Tulane Magazine December 2014

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

december 2014

Puppy Power

Shake the Salt Cooking class for doctors and patients

Paula Burch-celentano

heads or tails?

(Left to right) Athletics director Rick Dickson, benefactors Jill Glazer and Avie Glazer and Green Wave players No. 12 Tanner Lee, quarterback, and No. 4 Taurean Nixon, cornerback, watch the toss of the coin with officials and players from the University of Memphis before the homecoming game kickoff in Yulman Stadium on Nov. 15, 2014.

Stay!

On the cover: Kipper, in training for Canine Companions, obeys a command. Photo by Paula Burch-Celentano

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L E T T E R

mark andresen

P R E S I D E N T ’ S

Proud to Call It Home

by Mike Fitts Greetings from New Orleans, home of world-renowned Tulane University, and now my home sweet home, too.

It’s hard to believe that I have just finished my first semester as president of Tulane. I say it’s hard to believe because it feels like I have been a Tulanian for much, much longer. Come to think of it, maybe I have always been a Tulanian at heart. I certainly admired the university and its people, now my colleagues, from afar for years.

That’s why when the opportunity came to join the Tulane family I jumped at it. I packed my bags, left my hometown, the place where I had grown up and lived most of my adult life, flew to New Orleans in the dead of summer and said, “Where do I start?”

Turns out the answer was, “Here and here. Oh, and over here, too. …”

The opening of Yulman Stadium, Tulane’s first on-campus stadium in nearly four decades, the welcoming of a new class, which helped push our total enrollment to a new all-time high, and the dedication of the Barbara Greenbaum House at Newcomb Lawn, Tulane’s third residential college, all took place within weeks of my arrival.

Not long afterward we announced the gift of $15 million from the Patrick F. Taylor Foundation that established the Phyllis M. Taylor Center for Social Innovation and Design Thinking. This exciting new center of thought and action, named in honor of our alumnus and board member, will bring Tulane faculty, students and researchers from throughout the university together to help solve real-life problems in the environment, education, health care and more. (See page 39, for more about the Taylor Center.)

The Taylor Center promotes one of my main goals for Tulane—to increase the university’s capacity for collaborations between various fields of knowledge, expertise and research in order to meet the many challenges facing our society. These collaborations will not only

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d e c e m b e r 2014 T ULANE MAGA ZINE

ThaT’s whaT I’m TalkIng abouT President Mike Fitts finds plenty of opportunity for collaboration during his first semester at Tulane.

include increased interdisciplinary cooperation within Tulane but will also encourage more partnerships with individuals and institutions worldwide.

A prime example, of which you will read more about in this issue of Tulane, is the leading effort our heroic researchers and physicians have played in combating the deadly Ebola outbreak in West Africa. I hope you have experienced the sense of admiration and awe I have in following team Tulane’s lifesaving work in Sierra Leone and other epicenters of this horrific outbreak.

Actually, I know you have because one of the many highlights of my first semester was the opportunity to get to meet so many of you— the incredibly diverse, successful and committed worldwide family of Tulane alumni. I visited a dozen alumni chapter cities this semester and plan to visit at least another 16 cities and Panama before the end of next semester.

I am also becoming more adept at learning, living and loving the one-of-a-kind culture of New Orleans. Every city has aspects unique to itself and its people, but New Orleans is in a class of its own.

I was well prepared for the heat of New Orleans. In fact, maybe I was a little over-prepared. So many people warned me about how suffocating, stifling and downright hellish summertime was in New Orleans that I halfexpected to see folks bursting into flames on the sidewalk.

Luckily, though, my first New Orleans summer proved to be rather pleasant, not all that radically different from a Northeast summer —although a whole lot longer.

Still, coming from Philadelphia to New Orleans is akin to moving to another country.

Everyone is warm and welcoming, but sometimes you wonder what exactly they’re talking about. If you moved to the Crescent City from far away you know what I mean.

Do I want to dress my sandwich? Can I eat a whole muffuletta? What kind of sno-ball do I like? Who Dat? I have had much fun learning all about the wonderful idiosyncrasies of our city—the ins and outs and the dis and dats of NOLA living.

I know there is still a whole galaxy of “only in New Orleans” moments I have yet to discover, but I am well on my way.

I am also looking forward to experiencing my first Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest. I am, as a popular bumper sticker says, proud to call both New Orleans and Tulane home.

TUlane C O N T E N T S Food for Health In the kitchen of the Goldring Center for Culinary Medicine.

