LSU'S Biweekly Newsletter for Faculty & Staff
February 25, 2005 |
VOL. 21, NO. 12 |
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| Pictured left to right are: Baton Rouge Housing authority executive director Richard Murray, LSU System President William Jenkins, project architect Jeffrey Winston, Assistant to the Chancellor Renee Myer, urban planner Dave Boehlke and HOPE VI Director Ladan Rastin. |
LSU System President William Jenkins recently met with the leaders of the East Baton Rouge Housing Authority and the HOPE VI project regarding ways to revitalize Old South Baton Rouge. They discussed ways for LSU to work with the adjoining neighborhood through initiatives such as the Community University Partnership, or CUP. The goal of HOPE VI is to improve both the housing opportunities and the local economy for residents of Old South Baton Rouge.
The HOPE VI program is funded by an $18.6 million U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, grant awarded to the East Baton Rouge Parish Housing Authority for redevelopment in Old South Baton Rouge.
HOPE VI has obtained several sites in Old South Baton Rouge where the demolition of run-down buildings began last year. A total of 171 public housing units have been demolished in the neighborhood. In March, the construction of 126 new housing units for rental and ownership will begin. The areas are also being considered for commercial investments and community recreation.
The homes will be built with a new facade of public housing where sites will be less dense. The idea is that a chain reaction will occur and other homes in the area will make improvements, increasing the economic value to the community. Along with neighborhood improvement, a total of 80 families involved with HOPE VI will be offered a community and supportive services program aimed to improve their education and employment opportunities.
The project hopes to create an economic development strategy that will include business development, real estate development and workforce development that will encourage private developers to invest in the area. HOPE VI envisions a spawn of economic activity in Old South Baton Rouge.
Jenkins was optimistic about the project and mentioned it has always been his dream and hope to see the corridor between LSU and downtown revitalized. The HOPE VI project team, as well as Jenkins, encourages the LSU community to get involved as the process continues. The HOPE VI team commented that areas of service range from landscaping to social work. They stressed the importance of all parties coming together.
Jenkins noted that the project will serve as a catalyst in the area and said, “The engagement of LSU with its surrounding community is of utmost importance for the well-being of the community. We are a part of this neighborhood, and LSU can offer service and intellectual resources to assist the area in revitalization.”
For more information about HOPE VI, visit http://hopeline.ebrpha.org. For interest in a community/university partneship, contact CUP Coordinator Pat Smith at 389-8566.
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| Lee Wilkins, University of Missouri-Columbia, and Renita Coleman, LSU Manship School of Mass Communication assistant professor, with their recently published book on the ethics of journalists. |
Given the recent string of high-profile scandals involving the ethical blunders of journalists it is not surprising that opinion polls indicate that the American public’s respect of the news media has declined.
However, a new, first-of-its-kind, book-length study, co-authored by researchers from LSU and the University of Missouri-Columbia, reveals that journalism is actually one of the most morally developed professions in the country.
Journalism professors Renita Coleman of LSU’s Manship School of Mass Communication and Lee Wilkins of the Missouri School of Journalism administered the “Defining Issues Test,” which measures moral development, to 249 reporters from print and broadcast newsrooms across the country. The results showed journalists ranked the fourth highest, following closely behind seminarians, physicians and medical students.
For the past 30 years, the test has been given to at least 30,000 professionals, but never to journalists.
“ Journalists can and do have the ability to make high-quality ethical decisions. That’s not popular perception of journalists, possibly because it’s only the bad decisions that people hear about. The public doesn’t see all the good ethical choices that are made in newsrooms across the country every day,” Coleman said.
The researchers’ findings, first published in Journalism and Mass Communications Quarterly and more recently in “The Moral Media: How Journalists Reason About Ethics,” showed no significant differences between various groups of journalists, including men, women, or broadcast and print reporters. Journalists who did civic journalism or investigative reporting scored significantly higher than those who did not. When ethical problems were professionally focused, journalists did better.
The situation with advertising professionals was completely opposite, said Anne Cunningham, an LSU Manship School advertising professor and contributing author to “The Moral Media” book. When Cunningham gave the DIT test to 65 advertising professionals, results showed they scored significantly lower than journalists and just a few marks above business undergraduates, high school students and prison inmates. Even more alarming, the advertisers tested scored even lower in ethical reasoning when asked to deliberate on advertising-specific dilemmas. In other words, advertising practitioners scored significantly higher when presented with ethical dilemmas not about advertising.
“ They basically checked their ethics at the door when asked to make ethical decisions in a professional setting,” Cunningham said. “Regardless of how capable they are of reasoning ethically, they tend to privilege financial considerations over ethics when it comes to doing their jobs.”
Other significant findings of the study looked at how visual information affected journalists’ ethical reasoning. Coleman, a visual communications journalism professor and the leading researcher who designed and evaluated this part of the study, said this is the first time scholars have included visual communication as a factor in moral decision making. They learned that visual information boosted ethical thinking in journalists. However, Coleman and Wilkins were concerned to find when adding photographs of different races to coincide with the scenarios in the test, journalists demonstrated significantly lower levels of ethical reasoning when people in the photos were African American.
