2007 Annual Meeting

THE REAL TEST:
Liberal Education and Democracy’s Big Questions

New Orleans Community Forum

Thursday, January 18, 3:00-5:30 p.m.

 AAC&U is pleased to offer a community forum that brings the AAC&U audience to the community.  Today’s service learning programs, community-based projects, and civic engagement initiatives reach into our communities more than ever.  How can we best work with – and learn from – our community partners?  New Orleans provides an extraordinary example for lessons learned, and those to be learned.

The Ashé Cultural Arts Center in the Central City neighborhood of New Orleans will be the site of the New Orleans Community Forum. Participants will include community leaders whose work in Central City is playing a crucial role in the recovery of this neighborhood after hurricane Katrina, but who have a history of engagement in Central City that pre-dates the hurricane. They will discuss the goals and activities of their organizations in Central City, ways in which they have worked with colleges and universities, and the challenges and opportunities they see in that relationship.

The purpose of this forum is to provide participants with the perspective of community-based organizations in developing and sustaining university/community partnerships –in post-Katrina New Orleans or in any community.

Community Forum Leaders:

• Audrey Browder, President of the Board, Central City Partnership
  
  Carol Bebelle, Director, Ashé Cultural Arts Center
  
  Craig Cuccia, Café Reconcile
  
  Rev. Emanuel Smith. Jr., Pastor, Israelite Baptist Church

• Barbara Lasen Kelly, Constituent Services, New Orleans City Council

Moderator:
Kyshun Webster, Special Assistant to the President for Community Programs, Xavier University of Louisiana