Last night began "an exploration of race as experienced in Central Pennsylvania."

Those are the words of Cindi Deutschman-Ruiz, producer at WPSU (91.5 FM) and organizer of the Race Matters project. Deutschman-Ruiz moderated a live call-in show last night, the starting event in a series of discussions, commentaries and personal testimonies on racial climate in the Penn State region.

The project hopes to culminate, Deustchman-Ruiz said, in a radio documentary of the history of race issues at Penn State. She said the focus will follow recent radio trends of training amateurs in broadcast techniques so they can tell their own personal stories. Students and community members who want to give a narrative of their experiences with race are encouraged to contact WPSU-FM.

"I really wanted to look in a very direct way on how race is examined on a college campus," Deutschman-Ruiz said, adding that the participation is not limited to Penn State students because of the broad range of listeners and views the station has.

Narratives and commentaries will run during local time slots of morning shows that the station, a National Public Radio affiliate, airs.

Deutschman-Ruiz said the goal is to stimulate dialogue about race issues, which can be difficult for many reasons.

"The whole point of this really is that we generally as a society do not talk about race unless there's a crisis," she said. "It's uncomfortable; it's scary; we're afraid of saying the wrong thing."

Her guests on the show agreed.

Beverly Vandiver, a counseling psychology professor and one of the first guests on the show, said some people think mentioning race implies that one is racist, and others feel frustrated when that mindset keeps racial issues out of discussions.

"It gets to the point that people, when they start to talk, are talking at a level of disconnection," she said.

Cary Fraser, another guest and director of the Africana Research Center, said one step to ending race tensions is to encourage dialogue. "It has to be acknowledged," he said. "The denial has not solved the problem."

Callers said misconceptions from education and from the media perpetuate incorrect ideas about people from other cultures. Guest Tim Gianotti, an assistant professor of religious studies and history, said he did an exercise with the class about how media images of Islam can be skewed.

Students imagined that the only information they had about Christianity was from the media. They would see violence committed in the name of Christianity, like bombings of abortion clinics. Then they discussed how headlines about Islam are probably disproportionately negative.

"This is where we develop these panics and these social misunderstandings," he said.

Deutschman-Ruiz plans to have about five more live shows before the end of the academic year. She said the station has already received calls from people interested in contributing to the project.

"It is clear that the idea of this project strikes some kind of a chord with at least some people, and that's really gratifying," she said.