Tulane Magazine March 2015

TUlane THE MAGAZINE OF TULANE UNIVERSITY

GATEWAY TO THE AMERICAS Latin American studies puts Tulane on the map

A DAY IN THE LIFE New Barbara Greenbaum House hums 24/7

NATURAL RHYTHMS From blues to zydeco, worldwide access on Music Rising at Tulane

march 2015

Continental Connections

ryan rivet

Daring Design A passerby stops to examine an experimental structure created by Tulane School of Architecture students on Gibson Quad on the uptown campus in January.

Latin Influence On the cover: A Mayan carving and the Tulane shield merge. Photo illustration by Marian Herbert-Bruno

T UL A N E MAGA Z I N E m a r c h 2 0 1 5

1

mark andresen

P R E S I D E N T ’ S

L E T T E R

Panamanian Tulanians

by Mike Fitts It was no accident that I chose Panama for my first trip abroad as president of Tulane. With its Spanish and Afro-Caribbean influences and melting pot of cultures, Panama City is truly our sister city. Tulane’s history is rooted in this kinship.

From our founding in 1834 as a medical college devoted to eradicating the diseases that menaced both New Orleans and Latin America, Tulane’s academic mission has been identified with Panama and its neighbors. In the century that followed, the opening of the Panama Canal convinced city leaders of the need to establish a school of business at Tulane as well.

Today, our academic collaborations in Panama include two graduate school programs through the A. B. Freeman School of Business and the Payson Center for International Development, as well as a partnership with the United Nations Regional Center for Latin America and the Caribbean and the Universidad Católica Santa María La Antigua, through which Master of International Development students study one year in New Orleans and one year in Panama. There are also law and development courses on a variety of topics that bring Tulane students to Panama, the Panama Summer Institute study abroad program and much more.

Panama and its neighbors also inspired the introduction of Latin American studies through the Stone Center, the Middle American Research Institute, and other Tulane programs that make up one of the largest, most respected and most comprehensive Latin American studies programs in the Western Hemisphere. (See story on page 14.)

Panama is also home to a large Tulane alumni base. Tulane Law School alone has more than 150 Panamanian alumni, who include Cabinet ministers, Supreme Court justices, diplomats and the country’s top lawyers. Expect more in the future since Tulane’s Panamanian alumni recently established a scholarship fund to send more Panamanian students to Tulane Law School. And, of course, we continue to welcome new undergraduates from Panama.

While our partnership with Panama continues to grow so does the famous channel that played a vital role in the formation of our business school. On my visit I had the chance to walk on the bottom of the not-yetflooded portion of the Panama Canal that is part of its historic expansion.

2

m a r c h 2 0 1 5 TULA NE MAGA ZINE

crossing Borders Panama is a vital site for the Tulane connection to Latin America.

It was a breathtaking sight.

My tour of the canal came courtesy of Jose “Pepe” Barrios Ng, a Tulane parent and former deputy administrator of the Panama Canal Authority. I also attended a gathering of Tulane alumni at the home of Tulane graduate Stanley Motta, chairman of the board of the parent company of Copa Airlines, which will begin direct flights from New Orleans to Panama soon.

Tulane’s presence and other global connections are a reflection of our diverse culture and the base upon which we are building an exceptional worldwide interdisciplinary university.

My academic life has been defined by crossing boundaries and borders in the belief that the best teaching, research and learning takes place when the boundaries between seemingly unrelated subjects—medicine, engineering, law, business, science, the arts—are crossed and problems are approached from an interdisciplinary perspective.

This boundary crossing extends to countries as well. This is why, while crossing boundaries between disciplines, Tulane literally spans the globe from the front lines of the fight against Ebola in West Africa to our Master of Finance program in China to the School of Social Work’s efforts in Tibet, to our Summer in Cuba program.

We have 40 major academic programs operating in 20 countries. Last academic year, 1,153 international students attended Tulane and there are more than 7,400 Tulane graduates living in 177 countries. In fact, while visiting Panama, I traveled to Costa Rica, where I was honored to meet its president and Tulane graduate Luis Guillermo Solís Rivera.

A favorite quote of mine is from organizational theorist Karl Weick, “Simply pushing harder within the old boundaries will not do.”

This is the attitude I believe every university should adopt when confronting the pressing societal problems of today and preparing their students to do the same.

Pouring more money and energy into old models in which professors teach, researchers investigate and students learn within the narrowly drawn specialties of cloistered campuses does not offer students the same level of academic rigor or the equal promise of effecting positive change.

Crossing boundaries opens a whole new world of possibilities and hope. It also reveals a startling truth—that boundaries between countries, people and disciplines are only imaginary.

Breaching these boundaries is where real learning begins and where Tulane began.

TUlane C O N T E N T S Carnival Garb Masqueraders in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, circa 1900, sport a timeless look.

(See page 14).

2 PRESIDENT’S LETTER Trip to Panama

IMAGE ARCHIVE, tHE LAtIN AMERICAN LIBRARy

6 NEWS Youth summit • High-performance computing • In That Number • Who Dat? Richard Rudolph • Safe to eat? • Pharmaceutical research • Women’s voices • City Center • Codex Tulane • Byron Mouton

14

13 SPORTS Rugby on campus • Baseball team led by new coach

Gateway to the Americas From the ancient Maya to maternal health in Peru today, Latin American studies at Tulane cross boundaries of time and space, income and language.

By Mary Sparacello

20

30 TULANIANS M. Sophia Newman • Tulane Clubs • Mary Lou Lanier Fife • Roy Frumkes • Veronica Swanson Beard

A Day in the Life

31 WHERE Y© AT! Class notes

At Barbara Greenbaum House—the newest residence hall on the Tulane campus— students and the faculty-member-in-residence share a jam-packed 24 hours.

By Alicia Duplessis Jasmin

26

35 FAREWELL Tribute: W. Boatner Reily III

Natural Rhythms Music Rising at Tulane preserves and protects the musical heritage of the Gulf South, presenting the beating heart of American music to anyone with an Internet connection.

By Michael Luke

38 WAVEMAKERS MacLaren Classroom • Laura and John Arnold Foundation • Gifts to science and engineering 40 NEW ORLEANS Barricades galore

T UL A N E MAGA Z I N E M A R C H 2 0 1 5

3

PRONOUNCE THE ‘T’ Ted Martin (L ’67) pointed out that it is correct to pronounce the “t” at the end of Carondelet, contrary to “Native Tongue”

by Angus Lind in the December 2014 Tulane. “So that’s one mistake we Orleanians are NOT making!” wrote Martin. (Illustration by Mark Andresen)

y e a h,

y o u

w r i t e

PUPPY RESCUE As the father of a Tulane grad (’13) and a dog lover, I was thrilled to read the article about students raising service dogs on campus. As the author of a forthcoming book on Southern rescue dogs (Rescue Road: One Man, Thirty Thousand Dogs and a Million Miles of the Last Hope Highway, Sourcebooks, Sept.

2015), I spent time this past summer in Louisiana, which has an enormous canine overpopulation problem and a shelter system that euthanizes tens of thousands of loving, adoptable dogs every year.

I urge Tulane students who love dogs to seek out and offer your time to one of the many wonderful rescue groups in the state working hard to save as many dogs as possible by placing them in homes primarily up North. We adopted two rescue dogs from Louisiana in the past two and half years and they have added immeasurably to our lives.

Peter Zheutlin, Parent Needham, Massachusetts

Russell, who is now almost 16, was diagnosed with Type One Diabetes when he was 12—literally days before starting middle school, and coincident with the start of adolescence.

Type One Diabetes is the kind that needs minute-byminute attention and lots of self-control. It is really hard for anyone much less a preteen kid. Russell struggled with his blood sugars (like most Type One Diabetics do); and we, his parents worried and fussed and pestered him about it. About a year ago, through Dogs 4 Diabetics, Russell was placed with Addie, a yellow lab who can detect changes in his blood sugar a full 15 minutes before modern technology detects them. This improves his life in a million ways, like the day that, during his chemistry final, Addie alerted him to dropping blood sugar, which allowed him to treat it before it got so bad that he couldn’t finish his final.

One of the problems of having Addie at school has been that other kids don’t understand that they can’t pet her, or distract her. Unfortunately, the school administration didn’t really seem to be able to help Russell with getting other kids to stop petting and distracting her. They had trouble with the idea that there could be a dog on campus that nobody could pet without permission.

Luckily for us, a Tulane alumna was hired this year to be the dean of students (which is the one who does discipline). Not only did she read the article, but she passed it on to Russell as well.

Your article really gave voice to some of the hassles of bringing a service dog to school. It helped validate some of our requests and concerns, while also helping the ‘outside world’ to understand Russ’ situation.

Adrienne Roberts Portola Valley, California

TUlane THE MAGAZINE OF TULANE UNIVERSITY

PuPPy raising Students train dogs for life of service

On the FrOnt lines in sierra leOne Combating the Ebola crisis

shake the salt Cooking class for doctors and patients

december 2014

Puppy Power

SERVICE DOGS IN SCHOOL I’m writing to say THANKS to you for your great article about Service Dog Training at Tulane; and to say THANKS to Adam Kline for being the kind of person who would launch a program like this. My son,

4

M A RCH 2015 TULANE MAGA ZINE

SPANISH COW In the December 2014 Tulane magazine, Angus Lind, in listing a few of New Orleans’ many notorious mispronunciations, wrote that “Carondelet should be Kah-ron-de-LAY but it’s Kuh-ron-duh-LET.” That looks like it ought to be right, but it just isn’t.

In fact Carondelet is one of the very few names or words that are pronounced correctly in New Orleans. That is so because the ancestors of the Baron de Carondelet and Carondelet himself, after whom Carondelet Street is named, were indeed French-speaking Belgians, but before he came to New Orleans in 1791, Carondelet had conclusively expatriated himself from Belgium at the age of 15 in 1762, emigrated to Spain and attached himself to the service of the King of Spain, changing his name from the French François Louis to the Spanish Francisco Luis. By the time he came to New Orleans as the Spanish Governor of Louisiana and West Florida in 1791, he had already been a naturalized Spaniard for 29 years and had married a Spanish noblewoman, and, so, his name was by then given, on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, the correct Spanish mispronunciation of French, that is, with the final “t.” As the Cajuns love to say about anyone who speaks French badly, Il parle Français comme une vache espagnole (“He speaks French like a Spanish cow.”) And, had all that not been the case, the final “t” would have been used anyway in New Orleans because of the English language’s own system of correct mispronunciations of foreign words. An example of this in the New Orleans streets context is Joliet Street, correctly mispronounced in English with the final “t,” JO-lee-et, instead of as in French, Zho-lee-AY. In any case, Angus was all too kind to New Orleans, for he left out of his review hundreds of its atrocious and abominable mispronunciations that should be capital offenses.

Joseph B. Stahl, A&S ’59, L ’62 New Orleans

BURGUNDY BY ANY OtHER NAmE I certainly agree that New Orleans is not an American culture, but a delightfully unique FrenchSpanish Caribbean culture of its own. Having been a French major at Sophie Newcomb and later at graduate school at Columbia University, I have always loved exploring language.

Concerning Burgundy Street and the mystery of why the accent in on the second syllable, contrary to the wine, I have pondered this a bit as I grew up in my early childhood on BurGUNdy Street in the Bywater.

Language is akin to music so that when the original name rue Bourgogne became anglicized the accent fell on the second syllable in English as it does in French. At least this seems logical and plausible to me!

By the way, after Katrina, when we natives were afraid we might lose our unique city and culture, I started a list of New Orleans expressions, not used anywhere else that I know of. I think it would be an interesting read for everyone, and especially for the many students from elsewhere, if there were a column of New Orleans expressions in every issue.

Janice Donaldson Grijns, NC ’66 Greenwich, Connecticut WOULD AGREE WItH tHE LEttER WRItER ON EDUCAtORS I would like to see more articles about the academic daily care and feeding of students. You have an incredible faculty.

During my tenure at Tulane I thought they were all terrific.

Katherine Kamp Krueger, NC ’65, G ’68 Forks, Washington ___________ Drop Us a Line E-mail: tulanemag@tulane.edu or U.S. mail: Tulane, Office of Editorial and Creative Services, 200 Broadway, Suite 219, New Orleans, LA 70118

Letter From The Editor

TUlane M

A

G

A

Z

I

N

E

Editor Mary Ann Travis

crEativE dirEctor Melinda Whatley Viles Editorial dirEctor Sarah Netter “tulanians” Editor Fran Simon

michael democker, 1998

contributors Keith Brannon Barri Bronston Mary Cross, ’10 Catherine Freshley, ’09 Alicia Duplessis Jasmin Angus Lind, A&S ’66 Kirby Messinger Ryan Rivet, UC ’02 Aidan Smith sEnior univErsity PhotograPhEr Paula Burch-Celentano sEnior Production coordinator Sharon Freeman

Seeing thingS from another’S point of view Tulane students have been going to Cuba (pictured above) to study for more than a decade.

And new easing of travel and banking restrictions undoubtedly will result in more students heading to the island nation to learn about its culture and place in the world.

Study abroad has been an option for Tulane undergraduate students since the 1950s when small groups went to Paris or London for a Junior Year Abroad experience.

Today, about a third of Tulane undergraduates participate in some sort of study abroad in nearly 80 semester, summer or yearlong programs.

Most students who study abroad are keen on continuing their major abroad, said Scott Pentzer, associate dean for global education at NewcombTulane College.

“Students say, ‘I want to go and study what I study at Tulane but in a different place, from a different perspective and look at different problems.’”

Students study, say, psychology in France or Denmark or Argentina where professors have different ways of coming at the discipline. Classmates

may ask different questions. They read different books.

Beyond the academic advantages of study abroad, there are career benefits.

“I can’t think of a professional field where there isn’t a global dimension,” said Pentzer.

People are traveling more for work, working alongside people from different cultures and collaborating with people from different countries. Skills such as knowledge of a foreign language and indepth understanding of a country pay off over a career.

An educated person more and more is a global citizen.

Students studying abroad often find what it is that inspires them and discover what they are passionate about.

It takes them one more step along the road to independence, said Pentzer.

Study abroad takes students out of their comfort zone. At the same time, students expand what their sense of home is.

“Study abroad is a lot of work,” said Pentzer. But students gain a sense of confidence that “I cannot just survive but also feel at home and feel comfortable and be inspired in this place that I did not know I would.”

Bon voyage.—marY ann traviS

graPhic dEsignErs Tracey Bellina Marian Herbert-Bruno

free ipad and android verSionS of tulane are available.

PrEsidEnt of thE univErsity Michael A. Fitts vicE PrEsidEnt of univErsity communications Deborah L. Grant, PHTM ’86 ExEcutivE dirEctor of Editorial and crEativE sErvicEs Carol J. Schlueter, B ’99 Tulane (ISSN 21619255) is a quarterly magazine published by the Tulane Office of Editorial and Creative Services, 31 McAlister Drive, Drawer 1, New Orleans, LA 70118-5624. Periodical postage at New Orleans, LA 70113 and additional mailing offices. Send editorial correspondence to the above address or email tulanemag@tulane.edu.

Opinions expressed in Tulane are not necessarily those of Tulane representatives and do not necessarily reflect university policies. Material may be reprinted only with permission.

Tulane University is an affirmative action/equal opportunity institution.

POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: Tulane, Tulane Office of Editorial and Creative Services, 31 McAlister Drive, Drawer 1, New Orleans, LA 70118-5624. march 2015/vol. 86, no. 3

T U L A N E MAGA Z I N E M A R C H 20 1 5

5

OPPORTUNITY YOUTH The Cowen Institute at Tulane has launched

the Earn and Learn Career Pathways program. Participants, who prior to the program were neither working nor in school, have apprenticeships that combine paid on-the-job training with technical and academic training at Delgado Community College.

N E W S

SHUTTERSTOCK

Super Computer

successful Path

6

M a r c h 2 0 1 5 TULA NE MAGA ZINE

Boys of Color

Researchers are looking into early influences on boys of color, trying to figure out factors in the trajectory of the young men.

CYPRess POweR The high-performance supercomputer at Tulane is in the top 500 of such supercomputers around the world.

RYAN RIVET

In 2014, President Barack Obama launched My Brother’s Keeper, an initiative aimed at addressing persistent opportunity gaps faced by boys and young men of color. It’s an issue close to the hearts of Tulane University psychology professors Oscar Barbarin and Michael Cunningham, whose Boys of Color Collaborative is using data to determine what families and schools can do to put boys of color on a path to success.

The collaborative, which includes scholars from Duke University, Emory University, the University of California–Los Angeles, University of Virginia, George Washington University and several other institutions, gathers and analyzes data on the development of boys of color to determine early influences.

“In the earliest years, boys of color look no different than any other group,” Barbarin said. “How is it that when they get to adolescence you see such stark differences?”

For example, the U.S. Department of Education found that black students, especially boys, were 3.5 times more likely to be expelled or suspended than white students. They also are over-represented in the criminal justice system and in special education, Barbarin said.

The collaborative is working to develop joint research and to provide mentoring for younger scholars and undergraduates involved in the issue.

“They’re not all doing poorly,” Barbarin said. “Sixty percent are doing fine—not great but getting along. The problem is that 20 percent are not doing well at all, and that’s millions of kids.”

This spring, Barbarin and Charles Figley, a professor in the Tulane School of Social Work, are organizing a youth summit to discuss the challenges of New Orleans youth.

“The goal of the summit is to challenge existing conceptions of youth as failing to achieve and as purveyors of violence, to reimagine them as assets to their families and community and as future leaders,” Barbarin said.—Barri Bronston

Tulane is ranked No. 271 of the top 500 supercomputer sites in the world with its new Cypress computer.

The university partnered with Dell and Intel to create the supercomputer Cypress. The platform consists of Dell PowerEdge C8220X servers and a Dell networking Z9500 switch.

Cypress went online in fall 2014. “It brings to us a whole new level of infrastructure,” said Nicholas Altiero, dean of the Tulane School of Science and Engineering.

Cypress is being used for sea-level-rise calculations, brain injury research, epigenetics, molecular studies and other complex, dataheavy projects that require hefty computational power.

Laura Levy, vice president of research, said, “Cypress is a new reach into problemsolving that we never had before.”

The design of Cypress is similar to more powerful machines that are deployed at the Louisiana Optical Network Initiative and the Texas Advanced Computing Center, making it easy for Tulane researchers to port their code to larger environments as their models grow larger and more complex.

Charlie McMahon, the vice president for information technology and chief technology officer at Tulane, said, “This system allows users to move seamlessly between big-data analytics and traditional high-performance computing capabilities.” —Fran Simon

In That Number An Artists© sAnctuAry A Studio in the Woods, located within the natural sanctuary of a Mississippi River bottomland hardwood forest, is a live-in artists’ retreat program.

It provides a tranquil haven for visual artists, musicians, composers, performance artists, writers and others to work uninterrupted during short-term residencies.

Joe and Lucianne Carmichael donated the property to Tulane University in 2004 to be part of the Tulane/Xavier Center for Bioenvironmental Research.

1969

7.66

Educators and artists, the Carmichaels acquired the property in 1969 and began their journey toward forming the artists’ retreat in the woods.

The retreat encompasses 7.66 acres of bottomland hardwood forest on the banks of the Mississippi River in Algiers, Louisiana.

20

Twenty bird species find protected habitat within the retreat.

18

The studio is an 18-mile drive from the Tulane uptown campus, across the river on the West Bank, on the edge of Orleans Parish.

infographic by tracey bellina

Over 3,000 native trees have been preserved in the forest surrounding A Studio in the Woods.

5

3,000

In “Flint and Steel” five-week residencies at the studio in 2015, teams of artists and Tulane researchers are inspiring each other in “cross-disciplinary combustion,” developing new work, such as puppet performances to help educate and entertain children who have asthma.

Since 2001, the studio has hosted 67 residencies for a wide range of visual, literary and performing artists from around the world.

7

67

During fall 2014, seven university scholars spent one to two weeks at the retreat pursuing academic interests.

T U L A N E MAGA Z I N E m a r c h 2 0 1 5

7

Tulane universiTy archives

Who Dat? Richard Rudolph

“DICK” RUDOLPH (A&S ’68) was a stage actor. Once. He wore the pants in the scene pictured here of the performance of the drama Private Ear/Public Eye on the Tulane uptown campus in December 1967. Rudolph remembers that ROBERT BROWN (A&S ’68), right, was the better actor.

That same year, Rudolph learned to play the guitar at his fraternity house, where he was a close friend of renowned screenwriter, director and film producer, the late BRUCE PALTROW (A&S ’65). And Rudolph met singer Minnie Riperton, who became his wife after he graduated.

Together, Rudolph and Riperton wrote and recorded “Lovin’ You,” one of the world’s all-time most-recorded songs.

In 1975, the song went to the top of the charts in the U.S. and 24 other countries.

On their recording of “Lovin’ You” can be heard Riperton’s ethereal voice, Rudolph strumming the acoustic guitar—and little Stevie Wonder on the keyboard in the

8

M a r c h 2 0 1 5 TULA NE MAGA ZINE

background. At the end of the recording, Riperton croons “Maya, Maya.”

“I carried around the germ of the idea [for that tune] inside my head for a long time,” said Rudolph. “I played that guitar riff over and over.” Rudolph made a continuous loop of the guitar riff and played it on a cassette tape recorder to soothe their baby daughter, Maya, as she swung in a Swingomatic.

Many artists have covered “Lovin’ You” over the years. It was licensed for a commercial in Japan last year.

Rudolph settled in Chicago in the late 1960s, where he managed the Electric Theater/Kinetic Playground.

“It was the halcyon days of rock and roll,” said Rudolph, ticking off bands who played at the venue: Vanilla Fudge, Led Zeppelin, Santana, The Who, Joe Cocker and the Grease Band, Velvet Underground and Blood Sweat and Tears, to name a few.

Rudolph co-wrote songs with Charles

Stephany, Riperton’s producer at Chess Records, and he continued to write songs with Riperton until her death at age 31.

Rudolph moved to Los Angeles, where his career as a songwriter, screenwriter, music publisher and film producer has flourished. His feature film for children, Ruby Strangelove, filmed in Bulgaria, will be released this year.

Rudolph is married to Kimiko Kasai, a top female jazz singer in Japan for many years, who recorded 24 albums for CBS/ Sony. Kasai has retired from the music business and has a successful second career as a jewelry designer. They have been married for 25 years.

His daughter, actress and comedian Maya Rudolph, rose to fame as a cast member of “Saturday Night Live” and starred in films such as Bridesmaids. She will deliver the keynote address at Tulane University Commencement on May 16, 2015.

—FRAN SImON

SHARED KNOWLEDGE Talk about opportunity: Tulane

undergraduates and recent graduates can showcase their research stemming from capstone courses, honors theses and major papers in the Tulane Undergraduate Research Journal, available online.

N E W S

ThinksTock.com

Nerve on a Chip

Shrimp Study Seafood Safety A study by Tulane scientists shows that Gulf shrimp are safe to eat.

EFFICIENT TESTING J. Lowry Curley, left, and Michael J. Moore, right, have developed what they call “nerve on a chip" to improve drug testing.

Paula Burch-celenTano

Eating shrimp from an area of the Gulf of Mexico impacted by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 poses no acute health risks or increased cancer risks, according to a study published in Environmental Health Perspectives by Tulane scientists.

A team led by Mark Wilson, research assistant professor of global environmental health sciences in the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, analyzed shrimp for oil contaminants and surveyed Vietnamese-Americans working as commercial shrimpers in southeast Louisiana.

“Through communication with community liaisons we were able to conduct a tailored risk assessment within a ‘sensitive subpopulation’ that served to demonstrate the safety of shrimp harvested from the Gulf of Mexico and addressed concerns that were meaningful to the community as a whole,” said Wilson.

Community members directly involved in the seafood industry are likely among the heaviest consumers of seafood, said the researchers. The Mary Queen of Vietnam Community Development Corp. in eastern New Orleans provided a list of residents for the researchers to contact for the survey that included questions such as how often do you eat shrimp, what is a typical portion size and how are the shrimp prepared? One hundred fifteen respondents completed the survey.

“We found that 81 percent of our survey respondents reduced the amount of shrimp they consumed for at least five months following the oil spill. Furthermore, 43 percent of our survey respondents reduced shrimp consumption for at least 12 months,” said the researchers.

Immediately after the spill occurred, concerns were expressed that seafood would be contaminated with high levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and pose health hazards including increased cancer risks for consumers.

However, shrimp collected and tested by the researchers were found to have low levels of PAHs. “The very low levels of PAHs detected in our cross-sectional sample of shrimp did not result in excess risk from dietary PAH exposure within our study population,” said Wilson.—Arthur Nead

Michael J. Moore and J. Lowry Curley first met in the laboratory as professor and student.

Now the two Tulane researchers have started a new biomedical company that’s winning praise and awards.

They are co-founders of AxoSim Technologies, which aims to improve pharmaceutical drug development by providing a faster and more advanced alternative to animal testing.

Moore is an associate professor of biomedical engineering, and Curley is a postdoctoral researcher in the biomedical engineering program.

They have developed what they call “nerve on a chip,” a 3-D model of nerve tissue about a millimeter in size. Results of a new drug’s interaction with the nerve on a chip can quickly provide data to drug developers.

AxoSim was founded in June but already is earning praise and support, including funding from the National Science Foundation’s Innovation Corps program. Moore and Curley also made headlines in November after winning the $25,000 top prize at the New Orleans BioInnovation Center’s BioChallenge competition, where they pitched their business to a panel of investors.

Moore and Curley said their first round of drug research is focusing on chemotherapies that reduce side effects in cancer patients.

—Sarah Netter

T U L A N E MAGA Z I N E m a r c h 2 0 1 5

9

INSPIRING PLACE GOOD Magazine named New Orleans the No. 7 most inspiring city in the world. (It was the only U.S. city to make the top 10.)

“If in 2013 New Orleans was rumored to be an up-and-coming place for young people to flourish, in 2014 the city finally made the grade.”

N E W S

jackson Hill

Center of the City

Educated Women

10

M a r c h 2 0 1 5 TULA NE MAGA ZINE

Digitized Voices

Student Candace Ross, left, works with Newcomb archivist Susan Tucker to bring the voices of the oral history project to the Web.

OUTREACH Hillary Bocash, a fifth-year architecture student, builds a work station at Tulane City Center. Architecture students contributed to the interior of the center’s new home by building desks, storage space and work surfaces.

Ryan Rivet

Voices from the past are back at Tulane as part of an oral history project to archive the stories and experiences of hundreds of alumnae and faculty members.

Recordings of past Newcomb College students are being painstakingly preserved in digital archives, creating both a record of the past and a way to share history beyond the confines of the university.

The Newcomb Oral History Project began in 1986. Those interviewed, including Mary Lou Lanier Fife (NC ’30) [See the “Dispatch” on page 31], recall stories of their classes, professors and social life, all while painting a picture of their experiences on campus and in the city of New Orleans.

“The memories of these women are evocative about so much,” said archivist Susan Tucker (NC ’72). “They tell us how educated women thought of the paths they took in life.”

The efforts of staff and student interns at the Newcomb College Institute and longtime alumnae volunteers like Helen Schneidau (NC ’67) have grown the collection to almost 300 recordings. The recordings have undergone full-scale digitization, and scholars can now access them online.

Visiting scholar and public radio host Gwen Thompkins (NC ’87), began lending her talents to the project in 2014 to expand the scope of the collection.

Senior Candace Ross has spent months ensuring the women’s voices are preserved. She said, “Digitizing the oral histories of alumnae has left me with a profound appreciation of these pioneering women.

“When I go to work in the Caroline Richardson Building, sit in a classroom in Newcomb Hall or go to my room in Warren, I remember the alumnae who have gone through those doors, sat in those classrooms and lived in my room.”—Aidan Smith

Tulane City Center has a place to call its own.

Located at 1725 Baronne St., in the heart of Central City, Tulane City Center is 7,000 square feet and features ample workspace for the outreach program of Tulane School of Architecture.

Tulane City Center has been involved in designing and building dozens of neighborhood revitalization projects, including playgrounds, healthcare facilities, arts centers and urban farms.

The program first moved to Central City in 2013 when it opened a temporary space on nearby Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard. Not long after, Tulane City Center teamed up with Gulf Coast Housing Partnerships to begin construction on the Baronne Street building.

The building was once part of the sprawling Kauffman’s department store, one of several retail outlets that populated the Dryades shopping corridor from the mid-19th century.

As a vital business district for New Orleans’ African-American and Jewish communities, the Dryades corridor thrived for over a century and was a key site during the civil rights era.

Today, the neighborhood is in the midst of a renaissance, with Tulane City Center an enthusiastic stakeholder.

“With the renovation of a historic building into a point of entry for Tulane into the community and the community into the university, Tulane City Center is committed to this neighborhood,” said Maggie Hansen, interim director of Tulane City Center.—Barri Bronston

Gallery Codex Tulane MESOAMERICAN TREASURE Before the arrival of the Spaniards in the New World, native scribes in ancient Mesoamerica produced an array of painted documents on religion, mythology, ritual and astronomy.

During the processes of conversion and cultural amalgamation, the native scribes learned to combine Spanish writing and their own non-Western conventions.

Dating from circa 1550, the Códice Huamelulpan or Codex Tulane (a detail is pictured here) is housed at the Latin American Library at Tulane. The Codex Tulane exemplifies the syncretic process whereby scribal traditions and writing systems of indigenous Mesoamerican civilizations persisted and meshed with the European scribal arts implanted along with the rest of Spanish colonial society.

“The Codex Tulane is a hybrid document representing the convergence of two disparate cultures. This is what makes it so very unusual and rare,” said Christine Hernández, curator of Special Collections at the Latin American Library.

Despite its age and fragility, the Codex Tulane maintains bright hues of red, blue, yellow, brown, orange and pink.

It was painted on pieces of deer hide pasted together and stuccoed to create a painted document or roll measuring approximately 12 1/4 feet long and 9 inches wide.

rare book collection, the latin american library

fAMIly lINEAgE The Codex Tulane depicts the genealogy of two royal families from two Mixtecspeaking towns, Acatlán and Chila, in what is today southern Mexico.

Most of the figures are married couples. In the portion of the codex pictured here, the couples on the left are the parents of the women on the right.

The symbols and circles over their heads represent their names.

Hernández says the codex is of paramount interest to Mesoamericanist art historians who specialize in preColumbian art, epigraphers who decipher ancient New World languages, as well as anthropologists and historians interested in early Colonial Mexican society.

