
FACES OF DEPAUL