Can A Week-Long Trip Mint New Ambassadors To New Orleans?

WWNO - New Orleans Public Radio | By Thomas Walsh

Published June 23, 2014 at 5:00 AM CDT

Each spring, students in NYU's Food Studies program visit Louisiana to learn about the state's unique cultural identity.

Students at NYU's Food Studies program are studying to be professionals in all walks of life, from community organizers and journalists to food-policy experts and public health workers.

The class takes a week-long trip to New Orleans each year, which is often the first time students visit the city. Their professor goes to great lengths to connect them with authentic Louisiana experiences, but is a week enough time to overcome years of media-saturated preconceptions?

Thomas Walsh

Thomas Walsh is an independent radio producer for WWNO. Each week he works to produce new editions of Louisiana Eats and All Things New Orleans, as well as Notes From New Orleans, The Farmer's Market Minute, and The Green Minute. Outside WWNO, Thomas is a volunteer disc jockey for WTUL, where he hosts a weekly live four-hour program broadcasting twentieth century classical music. Thomas has four years experience in audio engineering, and a BA from Trinity University in San Antonio where he double majored in communications and philosophy. Someday he will give away his entire collection of Grateful Dead concerts, which has swelled to unnecessary proportions in recent years.

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