A digital version of the Codex Tulane in its entirety is available through the Tulane Digital Library.

The codex’s history, including an explanation of its acquisition and comparisons to other codices from the same time period, is explained in The Codex Tulane by Ross Parmenter and Mary E. Smith.—AlICIA DUplESSIS JASMIN

T U L A N E MAGA Z I N E m a r c h 2 0 1 5

11

Paula Burch-celentan0

Interview Byron Mouton, URBANbuild

Byron Mouton is a senior professor of prac­ tice and director of URBANbuild, a School of Architecture design/build program in which teams of students take on the design and construction of prototypical homes for New Orleans’ neighborhoods. URBANbuild will complete its 10th home in the Central City neighborhood this year.

What have you learned throughout the evolution of the URBANbuild program?

I learn a lot from my students. I’ve found that students are quite capable of sur­ prising us and far exceeding our expecta­ tions. Each year, when a new group starts a project, they inherit the knowledge of their predecessors and every project gets a little better, a little more sophisticated, more refined.

What place does modern architecture have in older, historic New Orleans neighborhoods?

These New Orleans neighborhoods are authentically old, and many of them are in desperate need of repair. Rather than replicate the existing homes in these neighborhoods with copies of historic ar­ chitecture, we posit that older homes need to be renovated and preserved, and where

12

M a r c h 2 0 1 5 TULA NE MAGA ZINE

new homes are being constructed, we offer alternative architectural possibilities for the city.

Architects are trained to recognize dualities: darkness and light, mass and void, prospect and refuge. From duality and contrast comes vibrancy and dynamic energy—things can be perceived as more what they are when juxtaposed with their opposites.

How do you address the issue of gentrification in the neighborhoods in which the URBANbuild homes are located?

Now more than ever, this is an essential question. The Central City neighborhood in which our projects are located is be­ coming a victim of gentrification, so we have to ask ourselves, how do we accept it while also realizing our responsibility to those residents who have remained in that neighborhood for generations?

The projects we have done over the past 10 years have helped us to increase the value of an entire zone, one house at a time.

But the question is how do we increase property value while preserving the neighborhood so that current residents may stay?

During the course of the design/build process, what kind of changes do you see in the students?

They gain confidence. Students become proficient at multitasking and managing a variety of roles, relationships and respon­ sibilities. They develop professional skills that help them succeed and become stronger practitioners after they graduate.

They communicate with suppliers, sub­ contractors and local regulatory agencies.

They learn to look after one another in terms of safety and quality control; they hold their colleagues accountable for their actions and their work.

What’s been the most gratifying for you as an educator and an architect since you’ve been part of URBANbuild?

My private practice and teaching activi­ ties run side by side, where my research through my Tulane School of Architecture involvement has directly informed and improved my practice. While I think it is important to maintain a distance between practice and research, one of the most gratifying aspects of my involvement with URBANbuild is that it has decreased that distance.—RYAN RIVET

fOOtball signing day The Tulane Green Wave football team received a heavy dose of local flavor as the program signed 17 student-athletes to National Letters-of-Intent on National Signing Day on Feb. 4. The Wave added 14 Louisiana natives, including 10 from the New Orleans area, and three Floridians to the 2015 roster.

S P O R T S

The men’s Rugby Club is hoping to take the momentum from a successful fall season into the spring semester. The team ended the season 5-1, and capped it off by taking the 2014 Battleship Invitational Tournament collegiate championship home from Mobile, Alabama.

Although the fall season is the main competitive focus in college rugby, team captain Jesse Sussmane said the club plans on remaining competitive in the spring by entering a few seven-man tournaments and challenging the squads at Louisiana State University and the University of Alabama to some “friendlies.”

The Rugby Club continues to be a big draw on campus, Sussmane said, with their membership steady at around 30 men. This allows the club to have “both A and B sides” and get intersquad matches together, which, he said, is the real draw of the Rugby Club.

“This is a great sport for camaraderie,” Sussmane said. “It really brings people together. The guys on this team are the closest friends I have on this campus.”

Sussmane said that bond also brings together players from other teams and urges any Rugby Club alums that come back to campus to attend a practice. —R.R.

On the Upswing Jelling as a Team Under first-year coach David Pierce, the 2015 Green Wave baseball team is confident about taking on the challenges of play in the American Athletic Conference.

Ryan Rivet

tOUgh play The Rugby Club plays on the Lavin-Bernick Center Quad. The team had a 5-1 record in the fall season.

While most of New Orleans was getting ready for Mardi Gras, the Green Wave baseball team traveled to the West Coast to open the 2015 season at Pepperdine on Feb. 13. First-year head coach David Pierce said that he is confident in his team and likes what he’s seen on the diamond during the training that led up to the season opener.

“I can’t thank the coaches and players enough for their preparations and their commitment to excellence,” Pierce said. “I see it every day. They’re devoted to being great on the field, in the classroom and in their personal lives.”

While Pierce may be starting a new season with a new team and in a new conference, he said he’s familiar with many of the teams that his team will face in the American Athletic Conference, which makes the transition easier.

“Seven out of the eight teams that play baseball in the American are former Conference USA teams, and I’m very familiar with them from being at Rice and Houston,” Pierce said.

“There’s a lot of challenges in the conference, but where there are challenges there are great opportunities,” Pierce said. “Strength of schedule is critical when trying to get into the postseason, so we’ve got to be able to play and win against schools that are in the top 150 if we want an at-large bid.”

While winning on the field is important, Pierce stressed that, at the end of the day, his job is about more than wins and losses.

“There are a lot of different success stories we can have throughout the year,” Pierce said. “As we strive to win championships, we want to strive not only to be better players, but also better people.”—Ryan Rivet

T U L A N E MAGA Z I N E m a r c h 2 0 1 5

13

Ryan Rivet

Rugby Bond

14

M A R C H 2015 TULANE MAGA ZINE

Gateway to the

Americas

F ro m t h e a n c i e n t m aya t o m at e r na l h e a l t h i n P e r u t o d a y, l a t i n a m e r i c a n st udie s at t ul ane cro s s b oundarie s oF time and sPace, income and language.

Paula Burch-celentano

By Mary Sparacello

T U L A N E MAGA Z I N E M A R C H 2 0 1 5

15

Viki Ospina, 2013. tje Latin american Library

“That group of committed faculty [70 Latin Americanists] on a campus the size of Tulane allows faculty to form a sense of community across disciplines. They come together to share their enthusiasm for Latin America.”

—Thomas Reese,

Stone Center for Latin American Studies

Latin Scholars Previous pages, from left: Hortensia Calvo, Ludovico Feoli, Marcello A. Canuto, Elizabeth Boone, Nora Lustig and Thomas Reese pose with a commercial exchange map from 1883 in the background. The map, part of the Map Collection at the Latin American Library, shows shipping and transportation lines connecting New Orleans to the rest of the United States, Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean.

16

M A R C H 2015 TULANE MAGA ZINE

It was 1924 when Samuel Zemurray bestowed on Tulane University the first department of its kind to research Latin America.

Zemurray was a Russian immigrant of humble beginnings. As a young man he peddled ripe bananas, eventually building his enterprise to buy a fleet of ships and going on to lead the most powerful fruit company in the world.

It was in Central America that Zemurray built his commercial empire, amassing great wealth.

With offices and shipping and distribution operations in New Orleans, where he also had a grand Beaux Arts home, Zemurray was a committed Tulane supporter. After his death in 1961, his family bequeathed to Tulane his home, No. 2 Audubon Place, which later served as the residence of Tulane presidents.

When Zemurray learned in the early 1920s that the William Gates collection was up for sale, he jumped at the chance to purchase it. Gates, scion of a prominent Virginia family, had spent a lifetime procuring what was at the time the most extensive cache of books, manuscripts and artifacts related to ancient Maya and Aztec life.

Once Zemurray acquired the Gates collection for $60,000, he gave it to Tulane along with an endowment of $300,000 to establish the Middle American Research Institute or MARI. It was a gift that would be worth $4.1 million in today’s dollars.

The Gates collection would be the foundation of MARI, but it was just the beginning.

Almost immediately, Zemurray paid to send two MARI researchers on an archaeological expedition to Mexico and Guatemala.

And to this day, MARI’s star continues to shine. The institute funds field research, manages and exhibits a museum collection, publishes books and trains promising scholars—all from the third floor of Dinwiddie Hall on the Tulane uptown campus.

From the Latin American Library

rare book collection, the latin american library

Facing page: Cartagena de Indias, a city on the northern coast of Colombia, preserves colonial architecture.

This page, top: A catechism used by friars for Indian conversion offers a glimpse into life in New Spain in the late 16th century.

Bottom: A campaign rally is held by the Juventudes Revolucionarias group in Mexico in 1952.

Gen. rafael e. melGar collection, the latin american library

Under Canuto, MARI finalized the move of its exhibits and classrooms from the fourth-floor attic of Dinwiddie Hall to the more spacious third floor in 2010 after a major renovation of the building.

And while MARI’s reputation has been and continues to be built on its expertise in deciphering the past, Canuto is also looking to the future. In August, he unveiled a new laboratory, funded by a generous donor, for a “hypermodern classroom” that allows students to use the latest tools in mapmaking, remote sensing and spatial analysis.

BUILDING UPON ITSELF Ludovico Feoli, executive director of the Center for Inter-American Policy & Research (CIPR) at Tulane, said that that first Zemurray gift “initiated a long trend of devotion to Latin American scholarship that has built upon itself.”

In addition to MARI and CIPR, the Roger Thayer Stone Center for Latin American Studies and the Latin American Library were established—and continue to thrive—as the cornerstones of Latin America studies at Tulane.

At the start, MARI concentrated on Mesoamerican archaeology, but since then has broadened its scope.

Marcello A. Canuto, current director of MARI, came to Tulane from Yale University in 2009. “If a student wants to study Mesoamerica— past or present—there are few places in the United States that are better [than Tulane],” he said.

A Maya archaeologist, Canuto does fieldwork at the classic Maya city of La Corona in the jungles of northern Guatemala. In 2012, he was part of a team that discovered a 1,300-year-old Maya text that provided the second known reference to the “end date” of the Maya calendar, Dec. 12, 2012. While the world didn’t actually end then, this hieroglyphic discovery was one of the more important in recent times.

STRENGTH IN EVERY CORNER After World War II, Tulane formally established the Latin American studies program. In 1962, the U.S. Department of Education, spurred to action on college campuses across the country by the Cold War and the launch of the Russian satellite Sputnik, awarded funding to Tulane to establish a National Resource Center on Latin America under provisions of the National Defense Education Act. That center was later named the Roger Thayer Stone Center for Latin American Studies after Zemurray’s son-in-law, married to Zemurray’s daughter, Doris Zemurray Stone, a distinguished archaeologist and ethnographer at MARI. She later followed in her father’s footsteps as a prominent Tulane philanthropist, as did her son, Samuel Z. Stone, who was a member of the Board of Tulane and also a scholar.

The Stone Center gives Latin American studies a cohesive presence on the Tulane campus by coordinating undergraduate and graduate degrees and affiliated programs, such as the Cuban and Caribbean Studies Institute and CIPR. A core faculty of 70 Latin Americanists from almost every school and department represents the largest contingent of professors associated with any program at Tulane.

Thomas Reese, executive director of the Stone Center, said, “That group of committed faculty on a campus the size of Tulane allows faculty to form a sense of community across disciplines. They come together to share their enthusiasm for Latin America.”

And come together they do. There is always a crowd at the brown bag lunches and presentations held regularly—sometimes weekly—at the Stone Center and elsewhere on campus.

T U L A N E MAGA Z I N E M A R C H 2 0 1 5

17

“You’d be hard-pressed to find anywhere else the concentration of resources—the library, faculty, course offerings, and experts and scholars who come through the Stone Center—to study Latin America.”

—Ludovico Feoli,

Center for Inter-American Policy & Research “I feel like I’m at the right place,” said Daniel Sharp, assistant professor of ethnomusicology. A music scholar who came to Tulane in 2008, Sharp is jointly appointed in the Stone Center and the Newcomb Department of Music. His research focuses on Brazil.

Most university Latin American studies programs are strong only in the social sciences, but Tulane is different.

“I had no idea there would be such an academic community that went beyond my discipline,” Sharp said.

ARRAY OF RESOURCES “You’d be hard-pressed to find anywhere else the concentration of resources—the library, faculty, course offerings and population of experts and scholars who come through the Stone Center—to study Latin America,” said Feoli.

The tremendous generosity of the Zemurray and Stone families and their descendants—plus many other supporters—has been instrumental in bolstering Latin American scholarship at Tulane through endowed chairs and professorships—10 at the Stone Center alone.

Earlier this year, an anonymous donor gave Tulane a $6.1 million gift to establish three new endowed chairs in Latin American studies— two in the social sciences and one endowing the Stone Center directorship—and to support MARI and the Latin American Library.

Among its programs, the Stone Center offers joint degrees in business and law.

And the A. B. Freeman School of Business has joint degree programs in partnership with top business schools in Latin America, partnering with 14 universities in the region and giving Tulane students the opportunity to study abroad.

John Trapani, professor and executive director of the Freeman School’s Goldring Institute for International Business, said, “Latin America is a natural partner for Tulane and for the business school because of our history, geography and culture, economics and the alumni base in the region.

“I think today there’s probably no business school in the United States that has this footprint in Latin America.”

18

M A R C H 2015 TULANE MAGA ZINE

Many Latin American studies alumni—both with undergraduate and graduate degrees—hold prominent positions in the U.S. and abroad, including the presidency of Costa Rica. Luis Guillermo Solís, who received his master’s degree in Latin American studies from Tulane in 1981, was elected president in April 2014.

JEWEL IN THE CROWN Since the beginning, the Latin American Library has been one of the university’s greatest assets. Originally, the library was part of MARI, with its foundation in the Gates collection. But it joined the main library system of Tulane in the 1940s and broadened its scope. Now it comprises one-sixth of the total space at Howard-Tilton Memorial Library and is one of only three stand-alone Latin American collections in U.S. universities.

“The Latin American Library is truly a jewel in Tulane’s crown,” said Hortensia Calvo, the Doris Stone Director of the Latin American Library.

The library is especially robust in its rare book and manuscript holdings from the Spanish American colonial period and widely known are its collections of original Mesoamerican painted manuscripts, including the mid-16th century Codex Tulane. (See “Gallery” on page 11.)

The Hernán Cortés Collection contains original letters penned by the Spanish explorer, the earliest dated three weeks after the fall of Tenochtitlán.

But more than a repository of only antiquarian artifacts, the library has one of the only photo archives devoted to Latin America. It houses one of the most complete research collections on contemporary art history and architecture, including an extensive collection of original silver design drawings by William Spratling and other related designers donated by art historian Penny Chittim Morrill (NC ’69). The library also has strong holdings of pamphlets and ephemera related to political parties, cultural activity, the history of tourism and other contemporary topics.

“It’s also about what’s happening now in Latin America,” said Calvo.

The Latin American Library—and the university’s strength in Latin American studies—brought notable art historian Elizabeth Boone to Tulane in 1995, and it is still fundamental to her scholarship. Boone holds the Martha and Donald Robertson Chair in Latin American Art, the first endowed chair in Latin American art history in the country.

Boone, with two colleagues, is working on a book about a pictographic catechism that William Gates photographed in the 1920s; she happened upon Gates’ photographic copy while browsing the holdings of the Latin American Library.

