DUCKS Student s don boots to slosh their way across cam pus after an early morning shower in November. Rain boots have become de rigueu r apparel for some at the slight est hint of rain.
Slam Dunk 0 11the cover: Photo by Paul a Burch-Celent ano
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Research intheRealWorld by ScottS.Cowen If you were to ask a group of universit y presidents to identify the mission of their institutions , most would say something along the lines of "the acquisition , transmission and application of knowledge." Indeed, research , teaching and civic learning are central to Tulane 's mission . Of the three , the most seemingly rarified perhaps, is research . We're all familiar with the process of teaching as all of us have been students in some capacity. And most of us have engaged in community service of one form or another . Research , however, often takes place out of the public eye, in laboratories equipped with mind-boggling technology. Its results are sometimes understandable to only a few highly trained individuals. Yet, research remains the heart of a university such as Tulane , and its product is much more tangible than you may imagine. I can think of several examples of current research at Tulane that strengthen the university 's overall mission. Just this January, Tulane received a $5 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that will allow us to help universities in disaster-prone regions in Africa and Asia establish a network of education and development programs in disaster resilience and leadership . Led by principal investigator Ky Luu, executive director of Tulane 's Disaster Resilience Leadership Academy, Tulane will partner with regional networks representing 17 universities on two continents with the goal of creating and sustaining leaders who are experts in disaster planning. What I like about this project is that it incorporates research ,
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THE DOOR TO DISCOVERY
Research creates that most precious of resources : knowledge that leads to the advancement of society.
teaching and civic learning . Closer to home, a consortium of research institutions led by Tulane University is slated to receive a $10.34 million grant from the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative to help develop new dispersants that more favorably balance effectiveness and toxicity in combating deepsea drilling accidents. You may recall that in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf there were concerns regarding the environmental impact of the dispersants used to break up the oil. [See page 6 for more about this research.] Led by principal investigator Vijay John, Leo S. Weil Professor of Engineering , the team will study the role of dispersants and other chemical compounds in mitigating the environmental impact of deep-sea drilling accidents on the marine environment. In another study related to the BP oil spill, the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine was last summer awarded $6.5 million from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences to study the potential health impacts of the disaster on pregnant women and women of reproductive age living in Louisiana's coastal parishes. Led by principal investigator Dr. Maureen Lichtveld, it is the first long-term study of how a major oil spill affects pregnant women. In a completely different area of research , Tulane last year received a $1.6 million grant to analyze motor coordination skills in babies during the first 18 months of life. Led by principal investigator Jeffrey Lockman, professor of psychology, and using digital motion-capture technology now commonly employed in films such as Avatar and Tron, Tulane psychologists are studying the early development of hand-tomouth coordination in infants. Hand-to-mouth transport is a critical skill for babies and adults alike, enabling individuals to feed themselves, and early problems in this skill can compromise the quality of daily life. With the use of state-of-the art technology, researchers are assessing coordination development in a much more detailed way than has previously been done. From Africa to the Gulf, from the deep sea to the playpen , these are just a few examples of the myriad research projects at Tulane that are not only groundbreaking but are happening on the ground-in the real world. It is the kind of research that further strengthens our reputation as a civic-minded, major research university devoted to making a difference.
Tu ane Air Michael Fans in the Superdome witn ess Michael Jordan 's game-winnin g shot in the 1982Final Four champion ship.
2 PRESIDENT 'S LETTER
Research on the ground & NEWS
Drummingheals psyches • A better dispersant • Posse rides • Who dat? MichaelWhite • The lure of TV• Knowledge is power • Value by design • Substance abuse care • Baritone • Dialing East Africa 12 SPORTS
• New head football coach • A future stad ium 30 TULANIANS
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YouthRebuilding • Alumni survey • Bob Devlin• Rod Chapel Jr. • Jeffrey Gruen
Allthe Hoopla
2 WHERE Y 'AT!
After conducting a full-court press to receive the bid to host the 2012 NCAA. men's basketball Final Four., Tulane and New Orleans brace for one of the biggest sporting events of the year. By Nick Marinello
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Class notes FAREWELL
Tribute: Arthur Q Davis Sr. 38 TULANE EMPOWERS
Inthe PublicEye Amid the 24/7 slugfest of political punditry , Melissa Harris-Perry comes out swinging. By Mary Ann Travis
Adopta med student • Richardson renovation • GulfCoast music • Empowers progress • Home Field Advantage 40 NEW ORLEANS
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AngusLindgoes fishing
TidingsfromCambodia Half a world away, a budding journalist writes home about her adventures . By Faine Greenwood, '10
TULANE
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WINTER 2012
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DORMLIFEGood times in Phelps Hall go back to 1954. The residence hall near Bruff Commons has been renovated a few times and still houses students today .
THAT'S MY ROOM!
In the "Letter from the Editor " column [fall 2011] you mention that Irby Hall was built in 1956. Actually Irby and Phelps were completed in the summer of 1954. I was an incoming freshman that year and I arrived during the first week of September and they were still painting the doors on Phelps. My room was on the second floor facing the quad the second door from the end of the building on the street end. You can see my room in the article ["Modern Love,"] with the pictur e of Phelps from 1961. Although I never took advantage of the lack of inside halls, I understand that a lot of guys were able to bring their dates to their rooms in raincoats. Thanks for great content. Wish I could get down for homecoming sometime and play in the Alumni Band. My wife and I still play in a community concert band . We were married the summer after my freshman year and the band director , John Morrissey , let her play in the concert band with me. John "Pickett" Cummins, B '58 Lawrenceville , Ga. MEMORYLANE
Thanks for a trip down memory lane with the article about the restoration of the Bea Fields Alumni House and the photo of Phelps Residence Hall. From 1982through 1995, I worked at Tulane as the campus interior designer /project manager for renovation work in almost every campus building including #2 Audubon Place .... Of all the projects assigned during my tenure , though , the challenges of renovating the Phelps, Irby , Patterson , et al. dorms were the most demanding. It was not that the buildings were of questionable construction; rather , the changes in what students in the 1960s expected from a dorm room versus what students of the 1980s expected from these same rooms rendered most of these buildings woefully inadequate. Insufficient electrical service pre vented students from plugging in a TV and a microwave and a hair dryer simultaneously. Phone service was limited to wall-mounted phones in the corridors and Internet connections were not even a reality. Most of these buildings did not even have sprinkler systems until the late 1980s! Mix in the sociological issues of a 1980s/' 90s student population struggling to share a room (let alone a bathroom) for the first time with anyone , created some lively problems, too. It was a time for creative thinking and determined work as we only had the summer months to complete these dorm renovations. As I visit the campus today , now
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as the parent of a student , it is very gratifying to see some of my work still in use and exciting to observe all the new projects under way. While dorm life is certainly a rite of passage , with stories that will be shared for years, I'm glad those reminiscences will continue to be enjoyed at the alum events in the Bea Fields Alumni House. Karen Kersting New Orleans ROLEOF ARCHITECTURESCHOOL
As an alumnus of the Tulane School of Architecture, I always enjoy articles that feature some aspect of the school or regional architecture . Thus , I want to thank you for the well-written article ["Modern Love," fall 2011)on modernism and the loss of modern architecture in New Orleans. Unfortunately , I think you missed an opportunity to illustrate the important role that the Tulane School of Architecture plays in educating the students and the community on the value ofa wide range of architecture, including modern architect ure indigenous to New Orleans. It was with great sadness that I read that the Rivergate was demolished. This building lent a sense of sculpture and grace to the riverfront site that certain ly has not been equaled by the current Harrah 's Casino. In addition, a classic modernstyle building located on Claiborne Avenue designed by former Dean John Lawrence has been lost to the wrecking ball. Many others have fallen to the same shortsighted thinking. From the very beginning of the school, the professors and students have focused on preservation of historic arch itecture-historic by National Register definition is any building over SOyears old. Some of those buildings, which have been lost, were designed by Tulane professors and students , and the school continues to be an advocate for meaningful historic architecture and quality design for new and renovated structures. The Tulane School of Architecture has always played a pivotal role in the design and care ofarchitecture in New Orleans and it would seem appropriate in future articles to address the role of the Tulane School of Architecture in this endeavor, as opposed to the buildings themselves. Alvin J. Cox, AIA, A '72 Louisville , Ky. CASANA BOLOM
I didn't know about Frans Blom's connection to Tulane ["The Maya Explorer ," fall 2011]when I stayed at Casa Na Bolom, his house in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas , Mexico, in the 1960s. It was by then a guesthouse run by Trudi Blom, his widow, a wellknown documentary photographer; it functioned as a community center
for the anthropo logists , filmmakers and writers who came through the Mexican Highlands. She and Frans had become the protectors of the Lacandon Indians , a Mayan tribe that had never been conquered by the Spaniards and still lived in a world ignorant of Columbus. (It is said that in the '30s they were hunted for sport by the big-city Mexicans.) The Bloms became the guardians of their jun gle home as well. They arranged for their medical treatment and brought the Lacandones out of the jungle to stay at Na Bolom while they were treated at the hospital in San Cristobal, where the Bloms had found a translator. You can imagine my enchantment to be seated at dinner next to people from the far-d istant past, a small man in white hand-woven clothes, speaking pre-Columbian Mayan to his tiny wife and child who were standing silently behind him at the table . I was grat ified to feel that I understood them, at least their familia l devotion, although I came from so far away in time and space . This was a pure gift from the Bloms. Roberta Gordon, NC '61 Cambridge , Mass. HIP¡HOP RAP
Great publicity you gave Rapper T.l. ["Top of the Hop," fall 2011.)We know him well in Atlanta. Was released from prison and immediately rearrested for violating his parole . I am sure Ms. Greenwald is good at her music job but she needs to be a better social worker! After Teach for America , she probably needed to go back to Tulane and get a degree in social work. Ferdinand K. Levy, A&S '50, B '52 Atlanta MEMORYOF WICK
I knew him on ly as "Wick." ["Quiet Man, Resounding Legacy," fall 2011.] He sat directly behind me at baseball games for years until Katrina. We had an eclectic group in those days. Next to Wick sat Danc'n Daryl who still dances on occasion but is about 150 pounds or more lighter. In front of us were the LeBretons who were avid baseball supporters likely before I ever attended a game and who have unfortunately also passed away. Also in the imm ediate seat ing area were Nancy and Bob Hallett , he a Tulane Med doc and one of the most knowledgeab le baseball people I ever met. In front of us sat Hank who high-fived me so much in 2001 and 2005 our palms were blistered. I think he and his wife lost their Chalmette home in Katrina. Though I still frequent many baseball games as a season ticketho lder today most of those mentioned above are gone. The storm and life's end took away the
nucleus of that camaraderie, but the memories are preserved. Wick, we miss you. There hasn't been an accurate pitch count kept in the stands since you left us. Jerald L. Album, A&S '69, L '73 Metairie , La . LETTERSFAN
Sometimes the letters are a lot more interest ing than the original articles. "You can call me Ray or you can call me Jay ... or you can call me Rayjay ... but just don't call me Johnson." I prefer Tulanian but whatever is cool or with-it. ... Did not read the Newt piece and although I would never vote for the guy I wou ld think you could write a book on that guy, maybe two books and not wear out the subject. He is good for few laughs. I had no idea he went to Tulane. Maybe that explains a lot. We, Gail (Tulane University College for a teaching certificate and teaching at Trinity School) and I had a ball in New Orleans and almost bought a Doublewide Shotgun up on Constance but instead bought a Queen Ann Victorian in San Francisco playing "This Old House ." Seems San Francisco was a better investment. Chuck Desler, A '75 Placerville , Calif. LOUISIANANUMBERS
The Fall 2011issue noted (on page 7) that only 223 of the 1,757 new students enro lled were from Louisiana. I do not find that number eith er positive or encourag ing. Tulane is both a New Orleans and a Louisiana university, and cannot maintain either character with less than 13 percent of the new student population com ing from in-state. Michael C. Huete , E '76 Dumfries, Va. LOUISIANAREDUX
What caught my attention ["In that Number," fall 2011)was there were as many new students from NY (212)as from LA (223). This needs to change ifwe want to obtain th e longlasting support for athletics needed to suppor t th e great investment Tu lane is making. We need more LA students. George Rowley New Orleans
Drop Us a Line E-mail usat: tulanemag@tulane.edu or U.S. mail: Tulane , University Publications , 200 Broadway, Suite 219, New Orleans, LA 70118
Tularie EDITOR Mary Ann Trav is
ARTDIRECTOR Melinda Whatley Viles FEATURESEDITOR Nick Marine llo "TULANIANS"EDITOR Fran Simon CONTRIBUTORS Cat herine Fres hl ey, '09 Alicia Dupl ess is Jasm in Kimberly Krupa Angus Lind , A&S '66 Kirby Mess ing er Ma rk Mi ester, A&S '90 , B '09 Arthur Nead Kathryn Hobgood Ray Rya n Rivet, UC '02 SENIORUNIVERSITYPHOTOGRAPHER Pau la Bu rch -Ce lent ano SENIORPRODUCTION COORDINATOR Sharon Freeman
INK & DIGITAL/PAPER & SCREEN Marshall McLuhan, famous for inventing the iconic phrase "the medium is the message" in the 1960s, put forth the idea that media are not passive channels of information . Media don't merely supply the stuff-the content-of thought ; they also shape the processes of thought . We're about to launch Tulane magazine on the iPad, so we've been thinking about McLuhan lately . In the iPad version of the magazine, we plan to include a couple of audio and video files and maybe some extra photos that didn 't make it into the print magazine. (We'll be sending out notices when the iPad edition is available . It will be a free download from the Apple App Store .) Readers have been able to electronically scroll Tulane magazine (tulane .edu/ news/tulanian/inde x.cfm) for more than a decade. The iPad is just the latest gizmo in publish ing technology. Digital is fast . Print is gradual. Digital is easily archived (and retr ieved) . Print is more slowly read and savored . In the interest of saving t rees, a few of you have said that you'd rather view the digital version only.
