[aopirose]

I saw the Delta crest on the plate too. It was right next to a stuffed elephant.

I am just too embarrassed by ND. There are just somethings in this world that I don't need to know.

I guess SU thought that it was going to be "safe" because the Chancellor got to screen and maybe edit each episode. I don't know.


From the New Orleans Times Picayune TV Focus...

Southern University is ready for its close-up

Sunday January 25, 2004

By Dave Walker, TV columnist

A Stanford University graduate, producer Tracey Edmonds said she picked Baton Rouge's Southern University as the site of the BET network's first "reality" series in part because of Southern's reputation for extracurricular opportunities, including the school's sports teams, marching band and fraternity system.

The strong sense of family displayed by Southern's students was also a factor, she added.

"And also the sense of hope and optimism that comes from these students," said Edmonds, meeting recently in Los Angeles with TV critics. "These are students that come from really impoverished families, who have had to financially struggle to even be at college.

"It's an amazing, moving experience to be around these kids, where education is really so important to them, because (for) a lot of these kids, it's the first time anyone in their family has ever been to college."

Edmonds and her staff interviewed 600 of the more than 1,500 Southern students who applied to appear on the show before picking eight -- four men, four women -- for the final cast.

The final criteria for selection?

"We wanted to pick students that were going to be honest and uninhibited," she said. "And what we ended up with was eight amazing, diverse personalities."

Uninhibited?

That sounds like an invitation to typical reality TV salaciousness.

After all, the show's marketing catch phrase is, "8 Students + 1 Roof = 2 Much Drama."

Not to worry. Edward R. Jackson, Southern's chancellor, gets to screen and perhaps edit "College Hill" before it airs, said Edmonds, to ensure that the university and its students won't be portrayed in a bad light.

The pilot episode of "College Hill" was shot in May, though the bulk of the series' 13 episodes were done during Southern's fall semester, allowing several participants to visit New Orleans for the Bayou Classic. (Edmonds wasn't sure at the time of her meeting with the critics if rights issues will allow the Bayou Classic footage to be used in the series.)

Edmonds' mandate from BET was to capture college life as realistically as possible without injecting typical reality TV contrivances.

"We did not have to manipulate any story lines at all, because things just naturally unfolded and evolved," she said. "Every single day shooting this series, I could not believe the stuff that was just incidentally happening as we were shooting, and that the cameras were catching."

About any of which Edmonds refused to dish.

Preview tapes of "College Hill" weren't made available before this story's deadline, but the cast's makeup seems to promise conflict, an essential for compelling reality TV.

One, a cheerleader, is described in BET publicity materials as a "diva" and "socialite."

Another, a football player, is described as "a jock and a ladies' man."

One is pregnant. Another is a band member.

Other cast members are described, respectively, as "a smooth operator with an ulterior motive," a "wild child," a "spoiled-rotten rich girl" and, last but not least, "an academic genius."

"African Americans throughout television history have begged to see themselves in honest light," added Stephen Hill, BET's senior vice president for programming. "We did not manipulate -- we really just followed."