Indigenous Mesoamerican speakers created the catechism after the Spanish conquest when they converted to Catholicism. In it, the Our Father and Ten Commandments are written pictographically in the Aztec language, Boone said.

“I was cruising the shelves and there it was. I’ve never seen one quite that extraordinary.”

ORIGINS OF TROPICAL MEDICINE While MARI captured the public’s attention, with Maya archaeologists trekking to faraway lands, Tulane’s early foray into Latin American scholarship actually began a decade earlier with the creation of what is now the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. And again it was Samuel Zemurray whose generosity made it possible.

In the wake of the 1905 yellow fever epidemic that devastated New Orleans, Zemurray donated $25,000 to Tulane in 1911 for a school of hygiene and tropical medicine to research causes and cures of disease in the tropics.

The School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine today operates research and teaching programs throughout Latin America, including the Health Office for Latin America in Lima, Peru.

In Latin America, economic inequalities are among the most pronounced in the world. A result is that people of high income have

INEQUITIES OF INCOME Nora Lustig, who holds the Samuel Z. Stone Chair in Latin American Economics, is an economist helping to reshape the global anti-poverty agenda.

For the last five years, Lustig’s research in Latin America has focused on understanding how minimum wages, education and social spending have influenced the region’s economic inequality. She heads the Commitment to Equity project—a joint effort of CIPR and the economics department at Tulane.

Her work tracks fiscal policies in almost all Latin American countries, analyzing the impact of taxes and social spending on inequality and poverty.

The Commitment to Equity framework is being applied and influencing policy in over 30 countries worldwide, including Costa Rica, where the minister of finance, after seeing the results of Lustig’s work, reconsidered a tax reform that would have disproportionately affected the poor.

The U.S. and international media have seized on Lustig’s findings that high tax on food in Brazil wipes out the benefits of that country’s governmental direct cash transfers to the poor.

The prominence of Latin American studies at Tulane attracted Lustig, a member of the Mexican Academy of Sciences and author of over 40 peer-reviewed articles and 16 books and edited volumes, to the university in 2009.

She has been a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Studies Program of the Brookings Institution, Washington’s leading think tank, and president of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association, the premier association of economists with a focus on Latin America.

Lustig said that the Latin American experts in the humanities and social sciences at Tulane form “a critical mass.”

“For both researchers and students, critical mass means synergies: The whole is more than the sum of the parts. Because there is critical mass, I have often been able to collaborate with—and learn from—my colleagues in other disciplines.”

CROSSING BOUNDARIES Anthropology professor Judith Maxwell has been teaching a Tulane summer course on the Mayan language, Kaqchikel, in Guatemala for 27 years.

Maxwell said, “We are so prominent that when you go there, people joke there’s a Tulane dialect.”

Tulane also has an affiliated campus in Costa Rica, called Centro de Investigación y Adiestramiento Político Administrativo (CIAPA).

CIAPA was founded in 1974 during a period of tremendous upheaval for the region. CIAPA and Tulane have partnered to find solutions to Central America’s economic, political and social challenges.

CIAPA is the site of many Tulane-sponsored programs, including the

first-ever tropical and environmental studies semester in spring 2013, taught by six Tulane professors—Feoli; professors George Flowers and Stephen Nelson from the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences; Thomas Sherry and Sunshine Van Bael of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology; and Colin Crawford, executive director of the Payson Center for International Development, headquartered in Tulane Law School.

“At Tulane, you see a commitment to interdisciplinary education— more than in any other school where I’ve worked,” said Crawford.

Not only are Tulane students traveling to study in Latin America and professors going there to do research, but Latin American scholars are coming to the Tulane campus.

In May, CIPR co-hosted a seminar with Fundación RAP. Fourteen politicians from different political parties in Argentina along with 18 speakers from universities, think tanks, multilateral organizations and other institutions across the world examined the state of the art in social policy and how it may apply to Argentina.

While the trend at some universities has been to shy away from area studies as federal funding has dried up or focused more on certain areas key to American foreign policy, such as the Middle East, Latin American studies at Tulane remain stronger than ever.

“We are constantly being pushed into greater and greater specialization in academic fields,” said Maxwell.

But at Tulane there is another approach.

“There is recognition here of the need to cross boundaries rather than erect them.”

Michael DeMocker, 1998

access to quality, private health care. In contrast, people at the low end of the income spectrum often don’t even have bus fare to seek care at public facilities.

Arachu Castro, the Samuel Z. Stone Chair of Public Health in Latin America, came to Tulane from Harvard University in January 2013.

She is a medical anthropologist who has earned international recognition for her research into infectious diseases and women’s health in Latin America and the Caribbean. She is working now to analyze primary care throughout Latin America to better understand and improve healthcare systems serving people living in poverty.

There are public health systems in every Latin American country, and the great majority of pregnant women obtain care multiple times during pregnancy. But, still, thousands of women die of maternal causes every year. Castro is dedicated to finding out why these women often receive poor quality care. Her ultimate goal is to promote healthcare equity.

A Changing Cuba Cuba will always feel like home to Ana M. Lopez, but the streets feel new each time she visits.

“Every time I go to Cuba … within 24 hours I’m having one of these moments where it’s like, ‘What country am I in? I was just here six months ago,’” said Lopez, associate provost for faculty affairs, associate professor of communication, and director of the Cuban and Caribbean Studies Institute at Tulane.

Lopez and the growing number of Tulane students who visit Cuba each year for academic programs can expect to see even more change in the coming years after the announcement that the once-isolated Caribbean nation and the United States would improve relations, ease travel restrictions and pave the way for more U.S. investment.

“I was so moved when this announcement was made,” Lopez said. “I never thought I’d live to see the day.”

Lopez was 10 years old when her family left Havana in 1966.

She remembers the time through a child’s eyes—excited about her first plane ride. But she also remembered being ushered into a glass-walled room where those leaving were separated from their loved ones.

Tulane was one of the first universities to bring students to study in Cuba 16 years ago. Now the students are getting an opportunity to be a part of a changing culture that many others are reading about.

“I was always certain that giving our students knowledge about Cuba would give them an edge,” said Lopez. “I think Cuba is almost like a laboratory for social change.”—Sarah Netter

T U L A N E MAGA Z I N E M A R C H 2 0 1 5

19

20

M A R C H 2015 TULANE MAGA ZINE

PHOTOGRAPHY BY PAULA BURCH-CELENTANO

A Day in the

Life At BArBArA GreeNBAum House— t H e N ew e s t r e s i d e N c e H A L L o N t H e tuLANe cAmpus—studeNts ANd tHe fAcuLt y-memBer-iN-resideNce sHAre A jAm-pAcked 24 Hours.

By Alicia Duplessis Jasmin

Double Take A window on the courtyard of Barbara Greenbaum House at Newcomb Lawn reflects two sides of the building.

T U L A N E MAGA Z I N E M A R C H 2 0 1 5

21

3 a.m., mid-January The halls of Barbara Greenbaum House at Newcomb Lawn are quiet.

The sound of a closing door reverberates as a student returns to his room after a late-night study session.

On the third floor, a student battles sleep in hopes of conquering the contents of the economics book balanced on her lap. Coffee is her weapon of choice.

But most of the 256 student-residents housed in the building’s 144 rooms have turned in for the night.

7 a.m.

Danielle Roof, a senior from San Carlos, California, is prepped and ready to start her day working at the residence hall’s front desk. She is one of 10 resident advisers, or RAs, living and working in Barbara Greenbaum House.

A Pop-Tart in one hand and her Spanish textbook in the other, Danielle heads down to the lobby where she’ll sit for a two-hour shift.

“The early shifts are great because not much is going on,” said Danielle. “I can get a lot of reading done.”

Only a handful of students enter and exit the building this early.

Some are morning joggers. Some are carrying books. One smiles while listening to a caller on her cellphone.

All is calm. Danielle accomplishes a solid hour of studying.

10 a.m.

Ten minutes after her shift ends, Danielle returns to her room where she changes into a leotard for an 11 a.m. ballet class.

A buzz of chatter rises and falls in the halls as more residents begin making their way through the building.

11 a.m.

Emily Carlson, a senior from Pullman, Washington, is a three-year veteran RA. She’s mastered the art of scheduling of classes: Statistics for Scientists at 9 a.m., followed by Cognitive Neuroscience at 10

22

M A R C H 2015 TULANE MAGA ZINE

On Duty Top: Danielle Roof does desk duty, checking in guests and squeezing in study time.

Bottom: Emily Carlson, left, talks with student Amber Fessler outside her room in Barbara Greenbaum House

a.m. By midday, she is free to eat lunch, study, do laundry and tend to her RA duties.

Being a resident adviser isn’t always easy. Emily was once tasked with telling a student about the death of his mother. She recalls the desperation in the voice of the father who didn’t want his son to be alone after hearing the news. Emily made sure that he wasn’t.

Emily’s maturity is evident in her well-organized room on the second floor. First-year students flock to campus dining halls, but Emily keeps a stack of pots and pans on hand to cook her own meals. She enjoys baking cookies for her residents.

From the top of Emily’s window hangs a wedding dress. She is set to marry Tulane senior Eric Dupre, also a Greenbaum resident, in March, a couple of months before they both graduate in May. “We met as freshmen in Butler House and we’ve been together ever since,” said Emily. “The next few months will be pretty busy for both of us, but I’m really excited about the wedding and graduation.”

By now, first-time RA William Smith from Atlanta, Georgia, has returned from his 8 a.m. business class across campus. Upperclassmen would call a class that early in the day a rookie mistake, but Smith affirms he’s an early bird.

The well-travelled, well-dressed sophomore is double majoring in finance and political science. He heads back to his room to swap books ahead of his round of afternoon classes.

12:30 p.m.

William is interrupted by a knock on his door: A resident is locked out of his suite and has come to his trusty RA for help.

After working to get the student back into his room, William heads out to meet friends for lunch at Bruff Commons dining hall.

On the way out, he passes Danielle who’s returning from dance class. She rushes to her room for a quick shower and then changes into a floral skater dress, black tights and boots.

Next stop for Danielle is Tilton Hall across campus for an economics class. professor in residence Barbara Greenbaum House is one of three residence halls on the Tulane uptown campus with faculty-in-residence living quarters.

Lisa Molix, associate professor of psychology, lives there with her husband, Chuck Nichols, a professor at nearby Loyola University, and their 2-year-old daughter, Olivia.

By midday, Molix has taken Olivia to school, taught a graduate-level class, met with several students during her office hours, attended a research team meeting and answered a dozen emails. She eats lunch at her desk in her office in Percival Stern Hall.

Caregivers Left: William Smith posts tips on Mardi Gras safety to his floor’s bulletin board.

Right: Emily Carlson bakes cookies in the communal kitchen with her fiancé Eric Dupre.

Living in a residence hall surrounded by young people newly experiencing the freedom of adulthood may seem unusual for a married couple with a toddler, but it is a great fit for Lisa Molix’s family.

T U L A N E MAGA Z I N E M A R C H 2 0 1 5

23

Lush greenery grows in the courtyard of Barbara Greenbaum House.

6:30 p.m.

Dozens of residents gather in the lobby for the monthly cooking lesson put on by a professional chef in the residence hall’s stateof-the-art demonstration kitchen. There are professional-grade appliances, a prep area behind the kitchen and an overhead camera that allows students to see directly into the pot as the chef adds ingredients.

Today they’ll learn the proper way to prepare beef tenderloin.

Last month’s demonstration was shrimp étouffée.

8 p.m.

William bounces programming ideas off a female resident. Her opinion is golden to William because he’s trying to figure out what

24

M A R C H 2015 TULANE MAGA ZINE

ryan rivet

Serenity

3 p.m.

On this sunny winter day, Molix enjoys the four-minute walk from her office to the residence hall.

Her return to the apartment isn’t for a break: She meets with Diana Morris, community director, to plan “get engaged” student programs.

Molix says that living in an on-campus residence hall surrounded by young people newly experiencing the freedom of adulthood may seem unusual for a married couple with a toddler, but it is a great fit for her family.

“My husband didn’t mind at all. He likes the short commute and you can’t get much shorter than this,” said Molix.

Barbara Greenbaum House is designated a “Get Engaged Living Learning Community.” Residents are expected to participate in the community by attending talks by guest speakers, watching cooking demonstrations, discussing community-related issues and volunteering with local organizations.

At Home Lisa Molix, an associate professor, says living in the residence hall suits her family well.

In Her Honor

programming most appeals to the 20 female students under his charge. He’s resident adviser to only eight guys.

William’s most successful “get engaged” program to date is “The Beyoncé Bonding Experience,” in which his floor’s residents came together to eat pizza while watching a video of the famous entertainer’s world tour.

9:30 p.m.

Residents sit on L-shaped couches in the lobby in front of a large flatscreen television hanging on the wall. Their attention is glued to a popular TV drama.

But the RAs can’t stop to watch TV because they have a standing weekly meeting to attend.

The RAs gather in the James MacLaren Classroom at the corner of the residence hall to get their shift assignments. Several of them dread being assigned the least-wanted desk shifts during Carnival season.

Popular night parades such as Endymion and Bacchus mean the latenight return of student revelers. Those shifts are the hardest—the parades mean more noise late at night and less study time for the RAs.

Dance Hall Danielle Roof stretches to prepare for ballet class in McWilliams Hall.

On Sept. 6, 2014, Barbara Axelrod Greenbaum (NC ’63) gave a touching speech at the dedication of the newly built residence hall named in her honor.

She recalled living in Josephine Louise Hall 55 years earlier. The new Barbara Greenbaum House at Newcomb Lawn is a few steps away from where she lived in “JL.” “I would sit in the window of my second-floor room overlooking Newcomb Lawn,” she said. “I would never have imagined that there would be a dorm with my name on it.”

She called herself a “reluctant honoree.” Her husband, Jerry Greenbaum (B ’62), surprised her with the naming gift. She said she’d fought it “tooth and nail,” but eventually caved to her husband’s persuasion.

“The naming of this dorm represents a culmination of our love for Tulane and each other,” she said to the audience gathered for the ceremony. “Attending Tulane affected our lives in so many ways. Besides meeting each other here, we learned a way of life and an appreciation of culture and hospitality that only exist in New Orleans.”

The Greenbaums are the proprietors of CentraArchy and Affiliates, which operates a division of restaurants, alcoholic-beverage outlets and real estate. They are now living part time in New Orleans where they oversee their newest restaurant venture, Chophouse New Orleans.

—A.D.J.

10:30 p.m.

An hour later, the RA group emerges. All is fair. Numbers were drawn from a hat to determine Carnival shifts.

3 a.m.

Another middle of the night sleep-vs.-study battle is being fought by two students tackling organic chemistry.

The nervous economics student who was hunched over her textbook the previous night, though, is asleep.

She won her battle.

sally asher

12 a.m.

As the evening rolls on, the halls become quiet again. Most students have returned to their rooms for the night.

Barbara Greenbaum

T U L A N E MAGA Z I N E M A R C H 2 0 1 5

25

26

M A R C H 2015 TULANE MAGA ZINE

photo illustration by melinda viles

Natural

Rhythms MUSIC RISING AT T UL ANE PRE SERvE S AND PROTECT S THE MUSICAL HERITAGE OF THE GULF SOUTH, PRESENTING THE BEATING HEART OF AMERICAN MUSIC TO ANyONE WITH AN INTERNET CONNECTION.

