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Green moves Car traffic ceased on McAlister Drive from Freret Street to McAlister Auditorium on May 18. The move signals the start of the creation of the McAlister Place pedestrian mall. Motor vehicles will rarely roll— or park—again on that stretch of McAlister Drive. Only emergency vehicles, vehicles used for move-in day and occasional special-events traffic will be allowed. In the new green space, the existing live oak trees will be retained and new plantings of native plants such as palmettos, canary palms and Louisiana irises will be added. New lighting, seating areas and water elements are also part of the campus beautification project, which is scheduled to be completed by December.
Finance for better times After graduating in May with bachelor of science degrees in finance from the A. B. Freeman School of Business, roommates Dennis Cristallo and Robert Myers decided not to venture into the job market. Instead, they opted to pursue master of finance degrees in the school’s graduate program, which has experienced a 35 percent increase in applications this year.
A plaza on Freret Street providing a threshold to McAlister Place is one of two planned gathering spaces for pedestrians.
Is their decision a reflection of the current economic downturn? “Absolutely,” they say in unison. Cristallo had originally planned to find a bank position in private wealth management with his bachelor’s degree. And even though he says he had “a couple of dozen interviews,” he failed to find employment. After completing the one-year master’s program he expects he’ll be a more attractive candidate, and with luck the economy will have turned around.
Roommates Dennis Cristallo, left, and Robert Myers jumped immediately into graduate school after graduating in May with finance degrees.
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Cristallo and Myers are among 80 students entering the master of finance program this summer. In March, the Princeton Review listed the Freeman School among 15 institutions offering superlative preparation in finance. Venkat Subramaniam, associate professor and Exxon Professor of Finance at Tulane, says that having a master of finance degree gives a significant competitive edge to job applicants who have acquired advanced skills and knowledge. Subramaniam predicts that when the economy warms up, a variety of finance positions will begin reappearing in the market, including jobs for equity analysts and portfolio managers, in-house credit evaluators in lending institutions, and trading and risk managers who monitor global currency markets. Myers likes the odds. “If we can’t get a job now, hopefully by May 2010 things will have turned around,” he says. “In the meantime, we’ll have done something to better ourselves and to improve our chances of getting good jobs.” —Fran Simon
ARCHITECTURAL RENDERING COURTESY OF THE OFFICE OF THE UNIVERSITY ARCHITECT