Reunion ignites controversy

Despite staunch opposition from Louisiana State University administrators, the Southern University Student Government Association held its first annual Baton Rouge College reunion apart from the original Black Family Reunion on Saturday in the F.G. Clark Activity Center.
Student Government Association President Justin McCorkle said this year’s event was slated to be held on Southern’s campus but Chaunda Allen, LSU director of multicultural affairs, and Katrice Albert, LSU vice provost for equity and diversity, opposed having the reunion at Southern because they felt the original agreement was not to alternate the reunion from Southern to LSU yearly, but to keep the event housed permanently at LSU.
“The original agreement was that it would just be a joint program, but the next year it was decided that it would be alternated. After the event was hosted by Southern during Wayne Hayden’s (SGA president 2003-2004) administration it was decided by LSU that Southern lacked the professional staff to continue alternating the event,” McCorkle said.
According to Allen, The Black Family Reunion is a program that was created in 2001 by the LSU Black History Month Committee under the LSU African American Cultural Center as a part of the LSU slate of Black History Month programs.
“Since the program’s inception, only one of the past five reunions has been held at Southern University,” Allen said in an email. “The decision to continue hosting the program on the campus of Louisiana State University is a decision based on the LSU Office of Multicultural Affairs and the African American Cultural Center retaining the rights to a program that was created by an LSU committee.”
As a result of the feud, it was decided the two universities would host separate reunions with LSU retaining the rights to the original Black Family Reunion, now called the College Family Reunion. It was decided by Southern to call its gathering The Baton Rouge College Reunion.
“The LSU Office of Multicultural Affairs and the African American Cultural Center will continue to retain the rights to the College Family Reunion (please note the name change in 2003) from this point forward,” Allen said. “As this program was created under Dr. Dorothy Height’s concept of the Black Family Reunion, we invite students from LSU, SU, BRCC and other colleges to join us at this event just as we invite students from other colleges to all our events including Harambee, MLK, other BHM programs, and the LSU
Springfest. LSU students are working very diligently on this event and we hope that their peers will come out and support them.”
Steve Brockington, an LSU alum and one of the original committee members that helped to form the Black Family Reunion in 2001 said the reunion was started so that both LSU and Southern could bridge the gap between one another and so myths about Southern and LSU opposing one another could be dispelled.
“This was started so that we could come together as one cohesive unit,” Brockington said while in attendance at the Southern reunion. “The magnitude of this event is not what it should be. It hurts me coming from the original committee and knowing how much hard work was put into this and now seeing it turned into two separate events.”
Brockington said originally it was never set in stone that the event would alternate between the two universities but that it was an unspoken agreement.
Even with a small turnout, McCorkle said he considered the reunion a success as long as some students showed up.
“I think that this year was a step backwards away from the purpose of the whole unifying movement of the city of Baton Rouge,” McCorkle said. “I think that it is going to take some students and not the administration to take this and move forward on next year and move forward maturely so that we can come to resolutions as three campuses and not three individual campuses.”
LSU plans to have its reunion Mar. 11 and rumors are circulating that some LSU and Southern students are planning to boycott.