(See page 26)

2 PRESIDENT’S LETTER Settling in 6 NEWS Homecoming 2014 • Business day of service • In That Number • Who dat? Harold Sylvester • Diet news • Shedding light on domestic violence • Jazz migrations • BP oil spill trial • Prospect.3+ • Nico Marley ryan rivet

13 SPORTS Academic success of student-athletes • Women’s basketball steps into limelight

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Puppy Raising Five dogs on the Tulane campus this fall are in training as service dogs. With students as their devoted tutors, the pups are destined for greatness helping people with disabilities.

By Sarah Netter

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On the Front Lines in Sierra Leone

31 WHERE Y'AT! Class notes

Tulane doctors and researchers scramble to treat patients and stem the tide of the deadly Ebola virus in West Africa. By Barri Bronston and Sarah Netter

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30 TULANIANS Anoop Jain • Career networking • Jeron LaFargue • Thomas Clark • Lynnell Thomas

Shake the Salt At the new Goldring Center for Culinary Medicine at Tulane University—the world’s first teaching kitchen affiliated with a medical school—medical students and their potential patients learn the healthy art of good cooking and the basics of food as medicine. By Keith Brannon

35 FAREWELL Tribute: Joseph Cohen 38 WAVEMAKERS Phyllis Taylor Center for Social Innovation and Design Thinking • Beau Parent Scholarship • McCulloch Chair in Energy Law 40 NEW ORLEANS Yeah, dawlin’

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frostop owner Peter E. Moss II wrote that he enjoyed the September Tulane with its feature on the opening of Yulman Stadium. He especially liked the back cover photo of Tulane fans on their way to Ted’s Frostop, of which he is a co-owner. (Photo by Cheryl Gerber)

y e a h,

y o u

w r i t e

50-CENT ADMITTANCE The recent issue of Tulane about the new Yulman Stadium … brought back many memories for me. They began in the late 1930s when Tulane was a national powerhouse. My friends and I would walk regularly to the games in the old stadium and watch from the Children’s Section in the end zone near Willow Street for 50 cents a game. (I wonder if the Yulman has such a Children’s Section for the neighborhood kids.)

Paul Ned Graffagnino, A&S ’48, M ’51 Napa, California CHASE ON TV Your story about John Chase (Sept. 2014) [p. 11] should have mentioned that Chase was the country’s first (and probably only) daily TV editorial cartoonist. Using simple cel animation techniques, he drew daily editorial cartoons for WDSU-TV Channel 6 back in the 1960s.

Maury Midlo, A&S ’56 Austin, Texas (Midlo is a former WDSU-TV promotion director, 1960–73, and Hullabaloo editor, 1955–56).

THANK YOU! I love the Tulane magazine and read it from cover to cover— back cover beginning with my classmates in “Farewell,” then on to “Where Y’At!” where I might find a late blooming Alumnus. Then I sit back and relax and thoroughly enjoy finding out what Tulane is doing.

The most recent September edition continues the past years of improvement in reflecting the major events of Tulane.

Your mix of events and fun and games continues to interest me (just about everything but football and other athletics) from academic achievements to bits about traveling Tulanians.

Yes, I do remember the introduction of John Churchill Chase’s Little Greenie in 1945 when I was marched to the games as a Sophomore-Junior by the Navy to watch the team “swat the Yellow Jackets.”

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D ECEMB ER 2014 TULANE MAGA ZINE

So I write to say Thank You for your great service to the Alumni.

W.F.T. (Tom) Lenfestey, A&S ’46 Tampa, Florida ORIGINS OF PRIMATE CENTER In the September [2014] issue … it was noted that the Delta Regional Primate Research Center was the forerunner of today’s Center, and was founded 50 years ago. That must have been some sort of official opening date, because as a graduate student in Psychology (Master of Science ’63) I worked at the center for the summer in 1963. Then headed by Dr. Art Riopelle, it was not very fancy, but was definitely in operation as a primate research center, with several chimps, many rhesus, and assorted other primates in several studies. I'm quite sure of the date, since I left Mandeville and entered the PhD program at U of Maryland in the fall of 1963. Aloha.

J. Dennis Nolan, A&S ’61, G ’63 Haleiwa, Hawaii ALL OVER THE PLACE I never took a course in statistics,

but perhaps some Tulanian numbers juggler can figure out the odds on this: I live in a rural agricultural settlement in Israel’s Jordan valley. Last week, I had a heart incident (over 80 alumni sometimes have these things), and was hospitalized in “Ha’Emek,” the Jezreel Valley central hospital in Afula.