But before you abandon the print experience , conside r that the paper on which Tulane magazine is pr inted comes from sustainable forests. These forests actually are tree farms in which trees used in paper manufacturing are grown as a crop, much like corn or wheat . After the trees are harvested , new ones are planted. The FSClogo on the back cover of the magazine is the stamp of approval from the Forest Stewardship Council. It indicates that the paper used in printing Tulane magazine is from environmentally responsible sources . And here's another point to ponder in the print vs. online debate : Research in 2007 by the Poynter Institute-a nd sup ported by further research in 2011at the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication - shows that print readers remember more of what they read than online readers . But more people are getting their news from the Internet today. So download the app if you want to take the magazine on the go with you, but keep reading these pages if you want to remember why! - MARY ANN TRAVIS
GRAPHICDESIGNER Tracey Bellina
!ffl]Tulane V University PRESIDENTOFTHEUNIVERSITY Scott S. Cowen VICEPRESIDENTOF UNIVERSITYCOMMUNICATIONS Deborah L. Grant , PHTM '86 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOROF PUBLICATIONS Carol J. Sch lu ete r, B '99 Tulane (USPS 017-145) is a quarterly magaz ine published by lh e Tulane
Office of University Publications, 31 McAlisterDrive, Drawer1, New Orleans, LA 70118-5624. Periodical postageat New Orleans. LA 70113 and
additional mailing offices. Send editorial correspondence to the above addressor email tulanemag@tulane.edu. Opinionsexpressed in Tulane are not necessarily thoseof Tul ane representativesand do not necessarily reflect university policies.Material may be reprinted only with permission. Tulane Universityis an affirmative action/equal Op))O rtunity institution.
POSTMASTER:Send addresschangesto: Tula11e , Tulane Office of University Publications, 31McAlister Drive, Drawer 1, New Orleans,LA 70118-5624.
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BOOTUP The Video Game Society at Tulane, which meets weekly in Jones Hall to play games projected on a large screen, is one of the fastest-growing clubs on campus. Retro Nights are especially popular among the 286 members who play on old-school consoles like Nintendo 64, PlayStation and Atari while raising funds for the Child's Play Charity at Tulane Hospital for Children.
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OilBreakup
DrumCircle Walk by Fortier Park in the Bayou St. John neighborhood of New Orleans on a Thursday evening, and you'll likely notice a group of folks of all ages sitting in a circle and pounding out rhythms on congas, bongos and other percussion instruments. It may look like fun-and it is-but it's also a great way to relieve stress and tune up the psyche, says Dr. Janet Johnson , associate professor of clinical psychiatry. Johnson is co-founder of Project Rising Sun, a community group that promotes mental health by organizing drum circles in a variety of settings . "Drums have been a form of communication throughout history," says Johnson . "It's very primal." Johnson and her sister, Diane Johnson, began the drum circles after Hurricane Katrina to address "unmet community psycho-social needs." Along with the community drum circles held at Fortier Park, the group appears at health fairs, churches and events such as the Mid City Bayou Boogaloo, a community music festival held in the spring. "We're very mobile, " says Johnson. "We take the drums and go wherever. " Project Rising Sun also conducts drum circles with a more clinical application. These circles comprise small groups of at-risk adolescents and young adults and are attended by a therapist . Periods of drumming are interspersed with traditional talk therapy. "They drum while focusing on what they have just talked about ," says Johnson, who notes that participants are often dealing with issues of anger. "They may discuss what to do when you feel angry and then drum while trying to focus on getting rid of the anger and find positive replacements. " While she acknowledges that the idea may sound a little "flaky ," John son says that communal drumming provides a powerful experience of social bonding. "It's soothing. There's a meditative feel to it," says Johnson. "Atthe end of the circle something lifts and everyone is smiling and feeling better." -Nick Marinello
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Lifting Spirits Communal drumming coupl ed with talk th erapy diffuses anger and relieves stress.
OILAND WATER MIX•UP
Scientists are developing better dispersants to deal with future oil spills in the deep sea.
A consortium of research institutions led by Tulane University is slated to receive a $10.34 million grant from the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative to help develop new dispersants that more favorably balance effectiveness and toxicity in combating deep-sea drilling accidents. The group also will study the role of dispersants and other chemical compounds in mitigating the environmental impact of deep-sea drilling accidents on the marine environment. "The overriding objective of the work of this consortium is to address the question, 'What needs to be done if a Deepwater Horizon-type spill happens again?"' says Vijay T. John, Leo S. Weil Professor of Engineering in the Tulane School of Science and Engineering and principal investigator of the consortium . The Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the largest in U.S. history, resulted from an oil rig explosion in April 2010. Dispersants were used to break up the oil into smal l droplets that could be eaten by microbes or evaporate. Concerns have been raised , however, regarding the impact of the dispersants on the environm ent . The research team will address fundamental scientific issues necessary to developing new, more effective dispersants, including mechanisms of oil breakup and droplet stabilization. All dispersants to date have been developed for surface spills. The consortium will develop and test new, safer dispersants for deep-sea hydrocarbon releases. At Tulane , four researchers in chemical and biomolecular engineering in addition to John will be involved with the project: Lawrence Pratt, Hank Ashbaugh , Noshir Pesika and Kyriakos Papadopoulos. The researchers possess a broad range of expertise including synthetic chemistry , thermodynamics , colloid science and transport phenomena. -Arthur Nead
In 2008, Tulane entered into an agreement to become a partner of the Posse Foundation , a nonprofit that works with urban public high schools to identify , recruit and train minority and economica lly disadvantaged students and send them in teams to elite universities across the country. Each student is given a full scholarship from the partner university. The first group arrived at Tulane in fall 2009. Why are the teams call ed "posses?" The name comes from a comment the organization 's founder heard from a student who said that he would never have dropped out of coll ege if he had had his "posse" with him.
989 4,223
The number of public high school stud ents to be g iven FULL-TUITION LEADERSHIP CHOLARSHIPS to partner universities .
The year the first group of Posse Scholars will GRADUATE from Tulane.
3
Number of students given full tuition to TULANE through its partnership with the Posse Foundation .
Number of MAJOR COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES -i nclud ing Tulane-to PARTNER with the Posse Foundati on.
GUDUTEFQMCOLLE&,ooo $ Perce nta ge of Posse schol ar? to
Number of POSSE ALUMNI predicted to be in the WORKFORCE by 2020.
MILLION DOLLARS in sc holar ships have been awarded by partner universities .
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MICHAEL WHITE For some time, Michael White has held a special place in the pantheon of traditional New Orleans jazz musicians. A clarinetist, White is one of this city's most active bandleaders, purveying the city 's music from coast to coast and abroad . He's also one of the top scholars of New Orleans jazz , an archivist of its memorabilia and a mentor to up-andcoming jazz musicians . There was a time when White (G '79, '83), who earned a PhD in Spanish at Tulane, was up-and coming , too . In this 1978 photo,
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a 23-year-old White , appears with the Doc Paulin Brass Band, parading the grounds of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. (Also in the photo are Dwight Miller , sax; Dwayne Paulin, sousaphone ; Darryl Walker, trombone ; and Ricky Paulin, snare drum.) White was introduced to Paulin only a few years earlier, when the venerable bandleader was in need of a clarinetist . In a piece he wrote for the William Ransom Hogan Jazz Archive , White recalled Paulin telling him, " Look, White, I got
a li' l to-do for you ... a church parade over the river a week from Sunday. Be at my house at 9 a.m . That 's black pants, a clean white shirt, clean black shoes, solid black tie . Ya got that? I hope you ain't one of dem humbug fellas ." Turns out, White was no humbug and was in fact the real deal. For his lifetime of work sustaining traditional New Orleans jazz , White was in 2008 named a National Heritage Fellow by the National Endowment of the Arts. In 2010, he was named Humanist of the Year by
the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities . And if you graduated from Tulane in the last 11years, you heard him and his Original Liberty Jazz Band perform at your commencement . " I think that all of the things I do are related under the umbrella of New Orleans jazz," White said, in a 2010 interview . " They are all about recognizing, understanding , discussing , performing and listen ing to New Orleans' great musical tradition , its possibilities and its contribu tion to the world ." -FRANSIMON
REFORMMINDED To foster transparency and promote accountability, economics professor
Aaron Schneider and law professor David Marcello launched New Orleans Satellite Government (nolasatellitegovernment.tulane.edu), a website that tracks the workings of more than 200 commissions, boards, security and improvement districts, public benefit corporations and other public bodies that spend city tax dollars, generate revenue and set policies.
N E W S
I<IPPAgreement
TV'sAllure
Television is the most powerful cultural medium in the world today, says Vicki Mayer, associate professor of communication. Some observers may say that television is over; it's all about the Internet. But Mayer argues otherwise. "The symbolic power of being involved with television is still huge cultural capital for everyone in our society," she says. Unlike many media scholars, Mayer is not focused on what's on the television screen-the content-but instead she's interested in the "processes of production behind those contents." She says, 'Tm interested in culturally, what's in it for people who work for the television industry? " In her book Below the Line: Producers and Production Studies in the New Television Economy (Duke University Press, 2011), Mayer presents case studies on people involved in television production. "We live in a society where far more people are involved in the production of television than we currently associate with the industry ," says Mayer. "The numbers of people who are involved in television production have expanded dramatically." The "siren song" of television lures people to work for low pay, long hours and precarious job security, says Mayer. The term "below the line" originated in the early days of film when budget sheets categorized "above the line" costs for creative expenses, including scriptwriters and directors. "Below-the-line people are the people who actually make it happen in production ," says Mayer, including lighting technicians and stagehand personnel. Below-the-line workers add value to the new television economy but they are often unrecognized or even completely invisible. Mayer says, "Television continues to exert its power in our society in a way that we are willing to submit or exploit ourselves for the industry's benefit. "-Mary Ann Travis
Status Symbol Around the globe, TV exerts an undiminished, powerful influence.
When Tulane President Scott Cowen asked a room full of eighth graders at a KIPP New Orleans charter school in November, "Who wants to go to college?" every student raised a hand. Through a new partnership announced by Cowen on that day, students graduating from KIPP charter schools around the nation will be eligible for 10 Tulane University scholarships annually. What Cowen and KIPP administrators hop e is that this partnership will lead to higher college completion rates among KIPPgraduates. KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) is "a national network of free, open-enrollment, college preparatory public schools dedicated to preparing students in underserved communities for success in college and in life," according to its website. "KIPP is the highest performing charter network in the United States," said Cowen, "and Tulane is about finding excellent students who have the potential to be extraordinary leaders in the world. This is a natural partnership." Beginning in the 2012-13 academic year, students enrolled in KIPP's 109 schools across the country may apply for the Tulane scholarships. New Orleans is home to nine KIPP campuses. In total , 32,000 students are enrolled in KIPP schools nationally. Mike Feinberg, co-founder of KIPP, told the students in New Orleans in November that KIPP'sgoal isn't simply to get them into college, but also to make sure they finish. "We want you going to college not to take remedial classes, but to take the advanced, hard classes," said Feinberg. "If we prepare you now, you will shine in those classes," he said.-AliciaDuplessisJasmin
SCHOLARSHIP OPPORTUNITY
Students at a New Orleans KIPPcharter school learn about the chance to compete for scholarships to attend Tulane.
TULANE MAGAZINE
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HPV VACCINE FOR ALL Dr. Sue Ellen Abdalian, professor of pe-
diatrics, recommends that boys as well as girls receive the HPV vaccination . HPV(human papilloma virus) is contracted through sexual activity and can cause life-threatening diseases . "It's smart to receive the vaccine well before sexual activity happens," she says.
Volunteer Treatment
lkeaEffect So it turns out there 's a reason why you could never throw out that wobbly old bookcase you put together in college. Call it the Ikea effect. In an article in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, Tulane researcher Daniel Mochon argues that consumers value products they build themselvessuch as ready-to-assemble furniture from the international home products company Ikea-more than similar professionally built products. "Usually when people think of building their own furniture , they think it's sort of foisting cost onto the consumer , and therefore it reduces value," explains Mochon , assistant professor of marketing. "But what we find is that people actually come to love the things they have created ." In experiments, Mochon and co-authors Michael I. Norton and Dan Ariely asked subjects to build simple items-such as Ikea storage boxes or origami figures-and compared their willingness to pay for those items to their willingness to pay for similar preassembled products. Surprisingly, participants were willing to pay more for the items they put together. Mochon attributes the phenomenon to what psychologists refer to as the need for effectance. "People just have a fundamental need to feel like they can intervene in the world," says Mochon. "By creating stuff, they have a way to signal to themselves and others that they can intervene." Do-it-yourself projects are a way to "show you have control over the world." The findings also help to explain the popularity of sites like YouTube, which rely on user-generated content . Mochon says users get the same kind of satisfaction from uploading a self-made video that they get from assembling furniture. "They see that badly focused video of their cat jumping on a sofa bed as the most amazing thing in the world because they created it themselves," says Mochon , who teaches social media marketing at the A. B. Freeman School ofBusiness.-MarkMi ester
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DIY's Appeal Putting something together yourself, whether handmade furniture or a YouTube video, bestow s value on the project.
BRIDGE HOUSE CLINIC
Medical students gain meaningful experience by providing health care to treatmentcenter residents who are trying to turn their lives around.
At the Bridge House clinic, every Wednesday night, Tulane medical students organize a volunteer clinic that provides health care for residents of Bridge House, a treatment center for men with long-term substance abuse problems. Working in teams, first- and second-year students meet with patients , give physicals and take patients' medical history. Then they confer with third- and fourth-year students who act as mentors. The teams evaluate patients and present their findings to an attending physician who is able to write prescriptions and dispense medicine. "It's a great challenge and a great opportunity to put our minds together and figure out how we can help our patients, " says Caroline Walker, a second-year Bridge House Clinic coordinator. Walker says that students relish the autonomy of the clinic. They are able to develop a plan, have it approved by a faculty member , and start implementing their ideas on the spot . "Everything I put into this , I get 10 times more out of it," she says. Dr. Arthur T. Fort IV, assistant professor of family and community medicine, says that students love the experience because they get to do something meaningful for the community while still learning valuable tools. Fourth-year medical student Shubho Sarkar has been involved with the Bridge House Clinic throughout medical school. He says that the experience has prepared him for residency training next year. "It's a win-win situation because the residents ofBridge House get the care they deserve , and we get this wonderful learning environment," says Sarkar.-Kirby Messinger
LARGEâ&#x20AC;˘SCALE SCULPTURE
Artist and sculptor, Mia Westerlund Roosen, doesn't shy away from the human anatomy. Instead, she uses body parts such as "kissing" tongues and male genitalia as inspiration. As evidenced in Baritone,she uses slick finishes and curves to express sensuality. Baritoneis on display between Norman Mayer and Tilton halls, a stone's throw away from Gibson quad . It is among several sculptures being exhibited for two years at Tulane. Tulane professor of art Jeremy Jernegan curated the exhibition. He says, " The goal is to bring contemporary large-scale outdoor sculpture to the campus community ." Of Westerlund Roosen's work , Jernegan says that it "often references the body with plastic or fluid forms. Baritone is based on two organic seed-like forms and emphasizes the suggestion of a germinating or grow ing form ." Unlike the more rigid and geometric sculpture of the other artists in the exhibi tion-Bernar Venet, Jorg Plicat , Mark DiSuvero, and Tulane professor of art Gene Koss-Westerlund Roosen's work asserts her femininity. Her expressionistic style encourages viewers to make their own interpretation of her work. Baritonemay resemble tilted bowling pins to some, but when asked how it translates literally, Westerlund Roosen chuckles and replies, "scrotum ." "I enjoy the challenge of doing something quite ordinary like making the object egg-shaped," she says. " The materials used were mundane and gross in a way, but my goal was always to make the piece more sensual." Baritonewas created using high-density architectural foam, polymerized stucco and fiberglass. Each piece stands 10 feet tall and
weighs nearly 450 pounds. Westerlund Roosen , born in New York in 1942, says that she is influenced by the work of Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi (1876-1957) , German - born American sculptor Eva Hesse (19361970) as well as English artist Henry Moore 's (1898-1986) use of foam.