By Michael Luke

Think of the natural resources of Louisiana and the Gulf South, and images of oil, gas, fish and fowl come to mind. But also springing up from the soil and shores is another equally vital natural resource: music.

Whether it is blues, gospel, hip-hop, jazz, funk or zydeco, there is no doubt that the iconic music is to be cherished. It is through the recognition of the cultural significance of these sacred sounds—and how endangered they were and how celebrated they should be—that Music Rising came to Tulane University.

The story of Music Rising at Tulane starts with a humanitarian effort in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. It eventually led to a coordinate major and dynamic state-of-the-art website housed in the New Orleans Center for the Gulf South of Tulane’s School of Liberal Arts. Its aim is to ensure a new generation of students and scholars who can serve as producers, consumers and advocates for the magical music of this region.

“We founded Music Rising to preserve the musical culture of the Gulf South,” said Bob Ezrin, the famed music producer who has worked with the likes of Lou Reed, Pink Floyd, Taylor Swift and New Orleans’ own Dr. John. He co-founded the Music Rising program with the Edge, the legendary guitarist for U2, the iconic rock band.

The musical landscape of the Gulf South is lush—from the brilliant, mystical horn of a man such as Buddy Bolden, who may have just been the first jazz superstar, to the hypnotic rhythms of Big Freedia, who has been instrumental in setting bounce music loose on the world.

From fast-paced, accordion-fueled zydeco to its cousin, a Cajun-infused genre affectionately nicknamed “swamp pop.” And from the earliest notes of funk from Professor Longhair to the hip-shaking rockabilly of Louisiana native Jerry Lee Lewis, this music influences the world.

T U L A N E MAGA Z I N E M A R C H 2 0 1 5

27

jason kempin/wireimage

Icons of Music The Edge of U2 and music producer Bob Ezrin team up at a benefit for Music Rising at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York City in 2008.

“When we grew up there was this mythical place called New Orleans that was the center of American music, for both of us. There seemed to be so much about New Orleans that was tied to its musical soul.

It was a place that we dreamed about.”

—Bob Ezrin,

music producer and Music Rising benefactor

28

M A R C H 2015 TULANE MAGA ZINE

Rising FRom the stoRm In the days after Hurricane Katrina, the musical culture of the region was indeed threatened.

“What we saw was basically a washing away of the culture of the Gulf South, particularly New Orleans. We saw so many people whose homes were flooded and who were displaced but also so many musicians who were the heart and soul of the region whose instruments were destroyed or lost,” Ezrin said, as he described how the images from the storm compelled him to act.

Music Rising would eventually replace 2,700 instruments for professional musicians in the Gulf South in those early days. And in the past 10 years, nearly $6 million worth of instruments—horns, drums, guitars and organs—have been donated through the program to musicians, schools and churches.

“Those musicians were the soul of New Orleans, and without the colorful sounds of their music being played, we would have lost one of the most important traditions of not only just North America but world music culture,” said the Edge in a video describing Music Rising’s initial response to help musicians after hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. To the Edge and Ezrin, music was an essential part of the rebuilding effort.

“Once we had given out the instruments,” Ezrin recalled, “we decided to complete the task of the preservation by donating $1 million to Tulane University toward the creation of a university-level course in the musical cultures of the Gulf South.” the beating heaRt oF ameRican music So why bring the program to New Orleans? Because jazz was born on the streets of New Orleans, and the city is at the beating heart of American music.

“Why is it that so much of American and global music can be traced to a very small region of the United States?” mused Joel Dinerstein, director of the Center for the Gulf South, who holds the James H. Clark Endowed Chair in American Civilization at Tulane.

“I consider the axis between Memphis and New Orleans to be one of the richest in the world,” he said, quickly answering his own question.

That axis, he added, has seen the invention of jazz, blues, soul and, perhaps, even rock ’n’ roll.

Dinerstein is the main architect and content coordinator of the Music Rising at Tulane website.

Carole Haber, dean of the School of Liberal Arts, also is an architect of the website. She said, of the music, “It is part of our historical creation as a country, as a region.”

This magic of the music wasn’t lost on the Edge or Ezrin, both of whom recognized the importance of the region.

Even though Ezrin grew up in Canada, and the Edge was raised in Ireland, the sounds of the city captivated them as kids.

“When we grew up there was this mythical place called New Orleans that was the center of American music, for both of us,” Ezrin said.

“There seemed to be so much about New Orleans that was tied to its musical soul. It was a place that we dreamed about.” iDeaL citY anD PeRFect uniVeRsitY The donation from Ezrin and the Edge’s group would be the beginning of a partnership between Music Rising and Tulane University. And if New Orleans was an ideal city for the program, Tulane was the perfect university, according to Ezrin.

“We visited a number of schools before we picked Tulane, and we

found that [provost] Michael Bernstein, dean Carole Haber, Joel Dinerstein, Nick Spitzer [professor of anthropology and American studies and founder, producer and host of “American Routes,” a public radio show that reaches nearly a million listeners a week] and their staffs were so impressive, so creative, so into the concept of building something organic like this that was going to continue to grow through the years,” Ezrin said. “They’ve been amazing partners to work with.”

Music Rising at Tulane, in the most simple of terms, is an educational tool, a wildly innovative one with countless parts. In addition to providing curriculum for students from kindergarten-age all the way through college, the website is a jukebox of sorts, music archive, museum, concert hall, Internet database of regional music and a documentary resource.

“Music Rising is a good illustration of how Tulane is a leader in the research, study, teaching and outreach of the Gulf South,” Haber said. “I think in many ways the Music Rising project embodies all of those things.”

RESOURCE FOR ALL At the fingertips of Music Rising website-goers are resources such as the Hogan Jazz Archive, part of Special Collections of the HowardTilton Memorial Library at Tulane. The Hogan Jazz Archive is the leading research center for the study of New Orleans jazz.

On the Music Rising link to the jazz archive are interviews of dozens of musicians, including jazz luminaries such as the great Louis Armstrong.

There is an exhaustive supply of videos on the Music Rising website with performances from the likes of musicians such as Professor Longhair buzzing on the piano keys and whistling through the immortal “Big Chief.” Also, Tutti Music Player, a downloadable device, allows users to interact and play along with music.

“The website’s objective is to be a resource for teachers, both at the college level—if you want to teach units on the region’s history and culture—and the K-12 level,” said Dinerstein. The site has 17 courses available on topics such as the creation of jazz in New Orleans, the rhythms of zydeco, the feathered beauty of the Mardi Gras Indians, the fiddles of Cajun music and the fiery brass of second-lines. All can be explored and are explained on the website.

“We didn’t just want to be the Wikipedia of the Gulf South,” Haber said. “We wanted to focus Music Rising from a teaching aspect and learning aspect. Music Rising is valuable whether you are a musician, a student or a teacher.”

Ezrin’s goal is that the music should be accessible for people from around the world. He wants folks from places as far and wide as Helsinki, Finland, and Juneau, Alaska, who have a passion for the region’s music, to be able to get their hands and ears on it.

Among the greetings on the Music Rising website is this enticement: “Create your own path of inquiry into the culture of the Gulf South through geography or genre, songs or themes, instruments or influences.”

“With the 10-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina upon us, we continue to be inspired by the resilience by our friends from New Orleans and the Gulf region,” said the Edge. “The dedication, fortitude and amazing spirit of the people continue to motivate us. I truly hope this is only the beginning to provide future generations of students an appreciation of the colorful and dynamic sounds and musical history of this very special part of the world.”

Musical Source The Music Rising at Tulane website contains a wealth of songs, photos, video and teaching tools.

T U L A N E MAGA Z I N E M A R C H 2 0 1 5

29

FOR THE PUBLIC GOOD Christian “Christy” T. Brown (A&S ’82, L ’85) reigned as Rex, King of Carnival, on Mardi Gras, Feb. 17, 2015. Brown is chair of the board of McIlhenny Co., maker of Tabasco, and managing director of NOLA Holdings, a private equity investment firm.

T U L A N I A N S

courtesy M. sophia NewMaN

Party Time

Telling Stories

30

M A RCH 2015 TULANE MAGA ZINE

Reporting on the Epidemic Through crowdsourcing, M. Sophia Newman funded her trip to Africa to write about the Ebola crisis.

CARNIVAL SHINDIGS Tulane alumni celebrate Mardi Gras around the country.

saLLy asher

A lifelong passion for writing and an interest in medicine led M. Sophia Newman (’09) to the villages of West Africa to shed light on the effects of the Ebola crisis.

For the last several months, the freelance journalist has been reporting on the social and economic consequences of the outbreak that has killed thousands and putting a spotlight on the plight of those who remain.

“I think I knew I was a writer when I was about 4 years old,” said Newman, who graduated from Tulane with a degree in cell and molecular biology and then went on to earn a master’s degree in public health from the University of Illinois–Chicago.

It was at Tulane that her interests collided. She credited a 2007 service-learning trip to Ghana and finding a mentor in Dr. Latha Rajan, an associate professor at the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, with setting her on her current path.

“My interest in infectious disease arose from my time at Tulane,” said Newman. “I’m fascinated with public health because you can get this breadth all the way from microbiology to vast economic and social consequences that stretch across international borders.”

With a trip funded through crowdsourcing on the journalism website Beacon, Newman went back last year to the village in Ghana where she first lived during her service-learning trip. From there, she researched and reported not just the devastation of the Ebola outbreak, but also how people responded to the disease that is still churning in countries like Sierra Leone.

“What I would like my work to do is remind readers that Ebola didn’t go anywhere yet, and that people worldwide are still working to find solutions to the epidemic, its aftermath and future risk,” Newman said. She will continue to report on the Ebola crisis for Beacon (www.beaconreader.com) for the next year.—Sarah Netter

As Chicago was in the throes of contending with an accumulation of a foot and a half of snow, two Tulane University alumni were awaiting delivery of a box of throws.

Aneesha Marwah (’09) and Margaret Walker (B ’09), co-presidents of the Tulane Club of Chicago, were planning a Mardi Gras bash for Feb. 13. They needed king cakes, beads and Tulane University swag. And they had to convince an Old Town club to make jambalaya and red beans and rice. With a playlist of Carnival music, the Chicagoans were ready to party New Orleans–style.

The after-work shindig was the second annual Carnival and Cocktails party in the Windy City since the club was revitalized last year.

“Last year, we were hoping for 50 people and we got about 150,” Marwah said. “Our club came back to life.”

She said the Chicago club’s recent events have helped bring together alumni from all parts of town. Club members have used various rendezvous events, such as a Green Wave football-watching party, to build social networks with others now living in Chicago.

Other Tulane clubs also threw Mardi Gras parties in Las Vegas, New England, Washington, D.C., New York, Houston and Orlando, Florida.

Coming up this spring is a spate of crawfish boils in far-flung cities. For more information, go to alumni.tulane.edu.—Fran Simon

Dispatch Mary Lou Lanier Fife W H E R E

Y ’ A T !

1940s GERALD BERENSON (A&S ’43, M ’45) and JOAN BERENSON (NC ’53) received the A.I. Botnick Torch of Liberty Award from the Anti-Defamation League in December. The Berensons are well known for their contributions to public health and their commitment to the Jewish community.

1950s Forbes published a profile on designer MIGNON FAGET (NC ’55) last November titled, “Mignon Faget: A Pioneer of Female Entrepreneurship in the South.”

CHARLES CARTER WICKS (A&S ’67), a Republican, was re-elected without opposition to his second six-year term as judge of Elkhart Superior Court No. 5, Elkhart County, Indiana.

1970s President Barack Obama nominated DAVID J. BERTEAU (A&S ’71) as assistant secretary of defense for logistics and materiel readiness.

He was confirmed for the post in December.

Previously, Berteau was a senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. ELON POLLACK (A&S ’71, L ’73) published “Developments in Customs-related Litigation in the U.S. Court of International Trade in 2013” in the Georgetown Journal of International Law. Since 2005, Pollack has served as the managing partner of Stein Shostak, Shostak, Pollack and O’Hara, a Los Angeles–based law firm. XINYU “JASON” LI (L ’97) practices in the firm’s Shanghai, China office.

WILLIAM E. BERTRAND (G ’72) delivered the keynote speech at the American University of Nigeria’s ninth Founder’s Day and 10th anniversary celebrations. Bertrand is a senior consultant on HIV/AIDS to the World Health Organization. He is the Wisner Professor of Public Health at Tulane University.

A. GREGORY GRIMSAL (A&S ’72, L ’79) was selected for inclusion in the 2015 Louisiana Super Lawyers list in the civil litigation: defense practice area. Grimsal is in the New Orleans office of Gordon Arata.

MARLENE ESKIND MOSES (NC ’72, SW ’73), founder of MTR Family Law in Nashville, Tennessee, was named on the 2014 Tennessee Top 100 Super Lawyers, 2014 Top 50 Nashville Super Lawyers and the 2014 Mid-South Top 50 Women Super Lawyers lists.

RANDOLPH C. READ (A&S ’72) joined the board of directors of New York REIT. Read is president and CEO of publicly traded Nevada Strategic Credit Investments and a member of the

Photos courtesy of Newcomb Archives ANd mAry Lou LANier fife

1960s NELL NOLAN (NC ’66, G ’70, ’72) starred in Love Letters at Mid-City Theatre in New Orleans on March 9 and 10, to benefit Bridge House and Mid-City Theatre.

Oldest living newcOmb alumna “Amos ’n’ Andy” was blowing up the radio airwaves. The sounds of swing music filled dance halls. Herbert Hoover was president. mary lou lanier Fife (NC ’30) was a young lady graduating from Newcomb College.

Now 106 years old, the Louisiana native is the oldest living Newcomb College alumna.

She recorded an oral history a couple of years ago at age 104, telling her daughter—Judy Fife mead (NC ’68)—how she got to Newcomb and how she made a name for herself on the basketball court more than 80 years ago. [Mother and daughter are pictured above.]

“I got a good education at Newcomb,” Fife said in the recorded history.

She was encouraged to apply to the college by her high school principal, Helen cox, herself a 1919 graduate of Newcomb College.

“She was really what you call a No. 1 principal. Nobody ever told her how to do anything. She knew it all herself,” Fife said.

And so when Cox told Fife to consider Newcomb, she didn’t even consider another school.

“She said it was the best school she could recommend,” Fife said. “When Miss Helen made a recommendation, that was it. You never would think of going any other place.”

Fife made the most of her education and made a name for herself in women’s sports, including bowling, synchronized swimming and handball—her favorite. [In the inset photo, Fife is pictured with the bowling team on the back row, second from left.]

But it was her skills on the basketball court that earned her a mention in a local newspaper article and also the nickname “Lanky Lanier.”

“I was good,” Fife said. “And everybody said I was good so I got to thinking in myself I must be good.”

After graduating from Newcomb College with a bachelor’s degree in physics, Fife taught physics and geometry as well as other math courses. She now lives in Dallas.

—saRaH netteR

T UL A N E MAGA Z I N E M A R C H 20 1 5

31

CHARBROILED OYSTERS With nearly $80,000 raised on Kickstarter, Thomas Waller (TC ’02), a Navy ROTC graduate, and his brother have launched a product they developed, The Oyster Bed, for grilling or baking oysters.

W H E R E

Y ’ A T !

company’s audit committee, nominating and corporate governance committee and compensation committee.