Never heard of Afula?

Of course not.

One day a cute young intern comes into the ward to review my record and check my situation.

Upon hearing my wife and myself conversing in English (Hebrew, Arabic and Russian are most commonly heard), she asked, “Would you like to conduct the interview in English?”

“Of course,” I answered, “Where are you originally from?”

“From Great Neck, New York.

And where are you from?”

“South of Great Neck.”

Her eyes lit up. “Where south of Great Neck?”

“New Orleans, Louisiana.”

Eyes lit up even more. “That’s great! I went to Tulane.”

“So did I.” Medical matters faded into the background as we recalled the joys of Tulane and NOLA. “Isn’t this amazing?” I said. “What are the chances of two Tulane graduates in Israel—one from coastal Haifa, the other from the Jordan Valley, meeting in the Internal Medicine Ward 5 of a rural hospital in the Jordan Valley!”

“That’s not all,” she laughed. “There is another Tulane graduate doing his internship in this

same ward!”

A half hour later, the other intern came in for more Tulane memories.

Anybody able to figure the odds on this happening?

I did my MA in the Theatre Department—directing. I don’t think I could ever have staged the above—people would say— “too improbable.”

Karl Kadish Goldberg, A&S ’58, G ’60 Kibbutz Tiraz Zvi, Israel MORE ABOUT EDUCATORS, PLEASE I love reading about great research, athletics, and New Orleans related stories in Tulane magazine!

I do note that my favorite aspect of my time at Tulane has been receiving proportionally less coverage over the years. As an alum, I appreciate and fully support the importance of athletics and research, however, by far the most decisive characteristic that drew me to Tulane and had me forgo more highly reputable and more highly ranked educational establishments was the nimiety of attentive, caring educators with their open doors who always had time to talk, advise, help.

There has been enormous progress in university-level pedagogical practice since I graduated (back when the pioneers were crossing the Great Plains).

It would be a wonderful addition to Tulane magazine to see a regular feature that focused on highlighting Tulane’s talented educators and how they are adapting their practice to 21st– century pedagogical challenges.

Tulane magazine already does that for research and athletics, why not also pay tribute to Tulane’s excellent educators?

Aaron Altman, E ’90 Dayton, Ohio ___________ 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

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Editor Mary Ann Travis

crEativE dirEctor Melinda Whatley Viles Editorial dirEctor Sarah Netter “tulanians” Editor Fran Simon contributors Keith Brannon Linda Campbell Catherine Freshley, ’09 Johanna Gretschel, ’13 Alicia Duplessis Jasmin Angus Lind, A&S ’66 Mark Miester, A&S ’90, B ’09 Ryan Rivet, UC ’02 Mike Strecker, G ’03 PAULA BURCH-CELENTANO

sEnior univErsity PhotograPhEr Paula Burch-Celentano sEnior Production coordinator Sharon Freeman graPhic dEsignEr Tracey Bellina

green pride A sea of green, wherever you looked— that was the scene on Homecoming Day Nov. 15, 2014.

The promise that Yulman Stadium would bring out Tulane school spirit is coming true.

Tailgaters—students, parents and alumni—jammed the Lavin-Bernick Center Quad, eating, drinking, listening to the band Cowboy Mouth and, in general, having a good time before strolling over to the stadium for the football game.

“Clearly, this is an exciting time to be a Tulane student,” said Emma Collin, a School of Science and Engineering student from Long Island, New York.

“I’ve never seen this much energy on Tulane’s campus. It’s a good way to bring the Tulane community together— and it’s a lot of fun.”

Zachary Davidson, a School of Liberal Arts student from Columbus, Ohio, said that he definitely sees an increase in school spirit—“even little things like now everyone has Tulane gear because they’re going to the game.”

The on-campus Yulman Stadium is bringing a shift in how students view

Tulane—and how they’ll attach their memories to it, said Davidson. “It’s a subconscious thing,” he said. “About what your best memories are.”

Eli Bierman, a School of Public Health student from Buffalo Grove, Illinois, said that he’s observed a hundred times increase in spirit on the Tulane campus since last year. There have been so many conversations around the football team and the new stadium.

“It’s cool—and a beautiful building.”

Pamela Lewis Spanjer, Newcomb class of 1979, was among the thousands sporting green Tulane attire at Homecoming Reunion Family Weekend 2014.

