Southeastern NEWS

                                                       Southeastern Louisiana University
                                           Office of University Relations
                                           SLU 880, Hammond, LA 70402
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    Date: 3/26/98
      Contact:                           Christina Chapple  14

Editors: Photo accompanies release -- Please note local interest
LSU STUDENTS' WORK BOOSTS SLU'S PLANS FOR CAMPUS MASTER PLAN
     HAMMOND --  Thanks to a group of Louisiana State University students, the
architectural team preparing a master plan for the Southeastern Louisiana University campus will
have "a lot of workable ideas" to bring to the drawing board.
     As a class assignment undertaken at the request of Southeastern President Sally Clausen,
18 LSU landscape architecture students studying with  professor Sadik Artunc have devised their
own master plans for Southeastern's rapidly expanding 73-year-old campus. Artunc structured
the assignment as a competition and a panel chose five winning designs, which were unveiled at
Southeastern March 18.
     "This is the end of the beginning. Great days are ahead for you," Artunc told Southeastern
faculty, staff and students who gathered in the Sims Memorial Library lobby to hear the LSU
students' presentation on March 18. 
      "This was an exciting project. It was a great way for us to see what others see when they
come to Southeastern," said Michael Rickenbaker, Southeastern's director of Facility Planning.
     While their master plans differ, the student designers agree that Southeastern's campus
has too much congestion and not enough cohesiveness and character. 
     "When we first came to campus, we were frightened by the cars and confusion, but then
we saw what could be," Artunc said. 
     While traffic clashes in key areas,  Southeastern still has "sufficient open space for
developing growth and 'inspirational spaces,'" said Choong Lang Yeo, who won a $300 prize for
                                 (MORE) 
LSU DESIGNERS -- Add One
 her first place design. She suggested creating such a space, a "music circle" that could host
outdoor concerts, between the Ralph R. Pottle Music Building and Twelve Oaks dining hall.
Southeastern's original art deco building design "should carry throughout the campus," she
added, while central cores of activity should be traffic free and linked by plazas -- public spaces
such as the music circle and private areas where students could socialize and study.
     Second place winner Richard Babin commented on Southeastern's "tons of congestion"
and the "large separation between old and newer sections" of campus. His design called for
banishing vehicles from Friendship Circle and tuning the area into a quadrangle, linked to the
rest of campus by a network of walkways. Katherine Sansom's third place design called for a
series of north-south pathways lining up with city streets, such as Pine and Hazel, and landscaped
with the trees for which the streets are named.
     Rickenbaker said Holly & Smith will work on Southeastern's master plan this summer.
"We will move forward now with the advantage of having these observations from some very
helpful designers," he said.
                                 - SLU -
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