Westerlund Roosen developed her own style to counterbalance the works of male artists at a gallery where she was the only female artist on the roster for 14 years. She says she wanted to prove to her cohorts that her gender would not hinder her rightful place in the art world . " I once made these enormous
13-foot saliences with pink encrusted on them, " says Westerlund Roosen. " To me it was pretty obvious , but a lot of people didn 't see the irony." Baritone was first exhibited in 2010 in New York City on Park Avenue Mall between 52nd and 54th streets. It was installed on the Tulane campus in fall 2011. - ALICIA DUPLESSIS JASMIN
T U LA NE M AGA ZIN E WINTER 2012
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In the Department of Global Health Systems and Development , Laura Murphy is Carnegie Corp. of N .Y. Professor of Social Entrepreneurship . She studies the impact of technologies such as mobile phones and kitchen gardens in rural Africa . How did you first become interested in Africa? Personal connections were part of the draw to Africa-my mother was a gray-haired Peace Corps volunteer based in Nairobi-but I also wanted to work in East Africa on appropriate technology , development and environmental themes . How did you come to base your research on cell phones and hand hoes? I'd been working on kitchen gardens as a response to HIV/AIDSwhen I noticed the uptake of cell phone usage. The contradiction of hand-hoe-based farming and modern digital devices was compelling . The same farming systems persist for the poorest , but communication has speeded up for everyone in just a decade. How has cell phone technology impacted families in rural Africa? Women and men feel and truly are enjoying more freedom with cell phones-freedom to know what is happening with family and friends , to know when someone has died, to know how to sell their goods and where to get services. What are the challenges to using cell phones in rural Africa? Cell phones require regular power supplies to be used most effectively. We see some ingenious solutions: diesel generators , a car battery hooked up to a solar panel, and the small phone-charging kiosks in market centers that people visit once or twice a week. Do those energy solutions have a wider impact? Cell phones catalyze other innovations . They have spurred a digital/ electronic tipping point in power supply . The need to charge those cell phone batte ries to support a host of communication needs coincides with demand for cleaner lighting to replace kerosene lanterns . -RYAN
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CHAMPION Curtis Johnson has coached two national championship teams: the New Orleans Saints and the University of Miami (Fla.) Hurrica nes.
AllSetfor Football
There was a liberal amount of black and gold sprinkled amid the green and blue trappings of the Wilson Athletics Center on Dec. 5 as Tulane University introduced New Orleans Saints receivers coach Curtis Johnson as the new Green Wave head football coach. Johnson , who was on the sidelines when the Saints won the 2010 Super Bowl in Miami, made a promise to his new players: "I just want to say, guys, get ready. You guys are going to be champions. Youwill hold a trophy up." A native of nearby St. Rose, La., and a graduate of St. Charles High School , Johnson is the 39th-and the first African Americanhead coach in Tulane history. He brings more than 25 years of coaching experience from both the collegiate and professional level to the Green Wave. Along with his family and friends, Johnson received a show of support from Saints head coach Sean Payton and general manager Mickey Loomis, who were seated in the front row. Several players from the Saints receiving squad, including Marques Colston, Robert Meachem and Lance Moore, were also in attendance. The presence of the NFL stars who have thrived with the Saints under Johnson's tutelage seemed to back up the coach's promise to his new team. Johnson received the strongest response from the crowd of Tulane constituents when he talked about recruiting. "Louisiana recruits," he announced, "we are coming to get you. This doesn't mean that we are going to stop searching all over the country, but look out, because you are on our radar already. This is now the state of Tulane."- Nick Marinello
HomeField Just days after hiring Curtis Johnson as its new head football coach, on Dec. 8, Tulane University announced Home Field Advantage, a $70 million fundraising campaign to build a new on-campus football stadium and provide additional support for the Green Wave football program. (See page 39 for more about the campaign.) Located on Ben Weiner Drive between the Reily Student Recreation Center and the James W. Wilson Jr. Intercollegiate Athletics Center, the new Tulane Stadium will be less than a football field away from the original Tulane Stadium. The new stadium is scheduled to open for the 2014 football season. Athletics director Rick Dickson said, "An on-campus stadium is the ultimate tool for recruiting the best student-athletes and coaches. There's nothing like it to boost the esprit de corps of a campus and community. Building a new stadium makes sense for the university in terms of community bonding, athletics and financial stability." In addition to being the new home field for the Green Wave, the stadium, with a seating capacity of 30,000, also could serve as a resource for the New Orleans community, including Orleans Parish public schools, New Orleans Recreation Department activities and Louisiana High School Athletics Association events. Tulane President Scott Cowen said, "This project will further strengthen the partnership with New Orleans that has defined Tulane since Katrina. It will continue our efforts to empower others to build a better New Orleans. "This is an 'all hands on deck' moment for Tulane alumni, fans, supporters and everyone who recognizes the value of athletics and community in the lives of our neighborhood children. We need everyone 's help to make the new Tulane Stadium a reality."-N.M.
On-campus Advantage Students walking to the new outdoor Tulane Stadium will add to game-day excitement.
NEW COACH
Curtis Johnson, new head football coach, announces an aggressive recruiting strategy for the best talent in Louisiana.
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e AFTER CONDUCTING A FULL-COURT PRESS TO RECEIVE THE BID TO HOST THE 2012 NCAA ®MEN'S BASKETBALL FINAL FOUR ®, TULANE
AND NEW
ORLEANS BRACE FOR ONE OF THE BIGGEST
SPORTING
EVENTS
OF
THE YEAR. by Nick Marinello
Follow the Bouncing Ball The Big Dribble is just one of the many fam ily-friendly events that will surround the Final Four. Organizers in New Orleans aim to have more than 3,000 kids dribbling down local streets.
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In a city that has been searching for a punctuation mark to put an end to the long, run-on sentence written by Hurricane Katrina , there may be no more fitting event to do so than the upcoming NCAAMen's Basketball Final Four championship. The tournament , along with a myriad of fan events, will roll into town in March and April, returning to New Orleans for the first time in nine years. When it does , it will not only bring to the city millions in tourism dollars and priceless national exposure , but will culminate an effort initiated in the dark days after the storm that in many ways reflects the city's resolve not to lose at the buzzer . "We started putting together the bid in 2006, coming out of Katrina , so we wanted to show that New Orleans was the same city it had always been. That we weren't under water," says Vince Granito, associate director of Tulane Athletics and one of three co-directors of the Final Four's local organizing committee. As the NCM's host institution , Tulane was at the helm of a broadbased coalition of groups-including the New Orleans Sports Founda tion and the Sugar Bowl committee-that made the pitch to bring the 2012 Final Four to the city. Rick Dickson, Tulane athletics director , was instrumental in keeping that coalition shooting at the same hoop.
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"Our message to the NCAAwas that we were stronger , deeper and more united because we've been hardened by what we went through, " says Dickson, who recalls the NCM's requisite of civic cooperation and unity for any city to be considered as a Final Four site. "The Final Four is so big now that no one institution can really do what needs to be done ," says Debbie Grant, Tulane vice president for communications and marketing, who also is pitching in to provide public relations and marketing support for the event . NOTYOURGRANDFATHER'S FINALFOUR
How big is the Final Four? Next to the Super Bowl, the Final Fourwhich comprises two semifinal games and one championship-is arguably the highest-profile sporting event in the United States and in the top five worldwide. And it's growing in leaps and bounds. "Today's event is not the Final Four as we knew it," says Dickson. Bill Curl, who was Tulane sports media director from 1966 to 1973 and subsequently public relations director for the Louisiana Superdome for 33 years , remembers when the tournament first came to New Orleans back in 1982.Up until that time, attendance numbers for the Final Four typically peaked at around 20,000.
Final Floor Opposite page: Before it's assembled on the floor of th e Mercedes-Be nz Superdome, th e cour t will tour seve ral uni vers ities as it makes its way down from the factory in Michigan. This page: Kids of all ages will enjoy a variety of fun act ivities at th e Bracket Town fan fest.
Curl, who had a hand in bringing the tournament to New Orleans , recalls walking through the Superdome with NCAA officials, demonstratin g how the Dome could handle 20,000 to 40,000 people by blocking in th e court on one side and using only a portion of th e Dome's capacity. Wayne Duke, then commissioner of the Big Ten conferen ce, became curious about a section th at was not included in the tour. "He looked to his right to the entire east terrace ," recalls Curl. "He said, 'We can sell th ese tickets, too.' And that 's when the decision was made to do 65,612 seats. We almost had a heart attack .'' A new era for the Final Four was under way. In 1997, th e NCAA required th at the event be staged in domed stadiums with a minimum capacity of 40,000. In 2007, th at minimum was raised to 70,000 , achieved by configurin g stadiums with raised courts at midfi eld, allowing for inth e-round seating as well as additional seating on th e floor. This year, th e newly renovated (and spo nsored ) Mercedes-Benz Superdome will be configured to accommodate 75,000 fans.
"Ourmessage to the NCAAwas that we were stronger,deeper and more united because we've been hardened by what we went through." -Rick Dickson, athletics director
A MEGAHAPPENING
Another mea sur e of how the Final Four has grow n in th e past few
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Big Dance The Big Dance Concert Series became part of the swirl of activity surrounding th e Final Four in 2003, the last tim e the championship was played in New Orleans. Below : Basketball is not the only sport featured at Bracket Town.
The ancillary events allow for greater participation in the Final Four, says Grant. "It's for more than the fans of four college basketball teams and corporate sponsors who pay the hundreds of dollars for game tickets and thousands of dollars in travel expenses. If people take the opportunity they can become involved in the Final Four." Grant points to Bracket Town as such an opportunity. "There will be three-on-three basketball games, interactive sports video games , autograph sessions, memorabilia-all for 10 bucks a person. " Granito echoes this sentiment. "People think that because all the tickets are gone that there is nothing left for them in the Final Four. There will be great opportunity for the citizens of New Orleans and the region to participate in the Final Four."
decades can be found off the court, with the carnival of attendant events that now surrounds the games. Back in the day, says Curl, "The focus was all on the game. Outside of an open practice held before the semifinals , there were few extracurricular activities." How things have changed. "The Final Four is 15 percent basketball and 85 percent all of the other stuff that goes along with it," estimates Granito. What was once a three-day event coalescing around the semifinals and championship is now a seven-day mega happening . This year, the happening will include the three-day Big Dance concert series; Bracket Town, a four-day "ultimate fan fest" that will take place on 300,000 square feet of the New Orleans Convention Center; the Final Four Youth Day that will introduce local youngsters to healthy eating and Jiving; the Final Four Dribble with 3,000 kids and their families bouncing basketballs from the Superdome to the Moria! Convention Center ; and myriad public service opportunities on Community Day. "It's so much more than three basketball games," says Grant. "That's what shocks me every time I look at my binders."
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OYSTERS WHATEVER As someone who has four decades of work in media relations under his belt, Curl understands the intangibles that benefit any city that hosts a large event such as the Final Four. "There are millions and millions of dollars of free exposure and publicity that you get when you have an event of this stature ," says Curl. Because tourism is such a prominent part of the New Orleans economy, "having an event of this stature means more to New Orleans than it does to perhaps to any other Final Four, Super Bowl or BCScity. "You can't tell me that there are reporters who are covering the games and not at some point mention that , 'Oh man , I went to the Quarter last night, and it was crazy,' or 'I went to X restaurant and had oysters whatever, it was sensational."' While the Superdome 's capacity will top out at around 75,000, says Curl, there will be tens of thousands of other folks in town to soak up the experience. "It's like having three conventions in town," says Dickson. ''There is the buildup going into it and then a Jot of people will leave after the semifinals and a whole other wave will come in just for the championship . There are huge surges." Organizers are estimating that these surges will ultimately put $150 million into the local economy. "We are not that far removed from Katrina and water in the streets ," says Grant. "To think that people are investing millions and millions of dollars in us and showing faith that we can pull this off-to me it's a heady experience , and I want to make sure we do the best we can with it."~
ÂŽ SLAM DUNK This spring's Final Four that is being held in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome is the culmination of a three-year run of March Madness in New Orleans that began with NCAA first-and second-round tournament games held in 2010 and the Southeast Regional in 2011 . Beyond that, the women's Final Four is slated to return to New Orleans in 2013. Rick Dickson recalls having conversations with NCAA officials back in 2007. "I said, 'Wouldn 't it be a great thing if my industry, the NCAA, was to serve in this rebuilding [of New Orleans] by staging a series of these championship events?"' In addition to events involving NCAA basketball , the BCS national championship took place in the Superdome in January of this year and the NFL'sSuper Bowl is slated for the Dome in February 2013. " No city in the United States has ever had a run like we are having right now," says Bill Curl. " My goodness. Back to back to back of nationally prominent, wonderful events."
INTRODUCING THEGREENWAVE Representing Tulane Univers ity, the host institution for the Final Four, members of the Green Wave basketball team , along with thei r coach , Ed Conroy , will be introduced at the first semifinal game that w ill take place on Saturday, March 31.