NANCY CAIN (NC ’73) announces the publication of Against the Grain, a cookbook of gluten-free recipes. Cain is the owner of Against the Grain Gourmet, a line of gluten-free breads and pizzas available at supermarkets and natural food stores nationwide. She lives with her gluten-free family in Vermont.

MICHAEL E. BOTNICK (L ’75) was selected for inclusion in the 2015 Louisiana Super Lawyers list in the construction litigation practice area.

He is in the New Orleans office of Gordon Arata.

WILLIAM F. CARROLL JR. (G ’75), a vice president at Occidental Chemical Corp. in Dallas, was reelected director-at-large of the board of directors of the American Chemical Society. Additionally, Carroll is an adjunct industrial professor of chemistry at Indiana University–Bloomington.

He resides in Dallas with his wife, Mary.

JUDY WEISS LEFKOVITZ (NC ’75), executive vice president and chief information and administrative officer of DSI Renal, a national dialysis provider, received the 2014 Nashville Business Journal CIO Award for large private companies in middle Tennessee.

JAIME R. GARZA (A&S ’76), a Tulane Athletic Hall of Fame member, was elected chair of the board of regents for the Texas State University System.

Garza is a professor of surgery and of otolaryngology as well as assistant dean for South Texas affairs at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.

CYNTHIA A. NICHOLSON (NC ’77, L ’80) was selected for inclusion in the 2015 Louisiana Super Lawyers list in the energy and natural resources practice area. Nicholson is in the New Orleans office of Gordon Arata.

The Frat House Fire Escape Plan: Sigma Nu, Tulane and the 1970s, a memoir by CHARLES McCAIN (A&S ’78), was published as an e-book on Amazon. This is McCain’s second book, following An Honorable German, a World War II naval epic published by Hachette in 2009.

SARAH VANCE (L ’78) is chief judge of U.S. District Court in New Orleans. She is the first woman to chair the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, which determines whether or not to consolidate cases before a single federal judge for pretrial proceedings. Recently she oversaw pretrial work in a major antitrust case involving more than 30 class actions.

1980s EMILY VERGES REYNOLDS (E ’80) was recognized as a 2014 outstanding board member for Working Wardrobes, a nonprofit organization based in Costa Mesa, California. Working Wardrobes has helped more than 60,000 adults transition from welfare, domestic abuse, homelessness

32

M A RCH 2015 TULANE MAGA ZINE

and other traumatic situations to gainful employment.

MIKE KAHN (B ’81) is president of the Texas Society for Human Resource Management, representing 19,000 human resources professionals and 34 chapters throughout the state. He is an executive search consultant with the Lucas Group in Houston, specializing in HR positions.

RICHARD S. MITCHELL (B ’81) was named in Ohio Super Lawyers magazine in the field of business litigation. He is a partner in Roetzel’s Cleveland office.

MELANIE YOUNG (NC ’81) announces the publication of her second book, Fearless Fabulous You! Lessons on Living Life on Your Terms, by Plain Sight Publishing last November. Young hosts two national radio shows on iHeart Radio: “Fearless Fabulous You!” and “The Connected Table Live” with her husband, wine writer David Ransom.

JOHN PELZER (L ’83) was selected for the 2014 Super Lawyers Business Edition in the appellate division. Pelzer is in the Fort Lauderdale, Florida, office of Greenspoon Marder.

MICHAEL G. WHITE (G ’83) published a new album, New Orleans Brass Bands: Through the Streets of the City, by Smithsonian Folkways in February. White, a bandleader and jazz authority, arranged and produced the music that spans three generations of brass band music.

MARION WELBORN WEINSTOCK (NC ’84, L ’87) was selected for inclusion in the 2015 Louisiana Super Lawyers list in the business/corporate practice area. Weinstock is in the New Orleans office of Gordon Arata.

ANTHONY “TONY” DUNBAR (L ’85) joined Chaffe McCall as partner for the real estate and finance practice in the firm’s New Orleans office. Dunbar was previously associate general counsel with Capital One. He has maintained an active pro bono practice, primarily serving abused and neglected children. Dunbar is also the author of several novels and works of nonfiction.

President Barack Obama nominated LUIS FELIPE RESTREPO (L ’86) to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. He has been a U.S. district judge since June 2013.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation presented LIZ MARTIN BRISTER (B ’87) and PATTY RIDDLEBARGER (B ’06) its Citizens Award for Best Economic Empowerment for Entergy Corp.’s Super Tax Day initiative. The efforts have helped approximately 58,000 low-income individuals file for and receive $100 million in earned income tax refunds since 2009.

LYN ENTZEROTH (L ’87), recognized internationally for her expertise on capital punishment, was named dean of the University of Tulsa’s College of Law beginning July 1, 2015.

DONNA PHILLIPS CURRAULT (L ’89) was selected for inclusion in the 2015 Louisiana Super Lawyers list in the employment and labor practice area. Currault is in the New Orleans office of Gordon Arata.

1990s Lightwire Theater dance troupe, directed by IAN CARNEY (A&S ’90), won the top prize of $100,000 on truTV’s “Fake Off” talent competition, in which 10 teams recreate iconic moments in pop culture. Lightwire performed “Studio 74,” an interpretation of the 1970s disco hotspot.

In November, KAREN BOLINGER DESALVO (M ’92, PHTM ’92), acting U.S. assistant secretary for health with the U.S. Health and Human Services Department, received a Weiss Humanitarian Award from the New Orleans Council for Community and Justice.

MICHAEL HERRMANN (E ’93) was promoted from senior project executive to principal of O’Donnell & Naccarato, a Philadelphiaheadquartered structural engineering firm.

Herrmann joined the firm as a summer intern in 1992 and has been involved in the execution and management of healthcare, education, retail, office and residential projects.

In January, TIM GRIFFIN (L ’94) was sworn in as lieutenant governor of Arkansas. Griffin formerly served as special assistant to the president and deputy director of political affairs for President George W. Bush. Griffin lives in Little Rock with his wife, Elizabeth, and their two children.

NINA BIANCHI SKINNER (B ’97) joined Liskow & Lewis as a shareholder in the firm’s Houston office. Her practice is focused on representing companies in the areas of corporate and business law.

CHRISTOPHER HENNESSEY (A&S ’98) was named partner at the law firm of Cohen Kinne Valicenti & Cook in January. Hennessey represents businesses and individuals in all areas of litigation.

He is on the board of the Massachusetts Performance & Asset Management Advisory Council.

DEBRA HOURY (M ’98, PHTM ’98) is director of the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Houry comes to the CDC from the Emory University School of Medicine.

BRIAN BOYLES (TC ’99) announces publication of New Orleans Boom and Blackout: One Hundred Days in America’s Coolest Hotspot (History Press, 2015) about the 100 days prior to New Orleans hosting Super Bowl XLVII in 2013. Boyles is vice president of content at the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities.

In 2014, the Miami chapter of the American Institute of Architects honored JACOB BRILLHART (A ’99) with the Young Architect of the Year award and a Residential Architecture Honor Award for his “Brillhart Residence.”

Dispatch Roy Frumkes CRAIG A. PLATT (TC ’99) moved to New York City in February to assume the position of senior vice president and creative director of marketing at Showtime Network.

2000s ANDREW KIRKPATRICK (TC ’00) and his wife, Susan, announce the birth of Theodore Charles on March 27, 2014. The baby is the greatgrandson of the late EARLY B. LOKEY (M ’41) and great-great-grandson of the late RICHARD W. GRIFFIN (M 1894).

Photographer FRANK RELLE (TC ’00) has customized a boat to include generator power, 25-foot lighting stands and an industrial tripod that can be submerged in 30 feet of water. He explores Louisiana swamps in a new series of photos, “Until the Water.”

JASON BARBEAU (L ’01) is a senior environmental attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice.

He helped win a landmark settlement with Hyundai and Kia Motors that resulted in a $100 million civil fine, the largest in history for a Clear Air Act violation.

The League for Innovation in Community Colleges recognized DEREK D. BARDELL (G ’01, ’02) as a John & Suanne Roueche Excellence Award recipient for meritorious service to Delgado Community College in New Orleans.

ELAINE KEYSER (B ’02) was elevated to shareholder in Littler, the world’s largest employment and labor law practice, representing management. She works in the firm’s Miami office.

KATHLEEN VICKERY (G ’02) co-authored Health Actions for Women: Practical Strategies to Mobilize for Change, published by Hesperian Health Guides.

RICHARD D. COLLER III (E ’03) was elected to directorship of the intellectual property law firm Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox in the mechanical group. Prior to joining Sterne Kessler, Coller worked as a biomedical engineering university research assistant focusing on the design and testing of surgical implants and the development of biosensors for medical and counterterrorism applications.

MARISSA HERSHON (NC ’03) co-authored a publication, Silver: An American Art—The Milo M. Naeve Collection of American Silver for the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. Spanning from the late 19th to the mid 20th century, the catalog entries present narratives about acclaimed American silversmiths. The catalog is available through the MFAH store by contacting mfahshoponline@mfah.org.

PHILLIP J. ANTIS JR. (L ’04) and DANA E. DUPRE (L ’07) are included in 2015 Louisiana Rising

FRANCO FRASSETTI

JONATHAN WACHMAN (B ’00) and MELISSA ENSON WACHMAN (NC ’03) announce the birth of Evan Rex on Aug. 15, 2014, in New York.

HORROR FILMS Over the course of a 32-year journey, filmmaker Roy Frumkes (A&S ’77) [pictured here with a prop from the horror movie Fiend Without a Face] created Document of the Dead, possibly the first “making-of” documentary shot about an independent film.

When Frumkes began teaching filmmaking at the School of Visual Arts in New York City in the late 1970s, he proposed that the university fund a series of films deconstructing the independent filmmaking process for students. Document of the Dead was one of those teaching tools.

Learning that George A. Romero was filming a follow-up to Night of the Living Dead, Frumkes approached the producer and received approval to shoot a documentary.

Frumkes’ crew drove to the Dawn of the Dead set in a Pittsburgh mall and covered Romero’s filmmaking process, from the nightly shoots to postproduction.

“It was interesting to see the odyssey of the zombie film. Romero saw the mall as the nesting place of the 1970s zombies. Zombies for him are always a metaphor,” said Frumkes.

Frumkes also got the chance to step out from behind the scenes and stagger on camera as a zombie.

“Tom Savini, the Salvador Dali of the makeup industry, said, ‘Would you like to be a zombie?’ The transformation took about 40 minutes,” said Frumkes. Savini’s gruesome work was short-lived, as the scene called for Frumkes to receive a pie in the face.

Frumkes continues to cover Romero’s projects about every 10 years.

Frumkes currently teaches film history and screenwriting classes at the School of Visual Arts and owns the online magazine Films in Review. The filmmaker is developing a YouTube series based upon his short film Swirlee.

Frumkes credits his grandfather with introducing him to the world of film and show business.

“My grandfather was Houdini’s agent, and I grew up regaled with all of his stories.

That’s my biggest early influence,” he said.

Attending Tulane from 1962–1966, Frumkes worked as The Hullabaloo entertainment editor while studying English and creative writing.

“Tulane was a wonderful place. I had a great time there,” said Frumkes.

—MARY CROSS

T UL A N E MAGA Z I N E M A R C H 20 1 5

33

Dispatch Veronica Swanson Beard Stars. Antis is in business litigation and Dupre is in energy and natural resources in the New Orleans office of Gordon Arata.

JEREMY HERSCHAFT (L ’04) was elected to the partnership of Blank Rome, where he practices in the maritime, international trade and government contracts group with the firm’s Houston office. Prior to joining Blank Rome in 2011, Herschaft practiced with Phelps Dunbar in New Orleans. He is married to MEROË MORSE (M ’11).

MEREDITH YOUNGHEIN (NC ’04) married Brian Zollner Alexander on May 31, 2014, in Carmel Valley, California. The wedding party included the bride’s brother, JOHN ANDREW YOUNGHEIN (M ’14), ANNE DIETRICH DIEMER (NC ’04) and JULIA FOSTER (NC ’04). Many Tulane alumni from the classes of 2003 and 2004 attended.

Younghein holds a JD from Lewis & Clark Law School and is a senior energy policy analyst at the California Public Utilities Commission.

Alexander is a senior account executive for the San Francisco–based public relations firm Allison+Partners. The couple lives in Lafayette, California.

SARAH EDGAR KEEPERS (B ’05) and her husband, Robert Keepers, welcomed their first child, Kyndall Irene, on Nov. 26, 2014. The family lives in Dallas.

michael malyszko

STEPHEN NELSON (TC ’05) joined the commercial litigation team at Duffy & Sweeney, headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island. He previously completed clerkships in the Rhode Island Supreme Court for Francis X. Flaherty and in the Rhode Island Superior Court in Newport County.

FASHION FORWARD When she’s designing clothes in her Manhattan studio, Veronica Swanson Beard (NC ’01) looks close to home for inspiration.

“We always say we are our customer. We walk in her shoes,” said Beard, who along with her sister-in-law, also named Veronica Beard, launched their eponymous brand in 2010.

The line features classics with a modern twist—pintuck tees, crisp blazers with a side zipper and the signature interchangeable jacket insert they lovingly call a dickey.

She got her first look at New York City’s fashion industry as a Tulane student when she spent the summer between her junior and senior years interning for Oscar de la Renta.

“I always wanted to be in fashion since I was a little girl,” said Beard, who has been featured in Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. “That was my first real taste of it.”

After graduating from Tulane, Beard moved to New York City and attended Parsons School for Design before going to work for fashion giants such as Narciso Rodriguez and Alberta Ferretti.

Launching her own line has “been amazing,” Beard said. “I feel so lucky to be able to do what I love.”

Beard, now a mother to three boys, has a message to everyone else trying to make their dreams come true, especially students still in college.

“Spend those summers interning. Figure it out,” Beard said. “Get as much exposure to work as you can. Understand the business you’re interested in and educate yourself.

Network!”

The Veronica Beard line has been sold in 150 stores internationally. Next up, Beard is looking to open their own retail store and eventually expand their line to include shoes and bags.

“We’re building carefully and steadily,” she said. “It’s all about staying power and being relevant.”—SARAH NETTER

34

M A RCH 2015 TULANE MAGA ZINE

At a vineyard in Vermont, RACHEL MANIKIAN (NC ’06) married BENJAMIN GROSSMAN (B ’05) on Sept. 20, 2014. Bridesmaids included ERIN CONDON (NC ’06) and CHRYSSI MIKUS (B ’06).

Groomsmen included ANDREW GOLLINGER (B ’05), SHEEL PATEL (B ’05), ERIC FREEMAN (B ’05) and GAURAV MANCHANDA (TC ’05). Many other Tulane alumni attended the wedding.

The couple lives in New York City, where Rachel Grossman is a clinical social worker at a public high school, and Ben Grossman is a chartered financial analyst for a mergers and acquisitions consultancy firm.

SARAH E. TANNO (B ’06) and JONATHAN A. PAGE (’07, M ’11) were married on Dec. 13, 2014, in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. Tanno is a forensic accountant at the U.S. Department of Labor, and Page is a resident at the Fairfax Family Practice Center. The couple lives in Washington, D.C. MATTHEW S. ALMON (L ’07) was elected a member of Stone Pigman in New Orleans in January; he has been with the firm since 2008.

Almon concentrates his practice on commercial, employment and intellectual property matters and assists with complex appellate matters. He has been named a Rising Star by Louisiana Super Lawyers.