In town from Atlanta to celebrate her 35th class reunion, Spanjer remembered the protests by students her freshman year in 1975—the first year Green Wave games were played in the Superdome. Sitting in the stands of old Tulane Stadium, which hadn’t been torn down yet, instead of the Superdome, they listened to a broadcast of the football game on their transistor radios.

With an on-campus stadium again, “For us, it’s full circle,” she said.

—Mary ann Travis

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 University Publications, 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. dEcEmbEr 2014/vol. 86, no. 2

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ACROSS DISCIPLINES Yu-Ping Wang, associate professor of biomedical engineering and biostatistics and bioinformatics, has been awarded National Institutes of Health grants totaling nearly $3.7 million for developing statistical approaches to diagnosing and preventing osteoporosis and computational tools for identifying schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and other mental illnesses.

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PAulA buRch-cElENTANo

Spruce Up

Good to be Home

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Lively Stepping

The Tulane University Marching Band troops down McAlister Place, pumping up the crowd along the way to the Green Wave homecoming game on Saturday, Nov. 15.

VISIBLE RESULTS First-year student Ben McManus from Florida plants irises on Nursery Island in City Park.

RYAN RIVET

The first Homecoming Reunion Family Week on campus in 40 years brought students, parents and alumni together for a Tulane family gathering of fun on the uptown campus and at parties around New Orleans from Nov. 10 to 16.

“It was truly the ‘Home of the Wave’ week with thousands of the alumni participating in homecoming and reunion activities,” said James Stofan, vice president for Tulane Alumni Relations. “The number of alumni returning for reunions—over 900—was almost three times the number from last year. It was a huge success.”

A town hall meeting with Tulane President Mike Fitts, music, art exhibits, volunteer opportunities for service in the community, an a cappella concert, open houses, talks on jazz and glass sculpture, fireworks, tailgating and meeting up with classmates filled the week.

On Friday night, there were nine reunion class parties for graduates from 2009 to 1969, celebrating their fifth to 45th-year reunions.

The big draw to campus was the new $73 million Yulman Stadium, where the homecoming football game with the University of Memphis was played on Nov. 15.

Although the Green Wave lost to Memphis 38-7, the enthusiasm for the stadium is growing.

The stadium is “an extraordinary achievement,” said Jill Glazer, a 1985 graduate and Board of Tulane member.

Glazer spoke at the installation of a plaque on the stadium plaza, recognizing the “foresight, courage and perseverance” of Tulane President Emeritus Scott Cowen, athletics director Rick Dickson and executive vice president for university relations and development Yvette Jones in their efforts in making the stadium a reality.

Also part of the festivities during Homecoming Week was the dedication of the Jill H. and Avram A. Glazer Family Club, the section of the stadium with premier seating and amenities for viewing games.—Mary Ann Travis

More than 400 A. B. Freeman School of Business students converged on New Orleans City Park on a Saturday in late September for a day of service for business TIDES, the Tulane InterDisciplinary Experience Seminars for first-year students.

While the connection between business and cutting down ragweed might not be immediately apparent, Michael Hogg, associate dean for undergraduate education at the business school, said that there’s an underlying message.

“As future leaders, our students need to realize that they’re an integral part of the communities in which their organizations exist,” he said.

“Part of being a good leader is recognizing that you need to help the community, and business people are uniquely suited to do that because they’re good problem-solvers.”

The students spent the morning working at 11 different sites in the park, doing everything from planting flower beds and clearing hiking trails to tearing down invasive vines and weeds that threaten the park’s native trees.

Student Elena Garidis said, “We saw a few people walking their dogs or with their kids in the park. It was nice talking with them and hearing them say, ‘Thank you so much for doing this. We love the park, and we like seeing young people invested in the community and making a difference.’”

The service day was organized in collaboration with the Tulane Center for Public Service.—Mark Miester

In That Number Homecoming 2014

2014 004975 is the number of miles that two sets of parents traveled from Switzerland to get to Family Weekend.

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infographic by tracey bellina

years since the class of 1964 bid adieu to its alma mater. The class celebrated its 50-year reunion during homecoming.

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alumni traveled all the way from the U.K. to enjoy the festivities.

Homecoming 2014 was a big deal for the Green Wave as it marked the first time a homecoming game was played on the uptown campus in 40 years.

With the new excitement on campus, Reunion and Family Weekend saw an increase in participation. The homecoming spirit of the game could be felt across the city of New Orleans.

2014 is the first year homecoming was celebrated in Yulman Stadium.

