Sister Isabelle of Our Lady of Hope may look like a typical Carmelite nun in her brown habit and black veil when she’s out helping with yard duty at the St. Philomena Catholic Church Elementary School in Carson, Calif. However, she is a decidedly atypical image when she’s walking across the campus of California State University, Dominguez Hills. A graduate of the Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio, Sister Isabelle is currently working on her master’s degree in occupational therapy.

Walter Wells, emeritus professor of English at California State University, Dominguez Hills, has been awarded the 2009 Umhoefer Prize for Achievement in the Humanities. The award, which was announced in February, was granted by Minnesota’s Arts and Humanities Foundation, for Wells’s 2007 book, “Silent Theater: The Art of Edward Hopper.” More than 1,000 works of literature, drama, the visual and performing arts, music, history, philosophy, photography and cinema are considered for the award each year.