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In the AMID THE 24/7
SLUGFEST
MELISSA HARRIS-PERRY
OF POLITICAL
PUNDITRY,
COMES OUT SWINGING.
by Mary Ann Travis
Race, gender and politics are topics that touch nerves , ignite passions and make people squirm. But at the intersection of them all, Melissa Harris-Perry is not afraid to tread . "I have so much to say," says Harris-P erry, professor of political science at Tulane and founding director of the Anna Julia Cooper Project on Gender, Race and Politics in the South at the Newcomb College Institute. "I care about ideas," she says. "And if I have a public voice, then I can use that public voice to influence things. I want to influence outcomes. It's my way of knocking on doors." REAL¡WORLD POLITICS
Michael Bernstein, Tulane provost and senior vice president for academic affairs, says that what motivated him to recruit Harris-Perry from Princeton University to join the Tulane faculty in fall 2011is that she is "a senior figure in political science." She has a "vivid public platform and she's particularly gifted" at her work as a commentator and analyst, says Bernstein. Plus, "she's who lly engaged with the research and teaching enterprise ." The Anna Julia Cooper Project is a major initiative though its namesake has been somewhat lost in intellectual history. But Harris-Perry wants to change that. Cooper was one of the first black women in America to earn a PhD. Her book A VoiceFrom the South, published in 1892, is "the foundational 20th-century black feminist text," says Harris-Perry. Plans are for the Anna Julia Cooper Project to invite visiting scholars to Tulane , initiate an endowed lecture series, offer a postdoctoral program, sponsor student media projects and develop an academic journal. Sally Kenney, executive director of the Newcomb College Institute ,
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says that Harris-Perry, like Anna Julia Cooper, has th e "ability to cross disciplines and subfields." She also has a "deep and sophisticated engagement with real-world politics ." "Melissa's skill at bringing her social scientific expertise to bear on her work as a public intellectual distinguishes her from other successful pundits," Kenney says. This February, Harris-Perry debuted her own weekend program for MSNBC, the cable news channe l and website of NBC News. In the past , she's been a guest host on the MSNBCRachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell shows. Outgoing and friendly , Harris-Perry earned a doctorate in political science at Duke University. She is a natural public speaker. "Public speaking is the thing I'm good at," she says, exuding confidence and enth usiasm. The first course she taught at Tulane in the fall was Women in Politics and Media. And she happily reports that her Intro to African American Politics course in the spring semester filled up a couple of hours after registration opened. She laughs and says, self-deprecating ly, "At least, my reputation isn't, don't take a class with her, right?" Of course, that isn't her reputation. She's Up Close and a media star -and a serious scholar. Who Personable wouldn't want to take her class? Her easy way and mad eBLACKPOLITICAL THOUGHT Harris-Perry's first book, Barbershop s, Bibl es, and BET: Everyday Talk and Bla ck Political Thought (Princeton University Press,
for-TV smile can be disarming , but Melissa Harris-Perry hold s no quarter in the arena of public debat e.
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Trolley Stop Harris -Perry and her husband , James , and dau ghter, Parker, wait for a Canal Street streetcar. Opposite pag e: HarrisPerry was a guest on the "Colbert Report " in Janu ary and began hosting her own MSNBC show in February.
2004) , is an analysis of the range of political views in the African American community. She followed that book with Sister Citiz en: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America, For Colored Girls Who've Considered Politics When Being Strong Isn't Enough (Yale University Press, 2011). Sister Citiz en examines the "crooked rooms " into which African American women are metaphorically squeezed as they present false personas to the world. And it's about what it means to be a black, woman citizen of the United States. Harris-Perry wrote most of Sister Citizen after she came to New Orleans in November 2005 while still a Princeton professor to do research comparing 9/11to Hurricane Katrina as televised American disasters. "They're both moments when the reality of a contemporary disaster means that we could actually watch it happening [on television] as it happened ... . Katrina was happening live," says Harris-Perry. Her research about Katrina led to several trips to New Orleans. In April 2006 , she met her future husband , James Perry, who ran for mayor of New Orleans in 2010. (They married in October 2010.) James Perry , a native New Orleanian, is exec uti ve director of the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center. She has a 9-year-old daughter , Parker , and the three live in a cozy house off
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Esplanade Avenue in the Seventh Ward of New Orleans. Tulane , since Katrina, "has been a self-conscio us university ," says Harris-Perry. And that appeals to her. "The disruption that was Katrina means that the whole place had to go, what are we about? What kind of place are we going to be? That for me is exciting . That is excit¡ ing to be at a place, on the one hand, with a long tradition , but with a kind of newness. "It seems very awake on campus," she adds. NERDNBA Harris-Perry biogs. And she twitters. And in the rapid-fire , cyber world of political discourse, she is not shy abo ut mixing it up with other pundits. She says that getting invited to write for The Nation , the weekly opinion magazine that is the "flagship of the left," was "like getting drafted into the nerd NBA." In September , Harris-Perry wrote a column for The Nation in which she laid out the argument that if President Barack Obama loses the 2012 election, the loss could be linked to white liberals ' racism. Joan Walsh, editor at large for Salon .com-and a white liberal-responded with a length y post a few days later, saying that Harris-Perry's
NEVERWOKENUP NOTBLACK
"piece touched a nerve. " Walsh argued that liberals are not exactly abandoning Obama, but they are disappointed in him-and she explained why. Walsh begins her article by calling Harris-Perry, "my friend." Soon, Harris-Perry blogged that she was "taken aback" by Walsh calling her a "friend ." Harris-Perry wrote that the "I-have-blackfriends " claim is a strategy commonly used to discredit black commentators who "attempt to talk about historical and continuing racial bias in America." "Interracial friendship should , ideally, encourage the desire to investigate our own racial privilege and bias, not to use the identity of one's friends against any claim that such bias even exists," wrote Harris- Perry. Harris-Perry has engaged in back-and-forth debates with other established figures besides Walsh. "I have debated Corne! West quite harshly in public ," says HarrisPerry. "And, at no point, did I ever say, my friend, Corne!." Corne! West is a leading black intellectual, the author of influential books on African American life, includin g Race Matters (1993). He teaches and directs the Center for African American Studies at Princeton. She is a generation younger than West and Henry Louis Gates Jr. , a professor and director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University . She sees West and Gates, along with female black intellectuals such as Patricia Hill Collins , a sociology professor at the University of Maryland, and Patricia Williams, a law professor at Columbia University, as "aspirational " mentors . "They are the people in whose footsteps I'm following," says Harris-Perry. The Anna Julia Cooper Project at the Newcomb College Institute "has existed for 10 minutes , and the W.E.B.Du Bois Center at Harvard is now at least 15years old, right?" says Harris-Perry. "So do I think that the Cooper project can be where the Du Bois's center is in 15 years? Absolutely. No doubt about it. "In fact, if I didn't, I wou ldn 't have started it. The goa l is for us to be equa lly nationally recognized as the place to think about these questions ."
Harris-Perry's white mother and black father raised her as black child. "Being black was always my self-understanding," she says. "We didn't really do biracial in Virginia in the '70s ." Harris-Perry's mother directed many nonprofit, community organizations including work in domestic violence and low-income child care centers, and her father taught at the University of Virginia. He had three children from a previous marriage and her mother had another daughter from a previous marriage. "So I'm the only child who's interracial," says Harris-Perry. It was a boisterous , blended family, where nobody was a wallflower. Conversations at the dinner table may have influenced her career path, she concedes. Her identity as black and female is not something she can separate into equal parts. "I have never on any day woken up and not been a woman and not on any day woken up and not been black," she says. Race, however, "impacted certain elements of my life in ways very different than gender ," she says. In her books and other writings about politics, she fearlessly, systematically and eloquent ly weaves in literary references, psychological insights and theological perspectives (she even attended Union Theological Seminary in New York City for a time) as she discusses American politics. "It's important in a post-9 /11world to recognize that our emotions do affect our politics," says Harris-Perry. "Our grief, our fear, after 9/11 profoundly impacted the past decade and the kind of political engagements that we have been in as a country ." Having her voice heard in the public arena is essential to HarrisPerry. If a hundred people see her on TV and then read her latest book , Sister Citizen, that's a mission accomplished. "That's incredibly exciting to me that these hundred people who otherwise would never have read a book about black women would read this book," she says. "It makes a difference to me if people read my book." NO ESCAPING
Sitting in Harris-Perry's chic and elegant living room on a weekday afternoon in November, a visitor can hear a rooster's cock-a-dood ledoo. The rooster is among the Seventh Ward chickens freely roaming Harris-Perry's neighborhood. Two roosters, three or four chickens and numerous baby chicks live under her house and vacant nearby buildings. "They came after the storm," she says. She's easily fallen into the locals' demarcation of time-before and after Hurricane Katrina. "It feels like the insistence to survive even in tough circumstances ," Harris-Perry says of the "free and happy animals" in the urban setting, scroun ging for food, crowing loudly. Melissa Harris-Perry and James Perry have embraced the neighborhood. "We have real goals for wanting New Orleans to be a city we can live in for the rest of our lives," she says. "I feel a sense of commitment to comm unit y that is beyond teaching classes." The Perrys campaign for their favorite local political candidates. They support community organizations that they think are doing the right work. They sit on the gracious outdoor furniture with blue and green pillows on their front porch as a way to deter crime. "We want to see this be a thriving community for families ," Harris -Perry says. By living in a renovated Katrina -damaged house and not escaping the neighborhood 's prob lems, Harris-Perry has put her stake in the shifting ground of New Orleans. The city is lucky to have her on board.~
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Tidings From Cambodia HALF
A WORLD
JOURNALIST
AWAY, A BUDDING
WRITES
HOME
ABOUT
HER ADVENTURES. Story and photos by Faine Greenwood, '10
I ended up in Cambodia because my English professor put me up to it. I was about to grad uate with an English degree, and I asked Thomas Beller, a former Cambodia Daily staffer, if he could help me out in journalism. "Well, I have connections in New York," he said, thinking out loud. "And also in Cambodia ." A wild card . "Cambodia," I answered . "Tell me more about Cambodia." That is how I got a job as a copy editor, and later reporter , at the Cambodia Daily newspap er in March 2010, a job I would start that November after kicking around Asia for a few months . A year later, I am still here in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, a mid-sized and vertically challenged city that is set at the wide confluence of the Tonie Sap and Mekong rivers. My boyfriend , Phill Dunek , graduated from Tulane with a degree in geology in May 2011and moved out to join me in July. We live in a yellow apartment building around the corner from the evocatively named and odoriferous "Kill-Cow" open -air market, in a nicer part of the capital. Phnom Penh was established as Cambodia's modern capital in 1866. The occupying French took this smallish city and attempted to reform it by their exacting Gallic standards into the "Paris of the East," a tropical outpost of continental style in what was romantically called Indochina. During Cambodia's short-lived and debatRaid! able Golden Era of the ¡sos and '60s, some sort The bustling of newly imagined "Paris" is what this place Psar O Russei is one of was: a city of wide avenues and trees , of gracePhnom Penh 's busiest ful white buildings with expansive porches, full markets and a place to of small cafes th at served powerful coffee and buy almost anything superb baguettes. A war intervened , and with you want-including the war came the Khmer Rouge, and after the mosquito coils.
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R&R The Buddha reclines in the central sanctum of the Angkor Wat temple complex. Oppositepage: Monks walk beneath the towers of Angkor Wat.
Khmer Rouge came a slow drive toward peace and normality. Cambodia has since the 1991peace accords been on a slow upwards climb to modernity, and Phnom Penh is its most modern city. Phnom Penh has grit and dirt to it, as you'd expect from a place that has suffered from the depredations of a civil war and economic collapse. It's also on the up-and-up , a bigger economic success story than most people realize-or are paying enough attention to realize. The world at one time gave up on Cambodia's potential , but Cambodia failed to give up on itself. The deep similarities between Phnom Penh and New Orleans are evident, undeniable: Both are French-influenced cities where something terrible happened in the past , cities-on-a-river with a sensibility and a style that are out of all proportion to their size, cities that possess great symbolism to many people . Cities that are often misunderstood. Since the passing of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge with him in 1998, Cambodia has been largely peaceful, ruled by a single and omnipotent party and leader. "People don't want violence anymore" is a mantra that both expats and Cambodians like to repeat to each other, both because it's true and because it sounds nice to say it. Maybe it's this similarity that prompted me, and eventually Phill, to leave the USA, our friends, our families and the language we know and
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love, and decamp to a hot and impoverished little bit of Southeast Asia. There are a few other reasons , but none is all encompassing. I'm a writer, and I like to think that I moved here in part for the stories, because a range of experience makes for better material than hanging around at home-even if home is New Orleans, where the stories are better and the climate for writing them beats just about everywhere else on Earth. Phill, an Iowa boy with a deep interest in most things, wanted to come to Cambodia to break himself out of that metaphorical bubble , to toughen himself, to broaden his mind. Right now, Phillis working as an English teacher at a school on the outskirts of town while he looks for a job in geology or environmental consulting. He spends his days teaching Khmer kids grammar, proper pronunciation and as many scientific facts regarding elephants, rhino horns and climate patterns as he can sneak into the curriculum. His students still adamantly refuse to believe that dragons don't exist and that black dogs can't see ghosts. Phill teaches the kids basic scientific facts, and we would like to believe that Cambodia is teaching us something as well, although we probably won't know if it actually has until much later in life. We try and remind ourselves how good it is to understand the magical value of different cultures when we are awakened by noisy, clonking,
wedding-or-funeral-we-can 't-tell-the-difference music at 6 a.m., or when we are suffering from indescribable stomach ailments for the fifth time this month. We also try to think about all the wonderful effects of mind-broadening when we are delayed on our way to the beach by a guy plodding along at 5 miles an hour in a bullock cart and by someone else herding her large crowd of ducklings across the national highway during the middle of the day while we are on the way out to Siem Reap. Convincing ourselves that embracing difference, even when it's inconvenient , can be difficult when that difference proves to be flat-out dangerous. It was hard to find an upside when Phill got in a motorbike crash and had his toe run over and crushed by an exceptionally large rice trailer. A doctor 's visit, painkillers and time have mostly healed it, and he'll probably get arthritis in it later in life, but an incident that could have been unthinkably worse is now just a story he can tell over and over at parties. I've learned the most from working at a newspaper , the old kind that doesn 't have a website, the sort that relies on reporting, shouting , aggressive phone-call behavior and masochistically long hours to get information out . I started as a copy editor, as is the way of the Cambodia Daily. After learning more about em-dashes and the proper usage of commas and
the best methods of laying out a newspaper page in Quark than I had ever wanted to know, and getting shouted at over punctuation errors more often and more colorfully than I had ever expected, I was bumped up to reporting. As a green reporter, I learn ed to work phones and cajole peopl e in obscure government ministries into coughing up information. I visited a Russian warship on official business , went to talk to garment-industry protesters and went to starry -eyed conferences on the future of technology . One of my major duties was rewrites, where I would rework and polish Cambodian reporters ' short pieces, most under 175words. I found the briefs more interesting than the features , as I read them every day and saw the patterns beneath them. They were sad and they were horrifying, and some were hopeful , too. Here is 175terse words about yet another victim of a national epidemic of child rape. Here 's 200 on a family evicted from a fancy lake side development , and next door , here is 175on someone who 's died from drinking rice wine or rowing out into a lake in the middle of a lightning storm. Next column: a brief on a fashion designers' downtown show, on top of a 200-word piece on a Cambodian artist gaining a residency in America, a snippet about another year 's jump in tourism. It is important for a journalist to pay attention to the good stories ,
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Way Cool Left: Howie Bar is a late-
night spot and Phnom Penh institution. Abov e: The writer and her boyfriend play tourists at Angkor Wat. Opposite pag e: Prewar French apartment buildin gs in downtown Phnom Penh.
