When the National Assembly of Women Religious (NAWR) seated its first House of Delegates in Denver, Sister Betty Donohue, GNSH, represented the Archdiocese of Atlanta Sisters' Senate.

Sister Evelyn Morrissey, SBS, from Macon, represented the Savannah Sisters' Council. There were 16 sisters from the Southeastern area representing Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

The entire delegation joined other NAWR members in determining the processes of NAWR through discussion of issues and procedures and through voting in of priority proposals for the coming year.

Delegates for the national organization included representatives of 43 states and the District of Columbia, 72 Sisters' Senates or Councils, and four national or local organizations of sisters. At-large delegates from 112 diocese spoke for over 4,400 NAWR members.

Three keynote speakers sparked the first formal plenary session of the assembly when they spoke to the sociological, psychological, and theological aspects of IMPACT, the theme of the 1971 meeting. They were Sisters Jacqueline Jelley, Susanne Breckel, and Jane Marie Richardson.

Sister Joann Crowley, convention chairman, introduced assembly guests Sister Virginia Ann Bowling, representing the Conference of Major Superiors of Women (CMSW); Rev. Donald Heintshel, chairman of the National Conference of Vicars for Religious, and Rev. Paul Wicker, representing the National Federation of Priests' Councils (NFPC).

Sister Virginia Ann urged NAWR to clarify its aims as an organization. Father Heintshel saw the NAWR movement not as a deposit of truth but as a call to search. "The Church needs NAWR," he asserted. Father Wicker read a statement of support for the NAWR movement from the NAWR counterpart, the NFPC.

Following the open forums on action proposals, reporters brought reformulated proposals to the plenary session. Proposals gleaned from NAWR membership across the country covered the areas of social concern, education, health services, religious life, apostolic focus, and pastoral dimensions.

A two-pronged approach marked the Denver meeting: elected members to the initial House of Delegates looked to organizational patterns and processes necessary to stimulate and channel NAWR action; the general assembly (House of Delegates, plus other NAWR members) focused on positive proposals gleaned from across-the-country census taking on priority issues from sisters today.