“This shows how powerful stereotypes are and how hard they are to overcome. None of the participants studied felt they were prejudiced, but the racial information was nevertheless working subconsciously, and they made significantly poorer quality ethical choices when the people in the dilemmas were African American,” Coleman said.
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| The Shaw Center for the Arts building will house the LSU Museum of Art, as well as an additional gallery and classrooms for the School of Art. |
The new and expanded location of the LSU Museum of Art will open Saturday, March 5, in the Shaw Center for the Arts in downtown Baton Rouge. The museum will feature its collection in 15,000 square feet of enclosed gallery spaces.
Started in 1959 by an anonymous donor, the museum’s collection has grown into a permanent collection of more than 3,500 objects. It has developed into an educational source for the community.
The museum plans to make use of its increase in size by holding receptions, meetings and other events, as well as offering educational programming for children and adults. The space will also allow for a more accessible, functional space in which to exhibit the university’s collections and showcase faculty, student and professional artists’ work.
The LSU Museum of Art will hold its grand opening Saturday, March 5, and Sunday, March 6. Several programs and activities have been scheduled in celebration of the grand opening. Scheduled events will appeal to all ages, including the “Living Pictures” performance by students from the LSU School of Dramatic Arts, where they will bring selected work in the museum to life. All programs are free and open to the public. No registration is required, however, workshops are filled on a first-come, first-served basis. To see a schedule of events visit www.lsu.edu/lsumoa.
Included in the grand opening events are two notable exhibits.
The “African Gold: Selections from the Glassell Collection,” from the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, will open Saturday, March 5, and run through Tuesday, May 31. Approximately 135 works of art from the region formerly known as the Gold Coast will be displayed.
Organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the exhibit will include objects from the museum’s permanent collection that were donated by Alfred C. Glassell Jr., a Louisiana native and LSU graduate. The Glassell Collection is considered the most substantial museum collection of African gold in the United States.
The exhibition focuses on African gold from the Akan people of the West Coast of Africa, including works created by people of the Ivory Coast and Ghana.
The objects represent the cultures and art traditions, still flourishing today, of the Fulani people of Mali and the Swahili of Kenya.
On view are exquisitely crafted gold jewelry, royal counselors’ staffs covered in gold leaf, kente cloths, crowns, sandals, swords and figurative sculptures dating from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
This exhibition was made possible by a grant from Mr. and Mrs. Alfred C. Glassell Jr. Glassell is the founder of the Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Corp. He is a Baton Rouge native. During his time at LSU, he distinguished himself as student body president, member of 13 honor societies and ROTC commander. Glassell went on to pursue excellence in the petroleum industry and became an avid art collector. Glassell’s father owned the former Auto Hotel, which is now home to the Museum of Art in the Shaw Center for the Arts.
The “Collecting Passions” exhibit will also open Saturday, March 5. This exhibition will showcase a collection that has remained, for the most part, a mystery to the general public and scholars due to a lack of exhibition space. With the LSU Museum of Art’s move to the Shaw Center for the Arts, the collection can now be put on display.
“ Collecting Passions” examines questions about what encompasses the art of collecting through an exhibition that includes works from the museum’s 18th- and 19th-century American and European paintings, Louisiana art and decorative arts, including New Orleans silver, Newcomb pottery, Chinese jade and Inuit sculpture.
The interactive exhibition includes an audience response room for visitors to share their comments regarding the collection and information about what they collect and why. The room will also offer a list of items that local personalities and politicians, such as Gov. Kathleen Blanco, Sen. Mary Landrieu, Sen. Cleo Fields, Sen. Jay Dardenne, news anchor Donna Brit and former Mayor-President Bobby Simpson, collect and why they collect those items.
Installations for “Collecting Passions” provide viewers with an understanding of the origins of the museum’s collection, as well as curatorial and cultural influences on collection growth, the impact of the arts and crafts movement on collecting and how collectors affect museums.
The LSU Museum of Art is located in the Shaw Center for the Arts at the corner of Convention Street and Lafayette Street in Baton Rouge. The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday. Admission is $8 for adults, $6 for university students and senior citizens and $4 for children ages 5-17. No admission is charged for children under under five, as well as Museum of Art members.
For more information on the exhibitions or the LSU Museum of Art, visit http://www.lsu.edu/lsumoa or call 578-4003.
The Veritas Forum will be held for the first time at LSU on March 11-17 with the theme “What Does it Mean to be Human?” The forum was first held at Harvard University in 1992 and more than 80 schools have since hosted the program.
The forum is a series of open lectures, luncheon talks and discussions exploring some of the hardest questions of the university, society and the human heart in relation to the historical claims and the contemporary relevance of Jesus Christ and the Christian faith.
The Veritas lectures are designed for exploration and discussion with a question and answer period following each lecture. They will address questions about life, significance, death, gender issues, pain and suffering, scientific discovery and more. Veritas welcomes people of all faiths and backgrounds to explore questions, doubts and ideas about some of the deeper issues in life. For a schedule of lecture times and locations, visit www.veritas.org/lsu.