even when the bad ones threaten to take up all our attention. I'm struck by Cambodian fashion designers and video makers and artists who are carving out a new path and a new image for a country that , in the eyes of many abroad , is still defined by blood and genocide. New Orleans is not interested in being defined by Katrina and tragedy and loss, and Phnom Penh isn't either. The two cities seem to share a common philosophy about the pain of the past: It happened. We'll bear witness. The past is not going to define us, and it's not going to tear us apart. My contract at the newspaper expired a few weeks ago, and I chose not to renew it, for reasons both personal and professional. Now I am writing as a freelancer for a bit, applying for jobs here and elsewheremostly as a social media consultant. I am glad I spent a year as a traditional reporter of the old school , even if that year felt like a succession of highly educational ass-kickings , delivered in short succession. Reporting, after all, isn't easy: it's a relatively solitary pursuit, with a steep and brutal learning curve. There is little hand-holding and a lot of screwing up. You figure it out or you don't. I think I have some of it figured out and the rest will come with time. My first year at the Daily and my first year as a working professional were marked by tragedy in the form of the November 2010 bridge stampede, which took place during Phnom Penh's Mardi Gras equivalent. More than 300, mostly young people lost their lives in the ensuing crush. For reasons known only to a nascent journalist, I ran out there when the bodies were being brought off the bridge and tried to cover it, although I had no idea what exactly it was I should have been doing .
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The mental images of that night will stay with me for life: seeing the unseeable is something a reporter must steel herself for, and you are never ready when that moment comes. This is perhaps the most important thing I have learned in Cambodia. We like Cambodia, but both Phill and I are feeling a bit light-footed, which is easy to say when you are 23 years old and have no possessions other than ratty clothing and a few too many books to speak of. We feel reasonably lucky to be us, to be out in the world, to not feel rooted to a single spot and role. We are both , in our ways, in pursuit of the platonic ideal of a good life, and that pursuit brought us to Cambodia. I like to think that New Orleans taught us well about a good life: that a life worth living is measured more in memories, people and culture, and less in the plastic junk you surround yourself with or the prestige of a job. We come from a place with heart and we moved to a place very far away with its own sort of heart. If you come to Cambodia-and you should-don 't just do the Angkor Wat circuit and blow on through and say you've done it all. Come to Phnom Penh , too, because it's an example of what happens when a city that has been through hell is about halfway through picking itself up. You can still get a whiff of that latter-day foreign correspondent feeling here if you pick the right bar, and you're not actually in any danger. If you want to see what the cutting edge of Cambodia is, and what it is thinking about and what it wants to do with itself, then you need to come to this capital city, which will remind you in strange and undeniable ways of New Orleans, reimagined on the other side of the planet. That 's what I found here, and that's what I'm figuring out how to navigate every day here. That 's the adventure. ~
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RESISTANCETOTHEAXIS The Nationa l World War II Museum interviewed Erna Deiglmayr {SW '54) about her exper iences dur ing the war. A native of
Belgium who speaks German , Deiglmayr, now 98 and living in New Orleans , acted as a cour ier del ivering money to others in the resistance movement
T U L A N I A N S
AlumniReply Favorably
Rebuilding
for Teachers William Stoudt ('11) is th e founder of Youth Rebuilding New Orleans, an organization that is rebuilding homes for educators. Like thousands of others, Stoudt, a nativ e New Orleanian , was displaced to Houston at the time of Hurricane Katrina . He became determined to help rebuild the city. But his efforts were thwarted as he was repeatedly told that he was too young to participate in gutting flooded hou ses and other cleanup efforts. "My friends and I were anxious to get back and get involved , but organizations wouldn 't allow us to help because there cou ld be problems with liability," says Stoudt , who established YRNOin 2006. "We started talkin g about how we could make an impact, and one of our first accomp lishments was organizing a neighborhood cleanup with hundreds of people ." What started as a small group of friends helping people get back in their home s is now a nonprofit that buys dilapidated homes to renovate and sell to middle and high school teachers . "We focus on teachers because those were the peop le who were back in the city teaching students while living in trailers ," says Stoudt. "Teachers make good neighbors. " Stoudt grad uated with a business degree.-Alicia Duplessis Jasmin
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Young Rebuilder William Stoudt ('11) is th e founder and executive
director of the nonp rofit Youth Rebuildin g New Orlea ns. More tha n half of th e organization's board members are 22 yea rs old or younger.
Last fall nearly 5,000 Tulane alumni and supporters representing different generations, regions and schools took part in an online survey, commissioned by the Tulane Alumni Association. In the survey, 90 percent of the respondents rated their decision to attend Tulane as "great " or "good," and th ey described their student experience the same way. Close to 90 percent said their current overall opinion of Tulane is "good" or "excellent." Learning that Tulane is attracting more highly qualified students who are makin g a difference in the world and that Tulane is a respected partner in the rebuilding of New Orleans as well as seeing Tulane 's name in the news influenced the respondents ' current opinion of the uni versity, th ey said. Across all eras, respondents reported that Tulane magazine , the university website, videos and electronic newsletters , such "Tulane Talk" from Tulane President Scott Cowen and "Green Wave" from athletics director Rick Dickson, are important, and that the performance of these means of communication lives up to their importance. Post-9/11 and post-Watergate-era alumni said that email, invitations to alumni events, communications about services /benefits and social media are important to them and that the alumni association could do better in these areas . The Tulane alumni survey was the first instance in which the Tulane Alumni Association has teamed up with Performance Enhancement Group (PEG)to gauge alumni attitudes . PEG was found ed by Tulane alum nus Robert Shoss (A&S '76) and has seen its Alumni Attitude Survey completed by more than 200,000 alumni at 140 universities during the last nine years. Thank you to all who participated in the survey. We learned mu ch from your replies and will use what we learned to improve our communication and programs . We plan to resurvey every few years to see if the needle has moved.-Charlott e B. Travieso (NC '64). Travieso is executiv e director of the Office of A lumni Affairs and the Tulan e Alumni Association.
TULANE UP Horserac ing
" brings the competit ive spirit out ," says Bob Devlin (A&S '64). " It's both exhilarating and relaxing . But it also can be heartbreaking. Thoroughbreds are very fragile. " Tulane Up (No. 6, above) , a horse owned by Devlin, won the maiden special-weight 1-and1/16-mile race on a turf track at Belmont Park in Elmont Park, N.Y., on Sept. 17, 2011. Tulane Up is a 4-year-old filly whose lineage goes back to Secretariat , the American ¡ Thoroughbred racehorse that won the U.S. Triple Crown in 1973 and set new records.
Horses have been an interest of Devlin 's since he was an undergrad at Tulane . In his junior and senior years , he and his friend, Tony Cerasaro (A&S '64) , worked as ushers at the New Orleans Fair Grounds Race Course. Devlin and his son Michael have been breeding and own ing racehorses since 2004 . They run Curragh Stables in upstate New York. Curragh is an Irish word connoting strength , longevity and stability, Devlin says. Curragh also is the name of Devlin's private equity firm. Devlin previously was
president and CEOof American General, one of the nation 's largest financial services companies. Devlin is a member of the Board of Tulane . He and his wife , Kate Devlin, have endowed scholarships , an internship program and the Devlin Student-Athletes for Education Center for Leadership Development at Tulane . In the winner's circle , pictured here, Bob Devlin and Kate Devlin congratulate jockey lrad Ortiz Jr. after Tulane Up won the Belmont Park race in September . -FRAN
SIMON
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TEAM SPIRIT William D. Postell Ill (UC'90) , father of William, 11, Robert , 8,
and Sophie , 6, is head coach of the Green Wave, a little league football team in Houston. This season, the fourth-grade -level team posted an 8-3 record. When he isn't coaching , Postell works for Mustang Caterpillar . I
WHERE
Y ' AT!
1940s ISIDORECOHNJR. (A&S '42) celebrated his 90th
birthday on Sept. 25, 2011. 1950s (M '56) notes the publicaGEORGE BEDDINGFIELD
tion of his novel Unannoun ced. The book is a medical thr iller about an attempt ed jihadist infiltrat ion of U.S. hospitals. More information is available at www.georgebeddin gfield.com. JESSIEHEBERTHEITZMANN(NC '56) was
selected Outstanding Citizen 2011by th e Pass Chri stian , Miss., Rotar y in December. Paintings by JOANBERGVICTOR(NC '58) will be exhibit ed at the Foundation Gallery in New Orleans this spring. Her more th an a dozen group and one-woman shows have included exhibiti ons at the Art Institut e of Chicago and New York's Ursus Gallery, Wiseman Gallery and Janet Nessler Gallery. She has been invited to the Whit e House to receive the Creative Women in America Award and is an accomplished illustrator. Her artwor k can be see n at www. joanbergvictor .com. ROBERTL. HEWITT(M '59) rece ived th e out-
standing alumnu s award from the Tulane Medical Alumni Associa tion last fall. It is the highest award given to an alumnu s. 1960s BASILHOFFMAN(B '60) plays th e aucti oneer in
the Oscar-nominated film The Artist . He also has a role in Geezers!, a comed y sta rrin g J.K. Simmo ns and Tim Allen . He's th e auth or of two books on act ing. MARYLYNNHYDE(NC '66), a retired law librar -
ian , bought a small condo on St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans. She plans to divide her tim e betwee n La Jolla , Calif., and New Orleans, where she and hu sband, Steven S. Rossi, look forward to spending more tim e with family and friends. JOSEPHF. SACKETT(M '66) received the distin-
guished serv ice award from the Tu lane Medical Alumni Associat ion last fall for service to the Tulane Univers ity School of Medici ne.
After teachin g math ematics in Oklahoma public school s for 41 years, MARYEVELYNADAMS(G '72) is enjoying retirement. She was super visor of math for Enid Public Schools and a room is being dedicated in her honor at En id High School. Adam s is active in her chur ch and spe nd s time volunt eeri ng. FREDH. SELLERS(A&S'70) has retired from his position as a senior policy ana lyst at the U.S. Department of Education after more than 38 yea rs of federal service . DEENAGERBER(SW '72), executive dir ector of Jewish Family Service in New Orleans , was named a Champion of Change by the White House's Office of Public Engagement for her work to improve the lives of those in need. Gerber was recognized at a special White House event last December and is featured on th e White Hou se website, www.whitehouse .gov/ champion s.
Nashville, Tenn ., atto rney MARLENEESKIND MOSES(NC '72, SW '73), founder and man ager of Moses Townsend & Russ, has been named one of the Top SOWomen Lawyers and one of the Top 100 Lawyers in th e 2011 listin g of Mid-South Supe r Lawy ers. Her firm recently received a first-tier ranking for family law in th e U.S. News Media Group and Best Lawy ers 2011-2012 "Best Law Firms" list. DANIELVANBENTHUYSEN(A&S'73), a studio art
major, is now represe nted by Upstream Gallery in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.His work also can be seen onlin e at UGallery.com and on his own website, danvanb .com. He teaches visua l journalism and information gra phi cs at Hofstra Universit y on Long Island. WILLIAMF. CARROLL JR. (G '75), a vice pre sident
at Occidental Chemical Corp. in Dallas, has been elected chair of the board of directors, and reele cted dir ector-at-large, of th e Ameri can Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific soc iety. Carroll is an adjun ct industrial professor of chem istry at Indi ana University-B loomington. He resides in Dallas with his wife, Mary. ANNESLONIMRAFAL(A&S'75)was promoted to
THOMASC. STAPLES(A&S'68, L '73), of Staples,
Ellis and Associates, locat ed in Pensacola , Fla., was admitt ed to the Multi-Million Dollar Advocates Foru m. He obtained th e top Martind aleHubble atto rney rating of AV-preeminent and has been a memb er of the American Board of Trial Advocates since 1989. PHYLLISZIFFALLTMONT (UC '69) is president of
Touro Synagogue in New Orleans. 1970s PHILIPDUBUISSONCASTILLE(A&S'70, G '77) is
pres ident of the University of Houston-Victoria , a technology-intensive campu s that is und ertak ing significant expa nsion. Phil and his wife, Shann on, are the parents of Edward "Ned," who is ente rin g preschool.