NINJA DOC Noah Kaufman (M ’03), an emergency medicine physician, is an avid rock climber. He has appeared on four different episodes of NBC’s obstacle-course show, “American Ninja Warrior.” Kaufman also is CEO and co-founder of Ninja Productions, an innovator of medical devices, and president of the Kaufman Medical Group.

F A R E W E L L MEGAN BOUDREAUX (’08) announces the publication of her book, Miracle on Voodoo Mountain: A Young Woman’s Remarkable Story of Pushing Back the Darkness for the Children of Haiti, by Thomas Nelson. At the age of 24, Boudreaux founded Respire Haiti, a nonprofit that fights for the freedom of Haiti’s estimated 300,000 child slaves. Boudreaux has adopted four Haitian children and, in 2013, married Josh Anderson.

NINA K. MÜLLER-SCHWARZE (G ’08) announces the publication of her book, The Blood of Victoriano Lorenzo: An Ethnography of the Cholos of Northern Coclé Province, Panama,

by McFarland. Müller-Schwarze is a cultural anthropologist and senior research fellow at the Southern Food and Beverage Museum in New Orleans.

ALEXIS RUFFINO (NC ’04), SARA LEWIS (L ’09) and LYNDSEY A. KIRCHNER (PHTM ’12) are co-chairs of this year’s Brass Bash. The event benefits Luke’s House Clinic in New Orleans, the city’s only free medical and mental healthcare clinic. ERICA WASHINGTON (PHTM ’09), healthcare-associated infections coordinator for the Louisiana Office of Public Health, served as chair of the clinic’s board of directors from 2012–2014.

2010s MACKENZIE BISSET (PHTM ’10) is finishing a master’s degree in healthcare quality and patient safety at Northwestern University. Bisset is the clinical quality consultant for the care coordination entity of Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago. The managed care program for medically complex children aims to improve outcomes and save costs.

ADAM RATZLAFF (’13), a member of the Gender and Diversity Division of the Inter-American Development Bank, is working on development with identity of indigenous peoples and African descendants. He recently has been involved in the dissemination of results from an impact evaluation on a music education program in Peru. He blogged about some of the benefits of music education programs and compared the program to the Roots of Music program in New Orleans, one of his service-learning sites while studying at Tulane University. Prior to joining the IDB, Ratzlaff worked with the World Bank’s Latin America and Caribbean Poverty, Gender and Equity Unit. Before, he was involved with the Commitment to Equity project, a joint research program through the Tulane Center for Inter-American Policy and Research, the Tulane Department of Economics and InterAmerican Dialogue.

TED BARROWS (’14) is a programming assistant with the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra. He says he has interacted “with legendary musicians, including but not limited to Dee Dee Bridgewater and Bill Summers.” As a music major, Barrows interned with NOJO through the Tulane Center for Public Service.

Dorothy Ryckman Caplan (NC ’34) of New Orleans on Oct. 12, 2014.

Jane Smith Shields (NC ’39) of Staunton, Virginia, on Oct. 25, 2014.

Shelby Flowers Ferris (NC ’40) of Vicksburg, Mississippi, on Aug. 3, 2014.

George E. Burgess Jr. (A&S ’43, L ’48) of Atlanta on Oct. 12, 2014.

Robert E. Le Blanc III (E ’44) of Bethesda, Maryland, on July 12, 2014.

John E. Pritchard (A&S ’44) of Pass Christian, Mississippi, on Feb. 11, 2014.

James A. Ward Jr. (M ’44) of Mountain Brook, Alabama, on Sept. 24, 2014.

Ruth Rosen Weisler (NC ’44) of New Orleans on Oct. 21, 2014.

Edward A. Brown (A&S ’45) of Santa Fe, New Mexico, on Sept. 24, 2014.

John D. Elmore (M ’45) of Birmingham, Alabama, on Feb. 21, 2014.

B.J. Parnell (M ’47) of Dallas on Sept. 25, 2014.

Joseph J. Ranna (E ’47) of New Orleans on Nov. 30, 2014.

Judson M. Allred Jr. (A&S ’48) of Jackson, Mississippi, on Nov. 16, 2014.

Richard F. Blake (E ’48) of Mount Arlington, New Jersey, on Jan. 16, 2014.

Robert R. Burch (A&S ’48, M ’51) of Dallas on Dec. 18, 2014.

Marie Tremoulet Davidson (NC ’48) of New Orleans on May 18, 2014.

Mary Schmidt Favrot (NC ’48) of Metairie, Louisiana, on Dec. 15, 2014.

Leslie L. Givens Jr. (E ’48) of Chattanooga, Tennessee, on Oct. 3, 2014.

Frank T. Marascalco (M ’48) of Oxford, Mississippi, on Dec. 1, 2014.

Roy J. Barbier (A&S ’49) of Marion, Ohio, on Dec. 12, 2014.

Mary Kellogg (NC ’45) of New Orleans on Nov. 11, 2014.

Loyce Brownson Haag (NC ’49, SW ’66) of Metairie, Louisiana, on Sept. 29, 2014.

Stavros D. Louchis (E ’45) of Lockeford, California, on Nov. 12, 2014.

Ernest P. Johnson Jr. (UC ’49, B ’58) of New Orleans on March 24, 2014.

Katharine Hahn Myar (NC ’45) of Hermosa Beach, California, on Aug. 5, 2014.

Louis W. Jumonville Jr. (A&S ’49) of Nashville, Tennessee, on Oct. 29, 2014.

Gayle Dahmer Stoneback (NC ’45) of Allentown, Pennsylvania, on Nov. 30, 2014.

Harold R. Neuburger (B ’49, B ’50) of Jefferson, Louisiana, on Sept. 30, 2014.

Charles H. Weatherly (E ’45, PHTM ’75) of Fairhope, Alabama, on Oct. 20, 2014.

Philip J. Sciortino (A&S ’49) of New Orleans on Nov. 1, 2014.

Jane Reynolds LeBlanc (NC ’46) of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on Sept. 29, 2014.

Jack G. Bryan (B ’50) of Slidell, Louisiana, on Dec. 18, 2014.

William A. Thomas (E ’46) of Hendersonville, North Carolina, on Nov. 11, 2014.

William P. Conery III (A&S ’50) of New Orleans on Nov. 15, 2014.

Frank S. Bruno (A&S ’47, L ’50) of New Orleans on Nov. 23, 2014.

William C. Hartranft (B ’50) of Columbus, North Carolina, on Sept. 14, 2014.

James J. Hudgens (E ’47) of Pensacola, Florida, on Nov. 21, 2014.

Edward J. Hodge (B ’50) of Houston on Nov. 8, 2014.

George C. Logan (E ’47) of Metairie, Louisiana, on Nov. 5, 2014.

Noel V. Ice (M ’50) of Santa Fe, New Mexico, on Oct. 4, 2014.

Margot Bennett Logan (NC ’47) of New Orleans on Oct. 24, 2014.

J.T. McKay Jr. (A&S ’50) of Covington, Louisiana, on Nov. 15, 2014.

Courtney E. Owens (B ’47) of Laguna Niguel, California, on Nov. 17, 2014.

Jack M. Short (A&S ’50) of Moore, Oklahoma, on Oct. 5, 2014.

T UL A N E MAGA Z I N E M A R C H 20 1 5

35

DARK AGES INTO THE LIGHT Caecilia Davis-Weyer, professor of medieval art history at the Newcomb Art Department from 1967–1996, died on Oct. 17, 2014, in New Orleans. A devoted and dedicated teacher and scholar of the early Middle Ages, she was known to assign foreign language articles to be read by her undergraduate students, and then spend hours in her office helping students translate them.

F A R E W E L L John L. Ashman (A&S ’51) of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on Dec. 6, 2014.

Francis A. Caragliano (B ’57) of Metairie, Louisiana, on Oct. 5, 2014.

Donald J. Faucheaux (UC ’61) of Metairie, Louisiana, on Oct. 31, 2014.

Oscar J. Bienvenu Jr. (A&S ’51, M ’54) of Natchitoches, Louisiana, on Dec. 15, 2014.

Fortune C. Frenoy (G ’57) of Wheeling, West Virginia, on Nov. 21, 2014.

Eugene T. LaFleur (A ’61) of Greenville, South Carolina, on March 28, 2014.

Patricia Greenfield (NC ’51) of New Orleans on Oct. 21, 2014.

John E. Harris (M ’57) of Tupelo, Mississippi, on Dec. 9, 2014.

Lawrence M. Sylvestre (B ’61) of Mobile, Alabama, on Oct. 23, 2014.

J.H. Stiles Jr. (M ’51) of Knoxville, Tennessee, on Dec. 18, 2014.

Warren J. Lieberman (M ’57) of Coral Gables, Florida, on Oct. 4, 2014.

Robert W. Taylor (A&S ’61, M ’65) of Fairbanks, Alaska, on Dec. 10, 2014.

Samuel R. Vitellaro (E ’51) of Arlington, Texas, on Nov. 6, 2014.

Shirley Bernstein Melnick (B ’57) of Englewood, Colorado, on May 22, 2014.

Charmaine Allmon-Mosby (G ’63) of Bowling Green, Kentucky, on Oct. 25, 2014.

Joseph B. Perez (M ’52) of Rockford, Illinois, on Dec. 2, 2014.

Mary Ready (NC ’57) of New Orleans on Oct. 13, 2014.

Joseph R. Berrigan Jr. (G ’63) of Athens, Georgia, on Sept. 28, 2014.

Fallon W. Bentz (L ’53) of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on Nov. 21, 2014.

Donald P. Boudreaux (E ’58, ’65) of Covington, Louisiana, on Sept. 29, 2014.

Jean Graves (SW ’63) of Henrico, Virginia, on Oct. 30, 2014.

Jerry A. Fortenberry (M ’53) of Columbia, Mississippi, on Feb. 12, 2014.

Don H. Burt (M ’58) of Durham, North Carolina, on Jan. 19, 2014.

Collin J. Hightower (G ’63) of Santa Ana, California, on Oct. 1, 2014.

Robert L. Wilson (B ’53) of Ellijay, Georgia, on Aug. 27, 2014.

Virginia Slaughter Geiss (NC ’58) of St. Francisville, Louisiana, on Sept. 27, 2014.

Judith Kelleher Schafer (NC ’63, G ’78, ’85) of New Orleans on Dec. 16, 2014.

Erna Deiglmayr (SW ’54) of New Orleans on Dec. 26, 2014.

Karl J. Kirchberg (A&S ’58, L ’61) of Metairie, Louisiana, on Nov. 6, 2014.

Bruce T. Storey (A&S ’63) of Signal Mountain, Tennessee, on Nov. 8, 2014.

Robert D. Hill (M ’54) of Seguin, Texas, on Oct. 15, 2014.

Charles S. Pendleton (A&S ’58) of Granbury, Texas, on Dec. 13, 2014.

Michele Bailliet (NC ’64, G ’71) of Thibodaux, Louisiana, on Oct. 13, 2014.

E.M. Marks (A&S ’55) of Jackson, Mississippi, on Sept. 29, 2014.

Susan Smith Arpad (NC ’59) of Wadsworth, Ohio, on April 7, 2014.

Robert L. Barrett (M ’64) of Aledo, Texas, on Oct. 18, 2014.

John F. Marshall (E ’55) of Bogalusa, Louisiana, on Oct. 26, 2014.

Bernard H. Berins (A&S ’59, L ’62) of Metairie, Louisiana, on Oct. 29, 2014.

Clarence J. Brauner Jr. (UC ’65) of Brandon, Florida, on Oct. 6, 2014.

David E. Monnin (E ’55) of Marina Del Rey, California, on Feb. 5, 2014.

Claudette Webster Roush (NC ’59) of Houston on Dec. 13, 2014.

Emmett J. Moran Jr. (A&S ’64) of Mandeville, Louisiana, on Oct. 22, 2014.

Jerald N. Andry (A&S ’56, L ’58) of New Orleans on Nov. 9, 2014.

Samuel J. Simmons III (M ’59) of Daphne, Alabama, on Nov. 4, 2014.

Marilyn Reedy (SW ’64) of Evans, Georgia, on Oct. 21, 2014.

William G. Gaudet Sr. (A&S ’56, L ’63) of Lafayette, Louisiana, on Nov. 28, 2014.

Raymond A. Brady (A&S ’60) of Folsom, Louisiana, on Nov. 3, 2014.

Thomas H. Cato (B ’65) of Nashville, Tennessee, on Nov. 1, 2014.

John B. Hill (M ’56) of Shreveport, Louisiana, on June 17, 2014.

Ramona Cormier (G ’60) of Sulphur, Louisiana, on Oct. 28, 2014.

Richard T. Gillette (B ’65, ’66) of Lafayette, Louisiana, on Dec. 7, 2014.

August Perez III (A ’56) of Humble, Texas, on Dec. 5, 2014.

Thomas T. O’Connor (B ’60) of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on Oct. 14, 2014.

Juanita Steed Jolissaint (G ’65) of Mandeville, Louisiana, on Oct. 27, 2014.

John F. Rowley (L ’56) of Meraux, Louisiana, on Nov. 5, 2014.

Henry H. Payne Jr. (M ’60) of Pensacola, Florida, on Oct. 10, 2014.

Andrew F. Macdonald (A&S ’65, G ’66) of Marble Falls, Texas, on May 26, 2014.

Leonard A. Wilcox Jr. (G ’56) of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on Sept. 25, 2014.

James E. Spence (A&S ’60, M ’63) of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, on Nov. 7, 2014.

Jeanne Capdevielle Mitchell (NC ’65) of Virginia Beach, Virginia, on Oct. 9, 2014.

Emily Friend Bayle (NC ’57) of Metairie, Louisiana, on Nov. 28, 2014.

Will R. Blackburn (M ’61) of Fairhope, Alabama, on Nov. 21, 2014.

Nancy Bernard Pardue (NC ’65) of Summit, Mississippi, on Oct. 16, 2014.

Durward L. Blakey (PHTM ’57) of Raymond, Mississippi, on Dec. 6, 2014.

Philip J. Carroll Jr. (G ’61) of Houston on Oct. 6, 2014.

Howard G. Dugas (A&S ’67) of Port Orchard, Washington, on Nov. 15, 2014.

36

M A RCH 2015 TULANE MAGA ZINE

Bonnie Bosworth Steen (NC ’67, SW ’86) of Metairie, Louisiana, on Nov. 28, 2014.

Fred C. Hartman (PHTM ’69) of Cedar Park, Texas, on Oct. 9, 2014.

Vergie Laughlin (SW ’69) of Waco, Texas, on Nov. 5, 2014.

Allen M. Johnson Sr. (G ’70, ’00) of New Orleans on Oct. 17, 2014.

William P. Nelsen (UC ’70) of Montgomery, Ohio, on Sept. 5, 2014.

Grace Murphy Overson (UC ’70) of New Orleans on Nov. 29, 2014.

Charlotte Mathes Quinn (UC ’70) of Mobile, Alabama, on Nov. 5, 2014.

Peter F. Vant Hull (B ’70) of Minneapolis on Nov. 16, 2014.

Rupert C. Morgan (G ’71) of Carlsbad, California, on Aug. 14, 2014.

Albert B. Fink Jr. (G ’72) of Denver on Sept.

18, 2014.

Nicholas C. Kierniesky (G ’72) of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on Oct. 16, 2014.

John M. Hobart (M ’73) of Lake Forest, Illinois, on Dec. 26, 2014.

