Town hall to focus on diversity

Heeeeere's Claire. Again. In their second live televised appearance of the semester, Interim President Claire Fagin and Interim Provost Marvin Lazerson will host another town meeting on November 17 at 7:30 p.m. Fagin said she felt the first one, held in early October, was very successful, and hopes the town meetings will become a regular forum for the discussion of campus issues. "To have all this [technology] available and not to use it is unimaginable," Fagin said. "I'm not exactly in love with the media, but I think it is a fast way to reach a lot of people." The second show's executive producer, Annenberg School graduate student Leah Binder, said this town meeting will be slightly different from the first. Since several students complained there was not enough time to discuss all the problems on campus last time, Binder said this time there will be only one topic – diversity. Gloria Chisum, chairperson of the Commission on Strengthening the Community and vice chairperson of the University Trustees, will co-host the show with Fagin and Lazerson because the Commission is working directly with the problem of multiculturalism on campus. Binder said another complaint from the last town meeting was that the student leaders in the studio audience were there only to represent their constituencies. "We're going to fix that by filling the audience with about 80 random students," she said. "We're going to go through the PENNcard data base and pick students at random." In addition, Binder said audience members will have a brief session of "media training" in which they practice asking questions and giving comments in a short time. She said this will be one way to insure that no one student monopolizes the air time. "Television is a strange medium," Binder said. "When you're [being filmed] you want to talk longer, but when you are watching TV you don't like to see one person talk so much." Binder said the one-hour training session will be mandatory. She said she hopes to be able to work around student schedules when planning times for the sessions. Binder said students who have been chosen to be part of the studio audience will receive notice in the mail by the end of the week. Since there are more audience members than last time, the town meeting will most likely be televised from Houston Hall's Bodek Lounge rather than the smaller Annenberg School room used last time. And since the University does not have a "mobile broadcasting unit," Binder said a small group of professionals will be hired to assist in the show's production. Binder said the town meeting will still be a "University product," produced mainly through faculty and student volunteers.