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coordinator of Aging Texas Well in the Texas Department of Aging and Disability in Austin , Texas. JAIMER. GARZA(A&S'76) was elected president
of the Texas Society of Plastic Surgeons during its annual meetin g last October . RICHARDD. GOLDBLATT (A&S'76), a retired Army Reserve lieut enant colonel, is serving as a contra ctor with the Kandahar Provincial Reconstru ction Team in south ern Afghan istan. The team, which includes both military and int ernational civilians, is working to improve provincial governan ce, services and infrastruct ure. KATIESHIRKEYLEITHEAD(NC '76) writes to
say that she has been marri ed 29 yea rs, has three children and is "still sing ing." She and her
husband , James "Buzzy" Leith ead, live in Lake Charles, La., where he is an ort hodont ist. Their two sons are compl etin g medi cal trainin g and th eir daught er is an accounting ana lyst with ExxonMobil. EDWARDC. BUSH (A&S'77), vice president of the investment firm Dorsey & Co., has been electe d to the advisory board of the Greater New Orleans Command of the Salvation Army. CRAIGGELPI(A&S'78) is one of the founders of th e Catalina Marine Society, a nonprofit organization dedicat ed to scientific researc h on the marine environment of Southern California . SHERRYKARVER(G '78) had her third solo
exhibition at Kim Foster Gallery in New York last fall. Her work combines photo-ba sed oil pai ntin gs, narra tive text and digital technol ogy-expanding and shifting the parameters of traditional photo graphy and paintin g. She teaches college-level ceramics in Californi a. For mo re information, visit www.sherrykarver.com. JILLGEBERTKYLE(NC '78), vice president of
institutional advancement for Abington Health in the Philadelphia area, was elected to th e Association for Healthcare Philanthrop y's board of directors as vice chair of regional affairs . ERICLEIBSOHN(A '79) was appoint ed by the
mayor and town coun cil of Paradise Valley, Ariz., to serve as a memb er of the board of adjustment s for a three-year term . Leibsohn 's comm ercia l arc hit ectural practice in Phoenix recently celebrate d 25 years of service. STEPHENG. REICH(A&S'79) was nam ed the first Frederick Henry Prince Distingui shed Professor in Neurology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, where he is a profe ssor of neurolo gy and co-director of the Parkinson 's Disease and Movement Disorder s Center. 1980s CLIFFORDM. GEVIRTZ(M '81, PHTM '81) re-
ceived the Robert Raszkowski Hero Award from the Accreditatio n Council for Continuin g Medical Educat ion in recognition of his volunt eer serv ice during th e past 15 years. Gevirtz lives in Harrison, N.Y. BOB STEPHENSON(A&S'82) conclud ed a fiveyear term as chair of the Foothill s Trail Conference, a nonprofit group that maintain s and promotes Foothills Trail, a long-distance hikin g tra il in th e Carolinas. Stephenson is assista nt chief cou nsel for th e South Carolin a Department of Natural Resources and an adjunct faculty memb er at Southern Wesleyan University. He lives in Greenville, S.C., with his wife, Weezie, and thr ee sons, ages 17, 15 and 10. DAYLAWECHSLER HANOCKA(NC '83) is working
as a litigation paralegal for the law offices of Jacobs and Quiles in Connecticut. Her daughter, Rana, will grad uate in May from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with a bachelor's degree
in electrical engineering. Her son, Micah , is a junior in high school. Her husband, Jacob, works as a business analyst for Yale Medical School. The founding members of the New Orleans law firm Patrick Miller, PATPATRICK(L '84) and PIERREMILLER(L '86), announce that LAURENCE R. DEBUYSIV (L '84) and STEPHENE. (L '8 1) have joined the firm. MATTESKY PETERFOS(PHTM '85, G '8 9) was named
president of the University of New Orleans last December. The New Orleans native was most recently a professor and program director of policy and systems management at the Lou isiana State University Health Sciences Center in New Orleans. He previously held positions at the Un iversity of Texas-Tyler and at the University of Southern Mississippi. AMYBERGERCERTILMAN (NC '86) has a jewelry
redesign and consulting business , The Perfect Setting. For more information, visit www. theperfectsetting.com. SCOTTA. BROWN(E '87) is a partner with Accenture and leads the company's growth and strategy organization. He joined Accenture (then Andersen Consulting) in 1995 after receiving his MS in management from Georgia Tech. He resides in Atlanta with his wife , Lisa, and their three children. DANIELL.SEGAL(A&S'87) published his fifth
professiona l book , Aging and Mental Health (2011, John Wiley & Sons). Segal is a geropsychological researcher and clinicia n, working primarily at the University of ColoradoColorado Springs . EVEBLOSSOM(A '88) received the INDEX: Award 2011 for her book Material Change. KIMBERLY NEIDEFFERCLARKE(NC '88) enjoys
life in Maine with her husband, Kevin , and son, Emerson. She is the sales department manager at the White Mountain Hotel and Resort in North Conway, N.H. In 24 hours on Oct. 30 , 2011, ROBERTAL.D. DIKEMAN(NC '89) rowed 226,136 meters (about 141 miles), setting two world records for indoor rowing in the 40-49 lightweight women's division. She set the record for most meters rowed in 24 hours and the record for the longest continual row. TATEWESTBROOK (A&S'89) commands the U.S.
Navy's newest Arleigh Burke-class guidedmissile destroyer, Spruance, which was commissioned last October at Naval Air Station Key West, Fla. Westbrook leads a crew of 285 officers and enlisted personnel. 19905 MICHAELD. RUBENSTEIN(B' 90, L '93) was elected to membership in the American Law
EQUALITY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL " I learned about injustice at an early age, and I have
always been committed to fixing it ," says Nimrod Chapel Jr. (L '95) , who observed the difficulties his father faced as a small business owner in rural Oklahoma and whose family was active in the civil rights movement . (Chapel is pictured with his son, Nimrod Chapel 111.) " Fixing injustice " is a major undertaking, and for Chapel, heading to law schoo l seemed like the most practical way to approach it . Chapel is now director of the Missouri State Department of Labor and Indust rial Relations and commissione r of the Admin ist rat ive Hearing Commission. He also is president of the Jefferson Cit y, Mo., chapter of the NAACP. These positions have given him opportunities to carry out his long-standing goal , he says. Chapel's election to president of the NAACPchapter coincided with the organ ization 's 100 -year anniversary . He says that though much has been accomplished in the last century , the organizat ion is still advocating on behalf of many of the or iginal issues. Chapel references the controversial decision last year by the state of Georgia to execute an African American death row inmate even though witnesses had recanted or contradicted earlier testimony against him . He also points to recent attempts to revamp Missouri state wo rkplace discrimination laws, which would roll back decades of civil rights progress. " These are issues that America is facing ," Chapel says, explain ing that the NAACP is not a " black organization. " "The issues that are important to the NAACP- equality and justice for all-are issues that are important to the country ." -CATHERINE FRESHLEY
Institute. Rubenstein , whose practice includes
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STADIUM CHALLENGE Tom Davis, the barbe r who has cut hair on th e Tulane cam pus for
more than 50 yea rs, challenges a lumni to match his donation of $500 for t he Home Field Advant age campaign for the new on- ca mpus foot ba ll sta dium. (See pages 13 and 39 for more about t he st adium a nd the fund raising campai gn.) At press t ime, two custo mers had already matched Davis's gift . Go to www.TulaneStadium .com for more informati on.
business litigation , bankruptcy and government investigations matters, is a shareholder in the Houston office ofLiskow & Lewis. He is the law school representat ive to the Tulane Alumni Association board.
NICKPANAYOTOPOULOS (L '93) and KATIEBATES
(NC '99), along with their daughter, Sofia, welcomed Alex in February 2011. TAYLOR ROOT(A&S'93) graduated with honors
Jonathan, announce the birth of twin girls, Brianna Lynn and Camryn Paige, on Sept. 15,2009 . They have a son, Dylan, 5. The Grays, who live in Bedminster, N.J., celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary in 2011.
from the University of Florida's Warrington College of Business MBA program last spring. He is the state pricing and programming manager for Southern Wine and Spirits of Florida. He lives in Jacksonville , Fla., with his wife, Katie Willoughby, and daughter , Maggie. The Roots expect another da ughter in April.
TERRI OSTROW PITTS(NC '91) is a founding
NICPERKIN(TC '94) is co-founder and presi-
partner of Pitts Consultancy, which creates brand partnerships and branded integrations. She has represented Disney, Sony and SEGA, among other brands ; produced concerts for topselling artists Patti LaBelle and Santana ; and has worked in development and production for feature films.
dent of The Receivables Exchange. Three years after its inception , the company has achieved an annua l trading volume of nearly $1 billion, helping thousands of companies control the selection of receivables through an open online auction market.
JOYSHAPIROGRAY(NC '91) and her husband ,
SHANEDOUCET(TC '95) and his wife, Heather, ALEXANDRA "SANDI"STROUD(A '91) is direc-
tor of the new master of sustainab le real estate development program at Tulane , where she is an adjunct associate professor of architecture.
announce the birth of a second daughter , Massey Elizabeth, on July 15, 2011. Massey was welcomed home by her sister, Reese Caroline. Doucet is a partner wit h Locke Lord Strategies in Washington, D.C.
A book by KARENKRUSETHOMAS(NC '91), Deluxe Jim Crow: Civil Right s and American H ealt h Policy, 1935-54 , was published last fall.
The book takes an in-depth look at the healthcare upheaval and civil rights movement in the South. Thomas is a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of History of Medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. DEANNBLANTONGOLDEN (NC '92) and her hus-
band, Tony, welcomed Wilson DeWitt on Nov. 1, 2011.The Goldens also have a daughter , Grace, 3. DeAnn Golden works at Prud ential Georgia Realty in Atlanta. BOBWOLFBERG (A&S'92) completed his term as
chair of the Chicagoland Chapter of the Young Presidents' Organization. He received the Financial Services Provider of the Year Award from Financial Service Center of America. He is married to Lynne and is the father of Chayla, 13, David, 11,Eli, 7, and Zoe, 3. SEANDOUBLET(A&S'93) received an MBAfrom the University of Texas- Arlington. Doublet works in the corporate quality group at Mary Kay in Dallas. He, his wife, and two daughters reside in Arlington, Texas.
After practicing dentistry for 11years in Henryetta, Okla., and selling his office in 2008, JOHN LANDERS(A&S'93) has now entered his fourth year as vice president of operations for his family's oil and gas production company, Landers Oil and Gas, of Okemah, Okla. W. BRETTMASON(L '93), a partner at Breazeale,
Sachse and Wilson, was elected international third vice president of the International Propeller Club of the United States. The grassroots, nonprofit organization promotes all national and international maritime community interests .
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AMBER CASSELL HOOD(E '00) and her husband , Austin, announce the birth of Austin Brett on J uly 26, 2011. Amber Hood served seven years in the Air Force as a biomed ical engineer and recently left her position as a fulltime systems engineer with SAIC. Austin Hood , a major in the Air Force, is stationed at Langley Air Force Base as a commun ications officer. The family current ly resides in Yorktown, Va. SARAPADILLA(PHTM '00) is program manager
for the Community Food Security Coalit ion, a nationa l nonprofit organization in Portland , Ore. She prev iously spent two years with the Peace Corps doing HIV/AIDS education with the Ministry of Hea lth of the Dominican Republic . Her husband , Andrew Miller, is a fellow Peace Corps volunteer. The coup le has two boys , Miles, 4, and Max, 1. She reviews books for Luxury Reading and Kirkus Reviews, providing education on healthy food policies. Her blog can be found at suns hineandsa lad.com. BRADPOWELL (UC '00) and KELLYDONALD (NC '00) welcomed Paige Tula to their POWELL
family on Sept . 19, 2011. Paige joins big sister, Emily, and big brother , Nathan. The Powells live in Pittsburgh .
GIOVAN"G." JACKSON (UC '96), a bus iness man-
ager, consultant and public relations specialist in the Atlanta area, launched Th!nk BigBiz! Youth Entrepreneurs Networking Event - designed to inspire and encourage youth to create dream jobs through entrepreneurship - in New Orleans last December. She is planning another event in Atlanta in March. Jackson owns Professional Assistance. As CEO and president of New Orleans-based (TC '96, G '07) Theodent, ARMANSADEGHPOUR and his partners recently debuted a chocolatebased toothpaste that is a safe alternative to fluoride. The product is the culmination of 30 years of research, including Sadeghpour 's own doctoral dissertation on the effectiveness of an extract of cocoa for dental hygiene. The toothpaste is available at Whole Food Markets, as well as on the company's website, www.theodent.com . RASHIDISTAMBOULI (E '98) married Melina Idarraga on Sept . 4, 2011, in Miami. RYAN HANSEN(E '98) and BERNARDRHOADES(E '98)
attended the wedding. PARKERLAYRISSON (TC '99), of Parker Layrisson Law Firm, has co-authored Negotiating a Plea Deal in DUI Cases,featuring leading lawyers
from across the country and published by Thomson Reuters. ANDREA"ANDI" SCHIPPERTRICHARDSON (NC '99) and CHRISRICHARDSON (TC '99), along
with their son, Campbell, welcomed William Camden Fulk, on Sept. 7, 2011. 2000s HEATHERTASHMANFRITTS(NC '00) and her
husband, Doug, announce the birth of a da ugh ter, Avery Nola, on June 21, 2011.
ABBEYMOOREGRAF(NC '01) and her husband , Jason, welcomed their first child, Charles Stewart, on Jan . 9, 2010. MICHAEL SHERMAN(TC '01) and CAREYJ. SHER¡ MAN('08) were married on May 7, 2011, in New
Orleans. Michael Sherman works in the New Orleans mayor's office as director of intergovernmental affairs and executive counsel to Mayor Mitch Landrieu . Carey Sherman is coordinator of the Jewish Newcomers Program and the J-Grad Student Retention Program of the Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans. HALEYBORUSZAK BORISOFF(NC '02) and her
husband, Shawn , announce the arrival of a daughter , Payton Gabrielle , on Oct. 18, 2011, in London. Variety named BENDAVIS(B '02), vice president of scripted programming for AMC,to its list of "Future TV Titans." Davis, who joined AMCseven years ago, helped develop the pilots for "The Walking Dead" and "The Killing," and is managing the second seasons of both shows. He is also looking to develop "the next big unique idea."
RYANRIVET(UC '02) and LAURENROBINSON RIVET(NC '02) announce the birth of Finnegan
Scott (Finn) on Dec. 21, 2011. The baby joins his sister, Ella Grace, almost 3. Ryan Rivet is a multimedia specialist in the Tulane Office of Publications and Lauren Rivet is a dentist. MARISSAHERSHON(NC '03) received a master's degree in the history of decorative arts from the Smithsonian-Corcoran College of Art+ Design in Washington, D.C., in 2010. She is now the Luce Curatorial Research Fellow at the Chrys ler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Va., where she will
be researching and writ ing about the glass collection for a forthcoming cata log and gallery reinstallation. MARIAWING(L '04) married Albert Bernell
Motley on Nov. 26, 2011, in Philadelphia. Wing is a senior associate at Stradley, Ronon, Stevens and Youn g in Philadelphia. Motley is assistant director of information technology for Mastery Charter Schools in Philadelphia. ALEXBOWMAN(TC 'OS) married Valerie Blanco
on April 9, 2011, in Dripping Springs, Texas. The wedding party included AMITKOONER(TC '05), JOHNHRYHORCHUK (TC '05), TAYLOR GILBERT (TC '05), and KIMBERLY FRUSCIANTE (NC '05). The couple resides in New York where Bowman is a resident in internal medicine at New York-Presbyterian /Weill Cornell Medica l Center and his wife is a resident in pediatrics at Mount Sinai Medica l Center. SCOTTSIMON(A '05) was reelected a representa-
tive to the Louisiana legislature. A one-act play, Six Dead Bodies Duct-Taped to a Merry-Go-Round, by LINDSAYMARIANNAWALKER (NC 'OS) and Dawson Moore, was produced by Full Circle Theatre Company in New York last fall. The play will be published in the Best American Short Plays 2010-2011 anthology and has been performed in severa l locations across the country. Walker earned a PhD in creative writing from the University of Southern Mississippi and teaches English at Auburn University. MICHELLE C. HASSING(B '06, '07) and RICHTER J. FRIDMAN(B '06, '07) were married on Sept . 10, 2011, at Saint Louis Cathedral in New Orleans. The wedding party included NICOLEMAST(B '07), STEPHANIELEITING(B '09), COURTNEY ORDONE(B '05), CYRUSKANGA(B '09) and RYAN MAST(G '07).