Continued on Page 3 Eminent scholars and professionals from the fields of engineering, philosophy and bioethics will be among the speakers. Scheduled experts and lectures include Dr. Walter Bradley, “Appropriate Technology for Developing Countries: Engineering for the Poorest 4 Billion People on Earth”; Dr. William Edgar, “The Revenge of the Aesthetic”; Ms. Lilian Calles Barger, “Body Bound: Women and Spirituality”; and Dr. John F. Kilner, “Bioethics and Human Dignity.”
Campus sponsors for the forum include Baptist Collegiate Ministry, Campus Crusade for Christ, Canterbury Club, Chapel on the Campus, Christ the King Church and Catholic Center, Christian Faculty/Staff Network, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, International Quest, Late Nite College Ministry, Living Waters Student Fellowship, Refuge, St. Alban’s Chapel and Student Christian Medical Association. Community sponsors include First Presbyterian Church, Healing Place Church, Istrouma Baptist Church and Louisiana Family Forum.
For more information, contact Sung Joon Jang, associate professor of sociology, at cfsn@lsu.edu or 225-578-5348. For information about Veritas Forum’s national organization, go to www.veritas.org.
LSU alumnus Kip Knight, vice president of marketing and category management for eBay International, and his wife, Peggy Day, have recently made donations and pledges to the LSU Union and the E. J. Ourso College of Business. The combined donations and pledges total $200,000. Both university entities will each receive $100,000.
Shirley Plakidas, director of the LSU Union, said the Union will utilize Knight’s gift to enhance overall development efforts and to establish the Knight and Day Leadership Awards to recognize LSU Union leaders. The monies pledged to the E. J. Ourso College’s marketing department will go to establishing a fellowship to honor Knight’s former marketing professor, Al Burns, who currently serves as department chair and professor of marketing.
“ This gift represents a milestone in the history of the Union in terms of guaranteeing student leadership opportunities into the future,” said Plakidas.
Burns said the fellowship will enable the E. J. Ourso College to attract the brightest and most capable applicants to its marketing Ph.D. program.
“ It is very exciting to the LSU marketing department faculty to have the capability to compete with the top marketing Ph.D. programs in the United States for the best students,” Burns said.
Knight, who earned a bachelor’s degree in general business from the E. J. Ourso College in 1978, went on to earn an M.B.A. at the University of Cincinnati as a Burke Fellow. During his four-year undergraduate term at LSU, Knight served as the chair of the Academia Committee and as the president of the Union Program Council and Governing Board. As a student volunteer he spent considerable time gaining critical job related and leadership experience and credits the LSU Union for serving as a training ground for future success.
“ I've said it before and I'll say it again: I think the LSU Student Union is the greatest leadership opportunity any student at LSU can take advantage of while they’re in college,” Knight said. “I would not be where I am today without it.”
He has worked for Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo and Taco Bell, as well as his own consulting firm, Knight Vision, before moving to eBay in 2002. At P&G, Knight worked on marketing plans for a variety of well-known brands such as Bounce Fabric Softener, Ivory Soap, Spic and Span, and a number of test brands. In 1990, seeking an opportunity to work internationally, Knight left P&G for PepsiCo, where he became business development director, general manager for North Latin America, marketing director for Europe and Africa and vice president of marketing for KFC International.
In 2002, Knight joined the online market company, eBay, as vice president of marketing for its U.S. business. During his time at eBay, he has worked with eBay International in a general management role for Latin America, Asia, Canada and Australia. The company boasts more than 125 million users and is one of the top 15 retailers in the world. eBay has sites in 32 different countries around the world.
On Friday, May 13, Knight will be the keynote speaker for “Louisiana Looking Up,” a day-long campus forum hosted by the LSU M.B.A Alumni Association. The event will be held at the Shaw Center for the Arts in downtown Baton Rouge. For more information about the forum, contact Wendy Osborn Luedtke, director of alumni and external relations for the E. J. Ourso College, at 225-578-8865 or wendy@lsu.edu.
Evan M. Berman, a professor of public administration in the Public Administration Institute at LSU’s E. J. Ourso College of Business, has been appointed managing editor of the journal Public Performance & Management Review.
Berman assumed his duties as managing editor in January. Public Performance & Management Review is a quarterly journal in the public administration field that focuses on a broad range of factors influencing the productivity and performance of public and nonprofit organizations. It was established in 1975 and was named the second most highly respected journal in the public administration field in a 1994 survey of journal editors published by the Public Administration Review. It is co-sponsored by the Section on Public Performance and Management of the American Society for Public Administration and the National Center for Public Productivity at Rutgers University.
The Public Administration Institute at the E. J. Ourso College offers the Master of Public Administration degree, designed for professionals in public and nonprofit agencies, the healthcare industry and organizations that work with or report to government agencies.
For more information on the Public Administration Institute, please visit http://www.bus.lsu.edu/academics/pai or email pai@lsu.edu.