1974

was the last year a homecoming game was played in old Tulane Stadium. It took place on Nov. 2, 1974, against the University of Kentucky.

55 3,140 people registered electronically to attend homecoming events this year.

In 2013, there were 1,451 web registrants.

500

alumni who attended Reunion and Family Weekend are parents of currently enrolled Tulane students.

1944

was the earliest class represented at Homecoming 2014.

families of current students came to visit during Family Weekend.

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Countless sitcom fans know HAROLD SYLVESTER as Griff, the lovable and looming shoe store companion to luckless, hapless Al Bundy on the long-running, raunchy (at least for the times) “Married ...

With Children.”

But almost 20 years before Sylvester’s acting career reached that pinnacle, Sylvester gained trailblazing fame on the hardwood in his hometown of New Orleans. In the mid- to late-1960s, Sylvester was a player on the landmark St. Augustine High School basketball team that boldly integrated prep hoops in Louisiana. He then inked a commitment to Tulane, where [as he is pictured here], in the early ’70s, he became the first African-American to earn an athletics scholarship to the university.

It wasn’t always easy as a pioneering, black scholar-athlete, but looking back, the guy so many people recognize from his ensuing acting career says he savored his time in uptown New Orleans as a Green Wave player and Tulane student.

“It was a pretty interesting time,” Sylvester said. “There were a lot of things going on [on campus]. But my experience was good. To a certain degree it was tough, but given the character of the times, I enjoyed it.

“It was an incredible experience,” he added. “Being the first African-American on the basketball team, I played with many guys who had never played with an AfricanAmerican before. But we came together like a family, and some of my teammates are still my friends to this day.”

After graduating from Tulane in 1972 with a degree in theater and psychology, Sylvester didn’t plan on taking up acting; his goal was to be a producer at a local, public-broadcasting TV station.

But, as he said with a laugh, “Life happens,” and he got bitten by the acting bug, starring in numerous movies and TV shows before and after his tenure as the beloved Griff.

His success as a thespian allowed him to pursue what could be his proudest achievement in the entertainment business—serving as screenwriter and co-producer (along with luminaries Magic Johnson and Quincy Jones) of the film Passing Glory, about his experience on the St. Augustine basketball team.

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Tulane universiTy archives

Who Dat? Harold Sylvester

All the while, Sylvester kept a watchful eye on his alma mater’s basketball team.

He remains proud of the Green Wave, its resilience and its steadfast dedication to an academics-first approach.

“I’m a big fan of the coach [Ed Conroy] and athletics director [Rick Dickson],” Sylvester said.

“What happens [at Tulane] really reflects what college athletics needs to be. [Sports] is something you do in the cause of getting a wonderful education.

“I’m very proud of Tulane for holding on to the philosophy that you’re a student first and an athlete second.”

—RYAN WHIRTY

MOCKINGBIRDS SING If that mockingbird won’t sing (and learn new songs), could lead be the problem? Researcher Renata Ribeiro wants to find out by setting up bird feeders around homes in New Orleans, where lead in the soil is widespread. (Photo by Ronnie Maum)

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THINKSTOCK.COM

Stand Against Violence

Low Carb Wins

Weight Loss News Researchers have discovered that a diet low in carbs is more effective for losing weight and protecting against heart disease than a low-fat diet.

STOPPING VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN Domestic violence is coming out of the shadows.

THINKSTOCK.COM

Low-carbohydrate diets are better for losing weight and protecting the heart than low-fat diets, according to a new Tulane study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

The study followed 148 obese participants who were randomly assigned to either a low-carb diet, consuming less than 40 grams of digestible carbs per day, or a low-fat diet, consuming less than 30 percent of daily calories from fat. Researchers gave both groups dietary advice, but neither had strict calorie or exercise goals.

After a year, the low-carb group lost an average of 7.7 pounds more than the low-fat group. The blood levels of certain fats that are predictors of heart disease risk also improved more in the low-carb group.

While low-density lipoprotein cholesterol for both groups was about the same, the low-carb group saw a spike in so-called “good” HDL cholesterol and a decline in the ratio of bad to good cholesterol.

The results challenge the perception that low-fat diets are always better for the heart, said lead author Dr. Lydia Bazzano, Lynda B. and H. Leighton Steward Professor in Nutrition Research at the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.

“Over the years, the message has always been to go low-fat,” Bazzano said. “Yet we found those on a low-carb diet had significantly greater decreases in estimated 10-year risk for heart disease after six and 12 months than the low-fat group.”