REEDA. MORGAN(B '06) is an associate in the New Orleans office ofLiskow & Lewis, where she
NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND For Jeffrey Gruen (A&S'79, M '81),
the "writing on the wall" is pretty clear : Fail to identify and help dyslexic students at a young age , and their chances of becoming fluent readers decrease dramatically . "We know that early intervention - between third and maybe sixth or seventh grade-can work. But it has to be intensive," says Gruen , a professor of pediatrics, genetics and investigative medicine at Yale University School of Medicine , who has been studying the genetics of dyslexia for more than a decade . Gruen explains that if a dyslexic student completes 80 to 120 hours of intensive reading intervention over a school year during elementary or early middle school, he or she has about a 66 percent chance of read ing at grade level two years late r. "But if you identify them in high school," he says, "[the intervention] is only about half as effective ." That 's why Gruen is working to develop a simple , presymptomatic genetic screening test for the reading disorder, which would be conducted using a sample of a student 's DNAextracted from saliva or a painless cheek swab. Currently , his lab is engaged in several studies , most of which are directly related to identifying the genes and their variants that have a positive predictive value for a child being dyslexic. "The next step," Gruen says , "would be to optimally match genetics with [types of] intervention programs." He says it's possible that the students who don 't succeed haven't been matched to the optimal intervention program for their genet ic makeup . And Gruen isn't satisfied leaving them behind.-c .F.
focuses her practice on business litigation . STEPHENORTEGO (A '07) was elected a represen-
tative to the Louisiana legislatur e. JAYDABATCHELDER (PHTM '09) was named the
where she works in a village school- lyceum. She teaches English, journ alism and technology to students at the primary and secondary school. Schimmer will comp lete her 27 months of service this June .
2010 Texas alternative certification middle-
school teacher of the year in Dallas. Batchelder, who works with Teach for America at a southwest Oak Cliff middle school, led 93 percent of her eighth -grade science students to a commended score on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills exam - a rate 28 percent higher than the district average. JEROME MATTHEWS JR. ('08) is in the energy liti-
gation and commercial litigation sections of the New Orleans office of Liskow & Lewis. Matt hews served as a corporal in the U.S. Marine Corps from 2001-06. KATESCHIMMER ('09) is serving as a youth
development Peace Corps volunteer in Ukraine,
2010s SCOTTBERGER(A '10) and KEVINMUNI(A '10) collaborated with REBECCAMILLER , a fifth-year
architecture student, on Rendezvous, an interactive installation in an ordinary courtyard , as part of the fifth annual DesCours art and architecture exhibit across New Orleans last December. Other spaces were transformed for DesCours by TRAVISBOST(A '10), TONYVANKY (A '07), HIROSHIJACOBS(A '03) and IGOR SIDDIQUI(A '98). DANIELLE Z.S."DANI"LEVINE(PHTM '10) spent
a year working as a senior mayoral fellow in the New Orleans mayor's office of coastal and ALLENIll environmen tal affairs with CHARLES
(PHTM '98). Levine is now director of the Jewish Service Corps AVODAHin New Orleans. She married her partner , New Orleans native Vanessa Bridges, at Touro Synagogue in New Orleans. The coup le looks forward to building their family in the Crescent City. ALANATKINS('11) is a yout h specialist /child and
family specialist with Hathaway-Sycamores Child and Fam ily Services. His job includes mental health rehabilitation and behavior modification. Atkins resides in Los Angeles . AARONFRUMIN('11) is a Teach For America
Corps member, teaching sixth- and eighthgrade language arts at Carmel Middle School in Colorado Springs, Colo. Frumin also is working on a pilot for a television show about the travelvolunt eer experience , with colleagues from his previous position at New Orleans Habitat for Humanity. For more information , go to: www. american-volunteers .com.
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LATIN AMERICANIST Richard Greenleaf , professor of Latin American studie s, died on Nov. 8, 201 1. Former director of the Stone Center for Latin Amer ican Studies at Tulane, he was a pioneer in Latin American colonial histo ry. His scholarsh ip, profess ional leadership and mentoring of several generat ions of historians had a broad and profound impact .
FAREWELL
APRILBRAYFIELD , associate professor of socio logy, of New Orleans , on Dec. 13, 2011.
BARBARASTRONGHARVEY(NC '47) of Covington, La. , on Nov. 16, 2011.
RAYMOND A. ESTRUS, emer itus professor of h istory , of Sarasota , Fla., on Jan. 2, 2012.
WILLIAM D. THAMESJR. (M '47) of Lu fkin, Texas , on Nov. 28, 2010.
THEREV.VALAMBROSE MCINNES , cha ir of Judea -Chr istian Stud ies , of New Or leans, on Nov. 22, 2011.
ANNASCHAUBER CLARK(NC '48) of Savannah , Ga., on Sept. 30 , 2011.
CELESTE GOFFDIBOLL(NC '29) of New Orleans on Nov. 24 , 2011. MARYHELENDOHANSAMSOT(NC '34 , G '38) of Houston on Oct. 10, 2011. MILDREDM. FOSSIER(NC '35, SW '55) of New Orlean s on Dec. 4 , 2011. DEWITTL. MORRISSR. (E '37) of Lake Char les, La., on Dec . 8, 2011. MARGUERITE VANDYKE HAMILL(UC '40) of Ocean Springs, Miss. , on Aug. 11, 2011. SARAHCORTESAVOIA(UC '40) of Donaldsonville , La. , on Oct. 24 , 2011. WERNERW.BOEHM(SW '41) of New Brunswick , N.J ., on Oct. 17, 2011. JANEPERLEEMILNER(NC '42) of Kansas City, Mo. , on April 14, 2011. ALBERTD. CAIRE(A&S '43) of New Orleans on Nov. 13, 2011. VIVIANESTOPINAL GATES(NC '43) of Eas t Chat ham, N.Y., on Oct. 15, 2011. DAVIDMONROE (B '43) of Metairie, La., on Dec . 9, 2011. JOHNW.OVERSTREET JR. (M '43 , M '49) of Houston on Nov . 22, 2011. CHARLES J. BABINGTON SR. (E '45, L '48) of New Orleans on Nov. 26, 2011. ELAINEK. HEMARD(NC '45) of New Orleans on Nov. 19, 2011. BARBARAGARDNER PAYNE(NC '45) of Pen sacola , Fla ., on Dec. 2, 2011. HYMANH. RUCHELMAN (A&S '45 , M '57) of Huntington , N.Y., on May 7, 2011. JUDSONC. GWIN(M '46) of Jasper, Ala. , on Dec . 21, 2011. EDWARD G. KOSCHMANN (UC '46 , G '49) of Cleveland on Nov. 16, 2011. DONw_RIGGS(A&S '46) of Jacksboro , Texas, on Nov. 21, 2011. ALBERTA AMOTTBOOTH(NC '47) of Pe lh am, Mass., on Oct. 8, 2011.
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PENNYDARLING FOSTER(B '48) of Oak la n d , Calif., on Oct. 14, 2011. HAROLDs. GREHANJR. (B '48) of New Orleans on Nov. 14, 2011. MILTONL. LEBLANCJR. (L '48) of Dallas on Dec. 15, 2011. WILLIAM E. ROONEY (A&S '48, G '50) ofBato n Rouge , La. , on Nov. 10, 2011. MELVINSABSHIN(M '48) of Was h ington, Del. , on June 5, 2011. ROYCE P. KAUPP(B '49) ofEden Prair ie, Minn. , on Nov. 19, 2011. GEORGE H. LEIDENHEIMER JR. (B '49) of Dallas on Nov. 4 , 2011.
Texas , on Nov. 23, 2011.
KEITHA. GATLINSR. (L '53) of Rock Hill, S.C., on Oct. 21, 2011. WALTER E. HARRISONJR. (M '53) of Mo ul tr ie, Ga. , on Dec. 10, 2010. LOUISEREISSROGAS(NC '53) of New Orleans on Oct . 2, 2011. WILLIAM C. BAUMANN(B '54) of Shreveport , La., on Jan . 10, 2011. JOANBURLINGAME DEVER(NC '54) of Jacksonville , Fla ., on April 23, 2010. ANNEALLENIVANKOVICH (NC '54) of Mandev ille, La. , on Oct. 22, 2011. ALLANJ. LEONARD (A&S '54) of New Or lea ns o n Nov. 3, 2011. PETERL. REYSR. (UC '54) of Germantown , Te n n. , on Nov. 22, 2011. RAYMOND G. BISHOP(A&S '55) of Austin , Texas , on Nov. 8, 2011.
JACKMOORE(M '49) of Housto n on Nov. 20, 2011.
LESLIEA. NORMANJR. (A '55) ofBirm ingham , Ala. , on Dec. 18, 2011.
RENER. NACCARI (B '49) of New Orleans on Oct. 5, 2011.
NANCYJ. PENDERGRAFT (SW '56) of Austell , Ga., on Apr il 22, 2010.
EMITABENEDICT PATTERSON (NC '49, SW '58) of New Or leans on Oct. 16, 2011.
ALFREDJ. HERKES(E '57) of New Orleans on Nov. 12, 2011.
PAULC. YATESJR. (G '49, '51) of Wilmi n gton, Del., on Oct. 14, 2011.
PHILLIPB- WATERS (A&S '57, L '60) of Calh ou n , Ga., on Nov. 16, 2011.
G. JOSEPHSULLIVAN (E '50) of New Orleans on Dec. 17, 2011.
LEROY E. WEEKS(M '57) of Fort Walton Beac h , Fla. , on April 30, 2011.
EDWARD G-BRENNAN(A&S '50) of Kenner, La., on Nov. 12, 2011.
J. LINCOLN DEVILLIER (B '58) of Carro llton , Ga. , on Nov . 19, 2011.
GRADYC. DINWIDDIE(A&S '50) of Meta irie, La., on Oct. 11, 2011.
NORMAND.HEIDELBAUGH (PHTM '58) of Fairfax Station , Va., on Ja n . 28, 2011.
WILLIAM M. SAMMONS (M '50) of Ashl and , Ore ., on Dec. 1, 2011.
G. FREDLIEBKEMANN III (E '58) of Meta iri e, La. , on Dec. 7, 20 11.
HAROLDC. BALMER(A&S '51) of Metair ie, La., on Nov. 26, 2011.
LOUISPOTASH(G '58) ofBethesda, 22, 2010.
HERBERTE. COUNIHAN (A&S '51) of Temp le Hi lls, Md. , on Jan. 18, 2011.
WALTER F. WOLFJR. (A&S '58) of San Fra ncisco on Sept. 13, 2011.
DONELSON CAFFERY MCCAY (B '51, L '55) of New Or lea n s on Nov. 27, 2011.
THOMASL-WEBBII (A&S '60) of Seatt le on June 3, 20 11.
DOROTHY MANESSWEBB(NC '51, G '53, L '80) of Houston on Dec. 4 , 2011.
CHARLES H. BEARDSLEY (A '61) of Leesburg , Va., on Apr il 12, 2011.
THOMASJ. BROTHERS (M '52) of Ann iston , Ala. , on April 26, 2011.
BRIANA. LOY(A&S '61) of Wic h ita , Kan., on Oct . 9,2011 .
MARCUSW.BOWMAN(A&S '53) of Lumberton ,
RICHARDL. SHENK(B '61) of Aspen, Colo., on
Md., on Oct.
Oct. 20, 2011.
THOMASL. SMITHJR. (M '62) of Center Poi n t, Ala. , on July 22, 2011. CAROLSTEINERRUBENSTEIN (NC '63, G '65) of New Orleans on Dec. 18, 2011. JAMESV. WERBA(M '63) of Orlando, Fla., on Nov. 22, 2011. JAMESH. COUTURIE (E '64) of New Orleans on Nov. 7, 2011. JAMESE. CHAVOEN (E '65) of Northbrook, Ill., on Oct. 2, 2011. EDMUNDC. DYASIV (M '65) of Mobile, Ala., on Jan. 23, 2011. CLARENCE J. FIOKE(G '65) of New Orleans on Oct. 4, 2011. ATILANOGOMEZ (G '65) of Metairie, La., on June 26, 2011. KENNETHP. KAUFMAN(A&S '65) of Sylva, N.C., on Sept. 29, 2011. ARNOLDH. KIRKPATRICK (A&S '65) of Paris, Ky., on Nov. 29, 2011. GEORGE H. CHRISTIAN (M '66) of Virginia Beach, Va., on Nov. 30, 2011. VIRGINIAHAYDENCOLE(UC '66) of San Francisco on Dec. 5, 2011. DANC. HINKLE(M '66) of Cheyenne, Wyo., on Sept. 27, 2011. ROSSJ. BRECHNER (G '67, M '69) of Catonsville, Md ., on Aug. 4 , 2011. ALBERTw.DRAKE(A '67) of McKinney , Texas, on Nov. 1, 2010. JUANM. GARCIA-PASSALACQUA (L '67) of San Juan, Puerto Rico , on July 2, 2010. MARTAFRANCISCA JORDAN(SW '67) of Kenner, La., on Oct. 13, 2011. DENNISR. SHEETS(G '67) of Dania, Fla., on Nov. 24 , 2011. AHMEDS. CHOUDHURY (G '68, '78) ofDestre han, La., on Nov. 16, 2011. WILLIAM M. MULVIHILL (B '69) ofRichmond , Va., on Nov. 28, 2011. RANDOLPH UMBERGER JR. (G '70) of Chapel Hill , N.C., on Oct. 21, 2011. CAROLINA DONADIO LAWSON(G '71) of Bowie , Md. , on March 29, 2011. SANDRASTREAMMILLER(NC '71) ofBeverly
MODERN ARCHITECTURE Arthur Q. Davis Sr. (A 42)
died on Nov. 30, 2011, in New Orleans. While New Orleans loves its past, it still is a modern city of cars, electronics and industry. And in the 1950s, when the spirit of change and optimism, fueled by the successes of World War II, swept into the city, Arthur Q. Davis was there. Arthur was a partner with Nathaniel "Buster" Curtis (A 40) in the firm Curtis and Davis. (Curtis, Davis and Walter J. Rooney Jr. (A '50), who also was a partner, are pictured here, left to right .] The Curtis and Davis firm surfaced as a leading national voice in the search for an architec ture that embodied the new spirit and that could exploit the new materials and technical advancements in construction. (See " Modern Love" in the fall 2011Tulane magazine.] It was a moment of high drama and excitement that propelled New Orleans architecture into the modern world . In a series of beautiful experiments of schools, commercial buildings, houses, libraries and other public landmarks , Arthur made us aware of the potential of architecture. In a recent lecture at Tulane, Arthur stunned the packed hall with his work-some done so years before: brilliant, simple, humane, modernist solutions to projects as varied as prisons and villas . His optimism and joy were, and still are, an inspiration. And the clever buildings that he and his firm seemed to produce with amazing clarity and speed are still reminders of an exciting past and hopeful future.-ERROL BARRON. Barron, a fellow of the American
Institute of Architects, is FavrotProfessor of Architecture at Tulane. Hills , Calif. , on Nov. 30, 2011.
