Southeastern NEWS

                                                       Southeastern Louisiana University
                                           Public Information Office
                                           publicinfo@selu.edu
                                           SLU 10880, Hammond, LA 70402
                                           504/549-2341/fax 504-549-2061
    Date: 5/2/00
      Contact:                           Christina Chapple   92

SLU TOWN HALL MEETING WINS NATIONAL AWARD
     HAMMOND -- Southeastern Louisiana University has won a national award for a
unique diversity experiment conducted during the university's 1999 celebration of Black History
Month.
     The Council for Advancement and Support of Education awarded Southeastern's Town
Hall Meeting on Race Relations, held last February, a bronze medal in the "Community
Relations Programs and Projects" category of its national Circle of Excellence Awards Program. 
     Southeastern will receive the award at CASE's national convention in Toronto, Canada,
in July. The Southeastern Alumni Association submitted the Town Hall Meeting to the national
CASE competition. The program was one of three winners among 16 entries, CASE said.
     "We're delighted to receive national recognition for a program that brought about a
significant discussion about diversity on our campus," Kim Hunter Reed, Southeastern President
Sally Clausen's executive assistant and interim vice president for student affairs. Reed  hosted
the Town Hall Meeting along with Al Doucette, associate dean of the College of Arts and
Sciences.
     Last February, Southeastern students selected from several university education and
sociology classes were paired with fellow students of different backgrounds, religion, age or
race.
The group included white and black, traditional and non-traditional, single and married students;
parents, and residents of rural communities and major cities. With the goal of learning about
other cultures and lifestyle and improving communication, the pairs spent time together for a
month, on campus and off, in class and in social settings.
     At the Town Hall Meeting, which was attended by more than 400 students and 
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TOWN HALL MEETING WINS CASE AWARD   Add One
community members, student panelists reported the experience to be informative, useful and
sometimes eye-opening. 
     Reed said the program's pairings gave the participants "a sense of what it is like to be in
the minority and the majority. They learned good lessons for life. The university environment
and
individual students really are strengthened by programs like this."
     "The Town Hall Meeting experience gave students who don't ordinarily come together
the opportunity to do so," Doucette said. "The students learned that people who appear very
different probably have more in common than they realize. Some lasting friendships came from
the pairings."
     "The student's only complaint," Doucette said, "was that the Town Hall Meeting, which
lasted two hours, was 'too short.'"
                             -SLU-
Press release available online at www.selu.edu/NewsEvents/PublicInfoOffice/newsp00.htm