ON BEING HERE BMIKE IN CONVERSATION WITH CAROLYN BARBER-PIERRE
Carolyn Barber-Pierre is the Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs, Multicultural Affairs at Tulane University and has more than 40 years of professional experience in the field of higher education, diversity and inclusion. She has served in her current position since 2000 during her 34 years at Tulane. In 2019, President Mike Fitts announced the creation of The Carolyn BarberPierre Center for Intercultural Life in honor of Carolyn’s decades of dedication to promoting a diverse, equitable and inclusive community at Tulane.
Bmike: I was excited by the invitation [from the museum] because I have tons of friends who went here and the stories [of their experiences] were ranged, but there were a lot, a lot of similarities in terms of what it’s like to be at a PWI (Predominantly White
of the blackest cities they went to, but – Carolyn Barber-Pierre (CBP): – but that this was one of the whitest places in the world to be. Bmike: Right.
Institution) in the context of New Orleans as a city, as a juxtaposition of both. People from out of town who said, you know, this was one
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CBP: So I hear you know Harold Sylvester. Bmike: Yeah, Harold, I definitely I consider