Cornell University officials are hoping that student residential-housing outreach programs being launched this school year will help the upstate New York institution avoid the problems it experienced last spring when a conservative student publication offended many university students with an Ebonics parody.

Cornell officials say the outreach programs are expected to increase interaction and multicultural understanding among students at the Ivy League university. Although just 45 percent of the entire undergraduate student body lives in campus housing, the outreach initiatives are intended to reach all undergraduates, according to Susan Murphy, Cornell's vice-president for student and academic services.

"Residential programs are one part of the way you reach students," said Murphy. "There's always hope that you can use outreach programs to help prevent the type of incidents that happened last spring."

Last spring's controversy, which roiled the campus, began with an article published in the April 17, 1997, edition of The Cornell Review, a publication that touts itself as the "conservative voice at Cornell". The article -- titled "So, You Be Wantin' To Take Dis Class?", a piece editors described as a spoof of Ebonics-offered an Ebonics translation of course offerings at Cornell's Africana Studies and Research Center.

Students angered by the article held a demonstration eleven days later on the Cornell campus to denounce the publication's editors for what was considered a racist attack on African American studies and culture. Protesting students disrupted traffic on public streets and burned several copies of The Cornell Review to symbolize their disapproval of the offensive article. They also demanded that university administrators end funding of the publication and mandate racial sensitivity training for Cornell students.

The article's publication and the subsequent protest by angry students drew strong response from Cornell President Hunter Rawlings.

"Several articles in The Cornell Review, divisive in their intent, have hurt the spirits of many on campus. Race-baiting, stereotyping, and intentionally degrading attacks on Cornell's African American community have no place in our campus discourse," Rawlings said.

However, student protest activities also drew condemnation from Rawlings, who bemoaned "intemperate and abusive treatment of guest speakers and the illegal blocking of public streets." He said that the protests only served "to inflame passions and inevitably to shift attention away from the original purpose of the protest. They also have no place in our campus discourse."

John Ford, Cornell's dean of students, said school officials, including himself, had extensive discussions with students from both sides of the controversy and no disciplinary sanctions resulted from the incidents.

"The approach was not punitive," Ford said. "I think our talks were productive."

Ford also said that the university is neither considering adopting a campus speech code nor mandating racial sensitivity courses as some students have demanded.

"There's been no groundswell of support among the administration and faculty for such measures," he says.

Planning for the housing outreach programs, however, has been underway for the past two years, according to Murphy. The planning grew out of interest by the Cornell board of trustees to improve student life and experiences.

She says expansion of undergraduate student housing is also planned by the university.

According to Murphy, one part of the outreach plan involves having Cornell's ten theme residential halls increase their educational efforts for students around campus -- especially those who do not live in a particular hall. Themes of the ten residential halls revolve largely around special interests, such as art, music, and environmentalism. Three of the ten, however, are based on ethnic and racial group affiliation -- the Ujamaa Residential College, which houses mostly African American students; Akwe:kon, which has a large Native American population; and the Latino Living Center, which is populated largely by Hispanic students.

Murphy said funds will be available to students to develop projects which will spur interaction among students from different parts of the campus. She said guidelines will stipulate that projects ensure participation from as diverse a group as possible.