The results don’t mean it’s OK to binge on butter. While the lowcarb dieters got 41 percent of their calories from fat, most were healthy monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats like olive or canola oil. The group only got 13 percent of calories from saturated fats like butter.

“It’s not a license to go back to the butter, but it does show that even high-fat diets—if they are high in the right fats—can be healthy and help you lose weight,” Bazzano said.—Keith Brannon

It was the hit seen around the world. Baltimore Ravens football player Ray Rice punching his wife and knocking her unconscious —the whole scene caught on an elevator surveillance camera.

The public outcry continues to roar—Rice has since been suspended by the NFL—and domestic violence has taken root in the public spotlight where experts are hoping it will stay.

“It might just represent a sea change in our attitudes toward domestic violence,” said Tania Tetlow, a former federal prosecutor and an associate professor at Tulane Law School.

The NFL now has an enormous opportunity to begin changing how society looks at domestic violence, she said.

“The NFL has such a part in defining masculinity for us and what real men do. Athletes show all this courage and hard work but they also have the opportunity to talk about how real men don’t hit their wives or beat women,” Tetlow said. “If that were happening in a way that changed culture it could accomplish vastly more than the legal system could do.”

Tulane football team members have taken a stand against violence toward women, creating a video to raise awareness. “For too long,” said one player, “we have ignored the problem, rather than dealt with it.”—Sarah Netter

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NOVEL EXPERIENCE I Pity the Poor Immigrant, a novel by Zachary Lazar, associate professor of English, received rave reviews from The New Yorker, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times and other publications. The book unravels a complex story about Israel.

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Landmark Case

It’s the birthplace of jazz.

But if jazz is so much a part of New Orleans and vice versa, why did jazz musicians leave the city in droves in the early part of the 20th century?

Bruce Raeburn, curator of the Hogan Jazz Archive at Tulane, spent the past year tracking the diaspora of New Orleans musicians during the years from 1902 to 1922.

A common explanation for the mass exodus of musicians is the closing of Storyville, the infamous red-light district, in November 1917.

“There’s a lot of mythology,” Raeburn said. “There are scholars who still believe that jazz was born in Storyville and that all the musicians left when the district closed. It’s a romantic idea.”

Call Raeburn the Indiana Jones of Jones Hall, where he also is director of the Tulane Special Collections.

By digging through media, documents and oral histories in the archives, Raeburn exhaustively tracked the musicians to pin down their moves and reasons for leaving New Orleans.

Bandleader Joe Oliver left New Orleans for Chicago in 1918.

“Joe Oliver left because he felt he was being harassed by New Orleans police. He was arrested a few times for disturbing the peace while playing music,” said Raeburn.

And four years later, Oliver convinced Louis Armstrong, arguably the most influential trumpet player out of New Orleans, to follow him.

“Armstrong was a little bit more reticent, maybe more fearful, about the risks of leaving town,” Raeburn said.

But once Armstrong left New Orleans, he did not return to his hometown until 1931.

Like many musicians of the period, Oliver and Armstrong moved up North to pursue better pay and working conditions, racial equality and safety—not to seek out another Storyville.—Johanna Gretschel

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Satchmo Louis Armstrong, considered by many to be New Orleans' most influential trumpet player, left the city in 1922 for greener pastures.

OIL SPILL The Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in 2010 kills 11 workers and spews millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The legal case involving damages to individuals, businesses, local governments and the environment as a result of the explosion is still unfolding.

PHOTO FROM THE U.S. COAST GUARD

Storyville Myths

The BP oil spill trial will go down in history as “the most important case regarding pollution of the oceans,” said Ed Sherman, professor of law at Tulane and an authority on complex litigation.

In early September, U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier of Louisiana’s Eastern District made his latest ruling in the complex case, finding BP oil company “grossly negligent” in the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in 2010 in which 11 workers were killed and millions of barrels of oil spewed into the Gulf of Mexico.

That finding of gross negligence means that BP is potentially liable for up to $18 billion in civil penalties under the Clean Water Act. The determination of the actual civil penalties to be paid to governments, cities, parishes and levee boards will be made by Barbier during another phase of the trial, which begins in January 2015.

Before that phase starts, Barbier is expected to rule on how many barrels of oil spilled, which determines the potential penalties.

A ruling made by Barbier in 2012 on settlement of damages to individuals and businesses under the Oil Pollution Act has already resulted in BP spending $28 billion on claims and cleanup costs.