Gregory McGar (E ’73) of Covington, Louisiana, on Oct. 21, 2014.

Lee R. Frazier (PHTM ’74) of Gulfport, Mississippi, on Oct. 16, 2014.

John L. Boling (L ’75) of Jacksonville, Florida, on Nov. 6, 2014.

Tatham E. Hertzberg (A&S ’75) of Highlands, North Carolina, on Oct. 6, 2014.

R. O. Nussbaum Jr. (G ’75) of New Orleans on Oct. 22, 2014.

John C. Hildebrand Jr. (A&S ’76, B ’77) of Osprey, Florida, on Nov. 30, 2014.

John H. Marlin (SW ’76) of Greensboro, North Carolina, on Nov. 13, 2014.

BELIEVER IN TRADITION W. Boatner Reily III (A&S ’50), who died on Jan. 5, 2015, in New Orleans, was a great believer in tradition, both in our company and for Mardi Gras.

Boatner (he always went by his middle name) was my cousin. We shared the same grandfather, William B. Reily, founder of our family business, Wm. B. Reily & Co., whose product lines included tea, coffee, mayonnaise, sauces, bottled water and specialty foods. Standard Coffee Service Co. was one of our service companies.

During his time as company president, Boatner always occupied the same office that our grandfather had at our company headquarters on Magazine Street in downtown New Orleans. Boatner didn’t want to change offices.

Boatner was Rex for Mardi Gras in 1982. That’s when he started a tradition of his own—the Rex Run, a run through Audubon Park by the Queen of Carnival and members of the Rex court on Mardi Gras morning before the parade.

For years, as long as he was able, Boatner participated in the Rex Run. When he no longer ran the race, he dressed in top hat and morning coat, and from the sidelines, greeted the runners.

Boatner’s father and my father both attended Tulane. Through the Reily Foundation we have given ongoing support to Tulane University, including the medical school and to building the facility by which many people know our name—the Reily Student Recreation Center.

Boatner was a philanthropist, businessman and devoted family man. He served as chair of the Tulane Board and had a great love for his grandchildren.

His loss is sadly felt. It was obvious at his memorial service at the Audubon Tea Room in January how many people he had touched. He was, above all, a gentleman.

—Bob Reily, B ’51

TULANE UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES

Tribute W. Boatner Reily III

Jan A. Press (L ’80) of Palm Harbor, Florida, on June 22, 2014.

Pamela Black Duckson (NC ’93) of Mendota, Minnesota, on Sept. 13, 2014.

Walter G. Efird III (M ’83) of Memphis, Tennessee, on Oct. 14, 2014.

Edward H. Heard (SW ’94) of Irvine, California, on Oct. 4, 2014.

Michele Egan (NC ’83) of Brick, New Jersey, on Oct. 18, 2014.

Amy Bonifield Galloway (L ’98) of Broseley, Missouri, on Dec. 1, 2014.

Susan Byars (UC ’84) of Dallas on Oct. 4, 2014.

Kent Waguespack (UC ’02) of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on Nov. 22, 2014.

Joseph Hefler Jr. (B ’84) of Madisonville, Louisiana, on Dec. 21, 2014.

Michael J. O’Dea (B ’84) of St. Louis on Nov. 8, 2014.

Mary Yazgi (E ’85) of New Orleans on Oct. 4, 2014.

Michael J. Mizell-Nelson (A&S ’87, G ’90, ’01) of Falmouth, Massachusetts, on Dec. 1, 2014.

Jack B. Smith (SW ’87) of San Antonio on May 1, 2014.

Elizabeth Sussdorff Claiborne (NC ’78) of Tucson, Arizona, on Nov. 14, 2014.

Carolyn Fletcher Jung (SW ’88) of New Orleans on Oct. 26, 2014.

Donald W. Gibbs (A&S ’79) of Winston Salem, North Carolina, on Sept. 17, 2014.

Amanda Trammell (L ’90) of Naples, Florida, on Nov. 13, 2014.

Napoleon K. Sharma (L ’03) of Santa Fe Springs, California, on Feb. 1, 2014.

Robert K. Moore (M ’08) of Crestview, Florida, on Feb. 8, 2014.

Terry Fedoroff (’13) of Metairie, Louisiana, on Oct. 6, 2014.

Shelby Ferris Fitzpatrick (NC ’64), who currently lives in Kent, England, was incorrectly listed in “Farewell” in the December 2014 Tulane. We confused Fitzpatrick with her mother, Shelby Flowers Ferris (NC ’40), who died Aug. 3, 2014, in Vicksburg, Mississippi.

We apologize for the error.

T UL A N E MAGA Z I N E M A R C H 20 1 5

37

OshER gift fOR schOOL Of cONtiNuiNg studiEs The Bernard Osher Foundation gave the Tulane School of Continuing Studies a $1 million endowment. Bernard Osher believes in the value of higher education and the need to improve access to it for adults.

W A V E M A K E R S

Energy & the Coast

NOLA Ed Reform

The gifts are for educational and research programs within the earth and environmental sciences department.

“We have successfully developed strong collaborations in most of our disciplines, but an important piece that has not yet been developed is in the earth sciences,” said Altiero.

The gifts are for educational and research programs within the earth and environmental sciences department and collaborations with other departments.

The $1 million gift supports an endowed fund for programming and funding for faculty and graduate students, while the Freeport-McMoran gift is for fellowships for graduate students conducting research in earth and environmental science with an engineering application.—Kirby Messinger

38

m a r c h 2 0 1 5 TULA NE MAGA ZINE

paula burch-celentano

Thanks to two recent gifts, the Tulane School of Science and Engineering is developing a strong relationship between the earth sciences and engineering to build programs to address issues of vital concern to South Louisiana and the Gulf Coast—efficient energy production and coastal protection and restoration.

Nicholas Altiero, dean of the School of Science and Engineering, said, “These gifts support our philosophy of bringing science and engineering closer together.”

The gifts—a $1 million anonymous gift and $500,000 from Freeport-McMoran, an international natural resources company— are directed to the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences.

A $3 million grant from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation will allow the Education Research Alliance for New Orleans, a new Tulane center, to study the long-term impacts of sweeping public education reforms enacted after Hurricane Katrina.

“We are so grateful to our funders for supporting this important work,” said Tulane economics professor Douglas N. Harris, founder and director of the Education Research Alliance for New Orleans (Era-New Orleans). Harris holds the Chair of Public Education Initiatives at Tulane.

A focus area of the Laura and John Arnold Foundation is K-12 education, with a particular interest in the turnaround of low-performing schools in New Orleans. The mission of the foundation is to produce substantial, widespread and lasting changes to society that will maximize opportunity and minimize injustice.

An additional $500,000 for Harris’ research was raised from the William T. Grant Foundation and two anonymous donors. Tulane’s Murphy Institute and the School of Liberal Arts also provided support.

This philanthropy will allow the study of New Orleans public schools, which have undergone the most radical overhaul of any school district in the country—turning traditional public schools into charter schools, making teacher employment decisions based on performance, shutting down failing schools and giving families more choice.

While school districts around the country are following the New Orleans model, Harris said little is known about what effect the reforms have had or why.

The first report of the Education Research Alliance was released in January. It focuses on how parents selected schools before and after the post-Katrina reforms.—Keith Brannon

Studying New Orleans Schools The Laura and John Arnold Foundation is supporting research into public education reform in New Orleans as part of its mission to produce changes in society to maximize opportunity and minimize injustice.

Global FellowS Four Tulane School of Liberal Arts faculty members are traveling this year to Asia, Latin America, Europe and Africa for research and creative work, thanks to Cathy Steinberg Glick (NC ’85) and Craig Glick (A&S ’82). Since 2011, 16 individuals at Tulane have received Glick fellowships to work abroad.

W A V E M A K E R S

Connection to His Students Classroom in His Honor

paula burch-celentano

Dean James M. MacLaren is honored with a namesake classroom in Barbara Greenbaum House at Newcomb Lawn.

The Newcomb-Tulane College Dean’s Advisory Council gave the naming gift in his honor.

“This classroom honors all the work Dean MacLaren has done and offers deep appreciation for his efforts.”

—Kylene Beers, Dean’s Advisory Council The newest classroom on the Tulane University uptown campus isn’t the largest—it seats 18—but it’s still special. It has panoramic views, with floor-to-ceiling window walls showing campus oak trees on one side, and

the Barbara Greenbaum House courtyard on the other. Most of all, it’s special for its name, the James M. MacLaren Classroom.

The naming of the classroom, located in the front corner of the new residence hall, is a tale with a bit of intrigue.

MacLaren, the dean of Newcomb-Tulane College, took the helm in 2006 when the college was created as the home of undergraduate students. A professor of physics, he came to Tulane in 1990.

Last year during a meeting of his Dean’s Advisory Council, MacLaren asked if the group would like to raise the $100,000 needed to complete the classroom at Barbara Greenbaum House and have the classroom named for the council.

During a break at the meeting, several council members hatched a plan, said Tulane parent Kylene Beers, a member of the advisory group.

“We all agreed that supporting the building of the classroom was something we felt

important to do, but we also recognized that naming it in honor of the council wasn’t what interested us,” she said. “We wanted to name it after Dean MacLaren.”

When the group reconvened, Beers said, “in a most unusual move” they asked MacLaren to leave the room. They all voted in favor of the plan, and surprised the dean with the news when he returned.

“It was pretty exciting,” MacLaren admitted. “I’m honored that my board felt that I was committed to the undergraduate experience at Tulane, and that they wanted to recognize that.”

The dean’s council is proud that the room bears his name, Beers said. “The connection James MacLaren has to students at the university is a model for all deans.”

As for the classroom itself where two seminars are meeting this spring, MacLaren said, “I hope lots of different disciplines will take advantage of the space.”—Carol Schlueter (See page 20, “A Day in the Life,” about 24 hours in Barbara Greenbaum House.)

T UL A N E MAGA Z I N E m a r c h 2 0 1 5

39

ANgUS liNd A 1966 graduate of Tulane, Angus Lind spent more than three decades as a columnist for The Times-Picayune.

O R L E A N S

mark andresen

N E W

Roadblocks

by Angus Lind

The college gridiron season may be over in New Orleans, but the gridlock season—particularly in Uptown New Orleans—is still in full swing.

But don’t say you were blindsided by this. You were definitely forewarned. Now, I wouldn’t put Col. Ed Fleming of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the same class of clairvoyants as science fiction legend Jules Verge, who in 1865 basically predicted the Apollo 11 moon landing in his classic From the Earth to the Moon.

But in 2013 Fleming told Uptown residents that by the next year and beyond, Jefferson, Napoleon, Louisiana and Claiborne avenues would all be under long-term major projects construction for the installation of huge drainage canals, designed to increase the volume of water that can be carried off neighborhood streets and into Lake Pontchartrain during heavy rains.

“If you’re trying to get from Claiborne to Tchoupitoulas,” he said, “it’s going to be a little difficult.”

A little?

Three of the major north-south arteries and Claiborne look as if archeological digs are going on (maybe Harrison Ford is making another Indiana Jones movie in Hollywood South). Traffic barricades, arrows, detour and “Road Closed” signs are everywhere. So for the time being, think of them as early covered wagon trails instead of “avenues.”

A little difficult? When Godzilla would probably break an ankle before he could tear the city apart, then yes, I’d say it’s a little difficult.

The result is a lot drivers who once used those north-south avenues have opted to take their chances on smallish Nashville Avenue, State Street, and even Broadway, where at this writing there are no detours—but considerably more vehicular traffic than there used to be.

One recent afternoon when I was driving on Nashville from Magazine to St. Charles Avenue, stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic awaiting that sadistically short green light that sometimes allows upwards of three cars to cross the avenue, I couldn’t help but think back to the days when afternoon goinghome host Oldie King Bob Walker and his “traffic dude in a traffic mood,” the legendary Sgt. T-Ben Boudreaux, ruled the radio airways.

Boudreaux saw himself as the supreme and exalted commander of traffic flow, the savior for motorists. When he checked in with the Northshorebound commuters, he’d say, “Think of the Causeway Bridge as a symphony!

Think of me as the conductor! Listen to me—I’ll set you free!”

40

m a r c h 2 0 1 5 TULA NE MAGA ZINE

gridlock You can’t get there from here, with construction projects everywhere you turn.

And in this kind of situation on Nashville, he would shout, “It’s a wham-bam traffic jam!” or “Creep and crawl, y’all!” It might not change anything traffic-wise but it was entertainment that would make the gridlock a lot more tolerable.

The only other person whose insights might give drivers some mental or philosophic support could be Ed Murphy of Murphy’s Law, which states that “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.” That one utterance opened the door for about 500 corollaries, including, “Everything takes longer than you think.” Like getting from Point A to Point B in the Not-so Big Easy these days.

Basically, what we’ve come to is navigating, not driving. There’s no way to maintain a straight course, no way you could break the speed limit. And it’s far from just Uptown where the big dig is going on—or should be going on. Ask the folks in Lakeshore where slabs of broken concrete jut skyward and there are frequent yard signs that say, “Fix my street.

I pay my taxes.”

In fairness, numerous street repairs and projects have been completed, but the work is never ever done. Not when the city you live in is built on a shifting swamp, a marshy bog that is not exactly the solid bedrock upon which New York City’s skyscrapers were erected. Not when everyone knows that the city’s ancient sewerage and water lines for years have been basically held together by bubble gum, Band-Aids, bailing wire and miracles.

The Department of Public Works in New Orleans is responsible for maintaining 1,547 miles of streets, 21,000,000 square yards of pavement, 149 bridges, 68,092 catch basins, and 8,200,000 linear feet of drainage lines. The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development is responsible for maintaining an additional 105 miles of state and federal highways within the city limits.

What’s the significance of all those big numbers? Beats me. But it isn’t every day you get to write about catch basins.

The oft-maligned Army Corps of Engineers New Orleans District has mammoth responsibilities. It is involved with a lot of the flood and drainage work designed to protect the city from catastrophic flooding and storm surge.

It makes levee and floodwall improvements, works to preserve the coastline and ecosystem, and keeps the Mississippi River on course.

But does it bother anybody that its offices are located on Leake Avenue?

r family glazek B r i c at d r i v e yulman stadium

permanently!

Leave your mark—

Order by May 18 to have your brick installed for the 2015 football season!

Join Tulane fans and supporters who have already purchased their brick by buying yours today!

8” x 8” brick • $250

8” x 8” Premium brick • $500

with up to 6 lines of text OR Tulane “T-Wave” logo and up to 4 lines of text (preferred placement)—with up to 6 lines of text OR Tulane “T-Wave” logo and up to 4 lines of text

12” x 12” Premium brick • $1,500

(preferred placement)— with up to 6 lines of text and complimentary framed 12” x 12” replica

16” x 16” Premium brick • $5,000

(preferred placement)—with Tulane “T-Wave” logo and up to 6 lines of text and complimentary framed 12” x 12” replica

24” x 24” Premium brick • $10,000

(preferred placement)—with Tulane “T-Wave” logo and up to 6 lines of text and complimentary framed 12” x 12” replica

shOW yOuR suppORT fOR The gReen Wave TOday!

Call (855)Wave-BRK(928-3275) • www.tulanegreenwave.com/bricks

TUlane M A G A Z I N E

Office of University Publications 31 McAlister Drive, Drawer 1 New Orleans, LA 70118-5624

ryan rivet

Wish You Were Here On the boulevard.