VIRGINIAA. RISER(NC '71, G '75) of Metairie, La., on Dec. 2, 2011. ELAINEB. WHITE(G '72) of New Orleans on Oct. 5, 2011. RALPHF. LINCKS(UC '74, G '93) of New Orleans on Oct. 1, 2011.
DONNAGREENHOLDER(M '84) ofBossier City, La., on Nov. 18, 2011. ELEANOR F. SHIRLEY(B '85) of Baton Rouge , La. , on Sept. 27, 2011. JOSEPHH. SMITH(PHTM '85) of San Diego on Sept. 30, 2011. TAMMY J. SPURGEON (M '87) of Baltimore on Oct. 16, 2011.
BRIANC. RYDWIN(M '76) of Jers ey City, N.J. , on March 15, 2011. RICHARDF. MCCLOSKEY JR. (A '78) of Metairie, La., on Nov. 1, 2011. LYNNEL. ROBINSON (SW '80) of New Orleans on Dec. 2, 2011. DIANEHAINSFABACHER (SW '84) of Covington , La., on Nov. 25, 2011.
CORRECTION Th e hometown of TOMD. NORMAN(M '47), who died June 22, 2011, was Alexandria , La. Also, HOWARD B. GISTJR. (A&S'41, L '43), who di ed Aug. 22, 2011, was from Alexandria , La. Their hometowns were incorr ect ly listed in th e fall 2011 issu e of Tulane magazine.
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FOURâ&#x20AC;˘STAR CHARITY Tulane University has received a four-sta r
rating (the best) from Charity Navigator, a nonprofit evaluator that assessesthe financial health of charities in order to aid donors in making the right charitable giving choices.
Medical Needs
a
New Orleans' post-Katrina vibrancy and Tulane's record of community activism
soldMikeBosworth ('09) on attendi ng Tulane University School of Medicine . "Tulane wants you to ~ embrace the community and become immersed in it," he says. Originally from Massachusetts, Bosworth is a member of the Tulane undergraduate "Katrina" class-the class of2009 that had its first semester disrupted by the 2005 hurricane and flood. Now a seco nd-year medical student , Bosworth says that he is stud ying to become a doctor in order to give back . He is passionate about medicine-and about creatin g a better world. Bosworth, along with other medical students, has helped build a community garden in New Orleans. He also spent a summer in Guatemala learn ing about that country 's medical system . He is class president , participates on the first-year curriculum committee and is an active member of the Owl Club and the Tulane Wilderness Interest Group. He also won the Morris and Goldie Mintz Memorial Award in Structural and Cellular Biology. Boswort h attends Tu lane with scholarsh ip assista nce from the Adopt-a-Student program. He says that the scholars hip helps him worry less about loan debt and concentrate more on becoming a better physician . "This scholarship has allowed me the freedom to broaden my thoughts about what field I want to pursue. My focus is more on how I can help patients versus what I can make." The Adopt-a-Student program, founded by Dr. Hyman Tolmas (A&S'43, M '45) two decades ago to help deserv ing and talented students atte nd Tulane, is part of the medical school's annual giving campaign. To learn more about gifts to scholarships and other programs, go to the Tulane Donor Honor Roll at tulane.ed u/giving/honor-roll-ofdonors .cfm. -K irby Messinger
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O imal E ficiency Fund raising is now under way for a $23.9 millioR green makeover of Richardson Memorial Hall, the century-old home of Tulane University School of Architecture. "Richardson Memoria l Hall is one of the most wonderful buildin gs for a school of architecture-central on campus , historic , stately, wellbuilt , high ceilings , clear spans, operable windows , excellent light ," says Kenneth Schwartz , dean of the School of Architecture. "However, it is in serious need of investment to bring it up to date in its building systems, lower its carbon footprint and improve overall utility, given the changing nature of the school's mission today." Schwartz is leading the fundraising efforts for the proje ct that he expects to be completed within five years . Fund raising was kicked off with a gift from Tulane alumnu s and board member Tim Favrot (A '53) to develop the initia l plans and a gift in kind from IBM in partnership with Johnson Controls to insta ll IBM Smart Building Techno logy. In the renovation , many original building materi als will be reused. More study loun ges and workspaces for students will be created , and the school's existing shop and digital facilities expanded. The architectural /engineering team for the project is led by FXFOWLEand el dorado architects, of which Dan Maginn (A '89) is one of the principal s.-Kat hryn Hobgood Ray
Plans for Architecture Building Renovation IBM in partn ership with John so n Contro ls is donatin g th e insta llation of its Smart Buildin g Technolo gy to th e renovation of Richa rdson Memorial Hall , hom e of th e School of Archit ectur e. Th e tec hn ology allows th e monitorin g and optim al
adju stm ent of water consumpti on, lightin g
and oth er syste ms to lower a buildin g's ca rbon footprint .
SteppingUp When Andrew Fredman (A&S '84) learned about the expand ing community-engagement efforts at Tulane, he thought of three things: the liberal arts, the New Orleans economy and local schoolc hildr en. He began negotia tin g with Carole Haber, dean of the School of Liberal Arts. They put the pieces together, resultin g in a $100,000 gift from Fredman's family foundation to develop three und ergradua te service- learning courses in journalism , documentary filmmaking and screenwriting. Two pilot courses debuted in spri ng 2012. And in the fall, the three classes will be offered when the Musical Cultur es of the Gulf South coordinate major is launched. "I was looking for something that hit on those three levels while also making New Orleans a better place, and Carole's ingenuity made it happe n," said Fredman, managing partner at Fir Tree Partners in Miami. "This hits all the bases." The courses will con nect Tulane und ergraduates to students at a local partner school, said Joel Dinerstein , associate professor of English and director of American Studi es. He is working with arti sts suc h as "Tre me" co-creator Eric Overmyer and Mary Blue , professor of practice in th e Department of Communi cation , to dev elop projects with possible topics rang ing from Mardi Gras Indi ans to marching bands. "Alot of students in New Orleans don 't have a strong awareness of the history or the importance of the cultural traditions around them ," said Dinerstein. "We want to teach them the skills to look at it and participate and add their knowledge to our knowledge." Those value-added skills will distinguish Tulane students and th eir you nger cohort s when they search for jobs in the area's burgeon ing film and television indu str y, said Dinerstein. Just as Fredm an int ended, the courses are a model for liberal arts in action, said Haber. "This is Tu lan e Empowers at its best ," she said. "Not only does it engage our students in service learning but it engages the high schoo l stud ents in the schools, encouragi ng th em to step back and see their cultur e an d see the value of their experience." -Kimber ly Krupa
Tulane
emp -·wers •&0.2 MILLION
THE GOAL $1 oo million is the total goal for
RAISED, TO DATE
the Tulane Empowers campaign. THE TALLY As of Dec. 31, 2011, the campaign had
received $60.2 million toward the total goal.
•
money raised
"When he was a high school senior, Tulane offered him a scholarship and also gave him a job on campus, and he really appreciated that. He felt that he wanted to do what he could to give back to Tulane."-Joseph Kanyan -A friend of the late IrwinFrankel(E '42), Joseph Kanyan is a trustee of the Frankel trust. Frankel died in 2010 and left an unrestricted gift of more than $2 million to the School of Science and Engineering. His gift is funding two floors of laboratory space in the new Flower Hall.
"We hope this will be a springboard for a complete renaissance for all of Tulane athletics."-Doug Hertz -Doug Hertz{A&S'74, B ' 76) spoke at the November dedication of the Hertz Center for basketball and volleyball. The $13 million training facility is named in honor of Hertz .
"The fact that Tulane football is getting a brand new stadium back on campus is going to be great not only for the players but for the entire program. I believe it's going to bring new excitement and enthusiasm into the players, fans and students as well."-Matt Forte TulaneStad.ium.com
-Matt Forte (B '08) is a running back for the NFL Chicago Bears
Tulane University is embarking on a fundraising campaign to usher in a new era of success for its athletics programs. With multiple leadership gifts committed and other major gifts promised, Tulane already has raised $40 million toward the $70 million goal of the Home Field Advantage campaign. (See story on page 13.) With the new Tulane Stadium as its centerpiece, the campaign also is raising $10 million to provide enhanced support for Tulane's football program. There are several ways to support this effort, such as a gift to the Stadium Fund, Tulane Athletics Fund-Home Field Advantage or restricted support for the football program, including endowed funds earmarked for equipment and other programmatic needs. A number of naming and recognition opportunities are still available for campaign gifts, and those donors who make gifts to TAF-Home Field Advantage will have priority access to purchase season tickets in the new stadium. For more information , go to www.TulaneStadium.com .
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SHIVER ME TIMBERS! Headquartered on Grand Terre, a barrier
island along the edge of Barataria Bay, the pirate Jean Lafitte is estimated to have had as many as 1,000 people working for him.
by Angus Lind I could find Joe 's Landing in my sleep - and I have, many times. That's the marina in Barataria-about 45 minutes south of New Orleansfrom where I have fished the most. I drive there because I fish with a Barataria fishing guid e. We catch redfish , speckled trout and flounder, and he cleans and bags them for us to take home and cook. I also can get into some quality conversations with cigar-chomping Joe Bourgeois and his son Sid, who run the marina and are always ready to hold court on any subject related to fishing-as well as some not related. There also is a predictable group of regulars hanging out inside, drinking everything from coffee to beer. Call it a fishing fraternity house. Sure, you have to get up in the middle of the night and drive in the dark to get there. But it's well worth it. There's nothing quite like heading down Bayou Barataria toward the open waters of Barataria Bay with a cool breeze in your face as you watch the sun come up. A dramatic sunrise breaking through the foggy, morning light that hovers over the water bring s a kind of serenity you can't find in the city. As the raw beauty of these wetlands unfolds before my eyes and I see pelicans, egrets and other waterfow l, I think, damn, two hours ago I was in my bed in Uptown New Orleans . There's a reason "Sportsman's Paradise" is the motto on Louisiana license plates. Barataria-the name conjures up images of the mystical , uncharted maze of waterways once inhabited by pirates and smugglers Jed by
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MAGAZINE
ROD'N'REELTHERAPY You may not forget all your troubles while fishing, but they will seem less important when you're out on the water.
the swashbuckling Jean Lafitte. And when I travel through the marshland and see all the cuts and inlets , canals and markers that mean something to th e guide but absolutely nothing to me, I get a feeling for what it might have been like for those rogues as they navigated these waters to dodge the authorit ies. But directionally, I'm challenged. Water looks like water to me, no matter where I fishit could be Black Bay or Caminada Bay or Barataria Bay. You could tell me it was Tampa Bay and I wouldn't know the difference. If someone said, "Biloxi is that way," I'd say, "Did we miss the exit?" The guide, 56-year-old Capt. Ripp Blank, is a classic Louisiana character: a storyteller equipped with a Cajun accent, a good line of BS and a lifetime of fishing knowledge. He points to a spot where some marsh grass is growing up through water and says, "That used to be an island ," or "That used to be land where I played when I was a boy." Hearing it from someone who has come from genera tions of fishers and trappers on this bayou and has watched this deteriorating scene for years, you feel like you are witnessing the effect of coastal erosion from close up. At most , I go fishing a couple times a year, so I'm hardly an accomplished fisherman. But I like to fish for several reasons, one of them being that as with Mardi Gras, fishing is an excuse to drink beer in the morning. I look on it as a reward for having to get up so early. I also like to eat fish just out of the waterthe fresh taste is unmatched . But mostly , it's about the adventure. Good fishing companions are essential, as are fish stories. Catching fish is a bonus. As Henry David Thoreau once observed , "Many go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after." True enough-you may not forget all your troubles, but they seem a lot less important when out on the water. As for technique, let's just say I know enough to get by. This ain't my first rodeo, I tell Capt . Ripp. He laughs because he's seen me in action before, like when my line gets tangled or my hook gets caught on something without fins. But, hey, I can bait a line, cast, reel in fish (should the moment arrive), grab the landing net, then take them off the hook. Capt. Ripp has said many times , "If you hear somebody on the boat cursing, you don't have to look for the landin g net. Nobody curses when catching fish."
A
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DR. IRWINFRANKEL (E '42) was a native New Orleanian, and though his career and military service took him around the world, he never forgot the city and the university he loved. Throughout his lifetime, Frankel established a number of gift annuities supporting the School of Science and Engineering and the Tulane Band. He also named Tulane University beneficiary of several IRAs, life insurance policies and a trust - significant gifts that are helping fund the new $7.4 million Donna and Paul Flower Hall for Research and Innovation. The new 24,000-square-foot Flower Hall replaces the outdated Taylor Laboratory on the uptown campus.
"Dr. Frankel understood the need to create a research environment where our faculty and students could thrive," says Nick Altiero, dean of the School of Science and Engineering. "His generous bequest will help make that possible."
Read more about Dr. Frankel,
Flower Hall
and ways you can support the university www. plannedgiving.
you love at
tulane. edu.
An accomplishedclarin etist , Frankel played with the Tulan e Alumni Banc! during the homecoming halftime show in 2007.
YourGift.YourW£9. Office of Planned Gifts· 504-865-5794
· toll free 800-999-0181
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