BP has repeatedly appealed to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse Barbier’s rulings, but each time the higher court has upheld the lower court’s decisions, stating, “Deep water drilling is more dangerous and requires more care.”—Mary Ann Travis

Gallery ‘Knew Enough to Know Better’

ProsPect.3 Prospect New Orleans brings art from around the globe to venues across New Orleans. Now in its third exhibition, this year’s biennial, Prospect.3, features the component Prospect.3+, which aims to support and showcase local and regional artists.

Bamboula/NOLA is part of Prospect.3+. Other Prospect.3+ exhibitions on Tulane campuses are “A.I.R. Pioneers” at

NEWCOMB PLACE ENTRANCE TO WOLDENBERG ART CENTER BY PAULA BURCH-CELENTANO

When the sun sets and foot traffic slows at the Newcomb Place entrance to the Woldenberg Art Center, a sole hanging light illuminates the steps and a diabolical sound can be heard.

The eerie music evokes a feeling of relaxation—which is just what artist Jane Cassidy, who earned a Master of Fine Arts from Tulane in 2014, intended.

Cassidy’s piece, “Knew Enough to Know Better,” is one of 12 sound-art installations currently displayed on the uptown campus.

The installations are part of Bamboula/ NOLA, a participating exhibition in the Prospect New Orleans international contemporary art biennial, which continues through Jan. 25, 2015.

The central stairway to the art center was the first location that came to mind, said Cassidy, when she was asked to create a site-central piece. The location offers a great view of campus and it works well acoustically with the music.

“The sound cannot go unnoticed as one moves through the space,” said Cassidy. “It feels thick and present and begs the viewer to stall and have a listen.”

Lisa Hooper, head of Howard-Tilton Memorial Library’s Music and Media Center, helped organize the Bamboula/ NOLA exhibition.

“Bamboula/NOLA is built on our recently established ‘Sounds of Louisiana Digital Collection,’ which serves as an auditory record of the plethora of sounds that are culturally, geographically and architecturally unique to the region,” said Hooper.

“The digital collection will allow anyone to upload their own sounds as well as download sound files that can be incorporated into their work.”

In addition to Hooper, the exhibit was coordinated by Rick Snow, head of music and technology for the Newcomb Department of Music, and Jeff Rubin, digital initiatives and publishing coordinator for Howard-Tilton Memorial Library.

Also, from the May Gallery and Residency in the Upper Ninth Ward of New Orleans, Keene Kopper, director, and Philippe Landry, artist and board member, helped coordinate the installations.

the Newcomb Archives, “Tulane Contemporary” at the Carroll Gallery and “Mothership 3: Standing at the Abyss” at the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.

The exhibit, “Notes for Now,” at the Newcomb Art Gallery is part of the larger Prospect.3 and is garnering interest and attendance from international art connoisseurs.—AliciA DuPlessis JAsmin

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Interview Nico Marley, Legend in the Making Green Wave football sophomore linebacker Nico Marley, a business major, has made a name for himself on the football field as an undersized powerhouse who always seems to be around the ball. But for many his last name is familiar because he’s the grandson of reggae legend Bob Marley and the son of former University of Miami player Rohan Marley.

What kind of effect does having such a famous name have on you?

Having a famous name does not really affect me too much because I see myself as a regular guy, I don't let all of that get to my head.

How does your grandfather’s legacy resonate with you?

Hearing the way people speak about my grandfather makes me want people to speak about me with the same amount of passion. He has changed lives for people who have not even met him. He’s had such a huge impact on people that they even show me love and I’m two generations apart.

The Marley name is almost synonymous with Jamaica, what kind of connection do you feel for that place?

Most people don’t know that I am half Haitian as well. I love what Jamaica and Haiti stand for, and how positive the culture is. I try and keep a positive attitude, and if ever I don’t, I think about some of the people in Jamaica and Haiti who have the worst circumstances, but are so positive and full of life.

If you had to describe the way you play football to someone who had never seen you, how would you describe it?

I would tell them that I’m the opposite on and off the field. Off the field I’m usually very calm and keep to myself; on the field I have the most energy of anyone out there. I play with everything I have and pride myself on the fact that nobody will give more effort than I do.

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D E C E M B E R 2014 T ULANE MAGA ZINE

Ryan Rivets

Where did your love of sports come from?

My love of sports came from my grandfather and my father as well. Some people believe that if my grandfather had not been a musician, he would have been a great soccer player. My father was a small linebacker at the University of Miami. It takes something special to be a 5-foot8-inch linebacker playing at a Division I school, and I guess I was blessed enough to get that gene from him.

