Founder of El Puente delivers Riall Lecture November 12

SALISBURY, MD ---The winner of the 1998 Heinz Award for the Human Condition, Luis Garden Acosta, delivers this fall's Riall Lecture on Tuesday, November 12, at 7:30 p.m. in Holloway Hall Auditorium. In 1982 Acosta and his wife co-founded El Puente ("the bridge"), a human services organization that transformed one New York neighborhood.

Originally intended to address troubled youth in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn NY, El Puente served as a catalyst for the development of the entire community and its residents. Intent on fixing more than "the killing fields" of Willamsburg, Garden Acosta had to change the way institutions traditionally related to the area and, in so doing, built a bridge to the church, the hospital, the school and the home.

El Puente now operates the Academy for Peace and Justice, the first public high school focused on human rights. Alumni have gone on to graduate from top universities. The organization also runs a health center focused on family health, childhood vaccinations and AIDS issues.

The unique social action movement has grown to other communities which are self-managed with technical assistance from El Puente's membership. The organization estimates the number of persons affected by their services to be more than 10,000 each year.

Garden Acosta, who gave up a career as a hospital administrator, believes that principles, not personalities, should serve as the anchor for El Puente. His commitment to culture and identity has been realized by creating a multicultural environment in which ethnic traditions are celebrated and respected.

Begun in 1988, the E. Pauline Riall Lecture Series brings to the University and community outstanding national lecturers in the field of education. The series was established by the late Miss Riall, long-time principal and teacher of the former Campus School at Salisbury University. A generous bequest was provided by Miss Riall's will to fund this special program.

The program, free and open to the public, is sponsored by SU's Seidel School for Education and Professional Studies. For information visit the University's Web site at www.salisbury.edu or call 410-543-6030.