Do your career plans include professional football, or are you looking past that to something else?

I would love to play in the NFL, that would be a dream come true. But if that doesn’t happen, I think I have the drive and

motivation to do anything I set my mind to.

If football doesn’t work out, I want to go help my dad with his coffee company, Marley Coffee in Jamaica, and help him grow that and eventually branch off and have a company of my own.—RYAN RIVET

YULMAN STADIUM ROCKS “The stadium is outstanding,” head football coach Curtis

“C.J.” Johnson told the New York Times after the stadium opening game vs. Georgia Tech on Sept. 6. “I think the fans were magnificent, especially the student section.” And he promised, “We will continue to get better and better, so just keep on coming out.”

S P O R T S

PAULA BURCH-CELENTANO

Tulane student athletes are receiving recognition for their work in the classroom as well as on the field. According to data recently released by the NCAA, the Green Wave sports programs rank 12th in the nation for overall Graduation Success Rate (GSR) in all sports among the 128 Football Bowl Subdivision schools.

Tulane’s 90 percent overall graduation rate trails only Notre Dame, Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, Boston College and Central Florida, Wake Forest, Miami, Alabama and Clemson.

While all Tulane sports rated 85 percent or better, five Green Wave sports received a perfect GSR score of 100, including the men’s and women’s basketball teams, the men’s cross country and track & field squads, women’s golf, women’s swimming & diving and volleyball.

The Tulane baseball squad sported an 89 percent rate, while the Wave's women's cross country & indoor and outdoor track & field squads came in with an 87 percent rate.

“These are fantastic results,” said Tulane athletics director Rick Dickson. “This validates the commitment and dedication of our student-athletes, coaches and particularly our academic services staff.”–R.R.

AAC Tipoff Seniors on a Mission Adesuwa Ebomwonyi, Tiffany Dale, Danielle Blagg and Jamie Kaplan have the goal of making it to the NCAA Tournament this season.

CONgRATULATIONS fROM The TOp Tulane President Mike Fitts dons a No. 35 jersey to show his admiration for Green Wave safety Sam Scofield, No. 35.

Scofield has received many academic honors.

The 2014–15 basketball season tipped off in late November, marking the beginning of a new era for head coach Lisa Stockton and the Green Wave. The women’s basketball team is enjoying increased visibility in the American Athletic Conference, including the opportunity to share some rarified air when the team faces off against the reigning national champion University of Connecticut Huskies twice this season.

During the regular season, the Green Wave will play UCONN away on Feb. 14 and at home in Devlin Fieldhouse on Feb. 23.

Stockton said that she has told her players that the American Athletic Conference is “truly a basketball league. This league possesses both great men’s and women’s basketball. The exposure we’re going to have is great for our program and Tulane, in general.”

While the level of competition is certainly going to challenge her squad, Stockton and her players have not tempered their expectations or goals for the season.

“We want the NCAA Tournament,” she said. “We have four seniors who have not played a NCAA Tournament game. That’s their focus.”

High expectations may be warranted with the Green Wave returning 11 of 13 letter winners from last season. They were responsible for 98 percent of the team’s offense in total scoring. However, Stockton knows that the road to the NCAA Tournament may ultimately be decided by how her team plays against UCONN. She says her team is aware and excited about the challenge.

“Everyone in the country the past few years has played second to them,” Stockton said. “Those kinds of games really show you the level of game you need to play. I think we’ll improve with UCONN in our league.”—R.R.

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PARKER WATERS

Success Rate

Five dogs on the tulane campus this Fall are in training as service dogs. With students as their devoted tutors, the pups are destined For greatness helping PAULA BURCH-CELENTANO

people With disabilities.

by Sarah Netter

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Puppy Raising

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PAULA BURCH-CELENTANO

Future Graduates Previous page (left to right:) Adam Kline with Kipper, Darian Hummel with Archer, Jessica Knierim and Michelle Kreutzberg with Dane, Nick Meloro wth Pindell and Leslie Howton with Ava.

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Darian Hummel’s dorm room has all the trappings of a 19-year-old college student’s living space—mismatched furniture, Brad Pitt mov- Life with Archer ies, takeout menus posted on the fridge.

Archer snoozes while And then there’s the dog crate in the hall- puppy raiser Darian way. The leash by the door. The little black Hummel studies in her bundle of cuteness that is the room’s de facto dorm room. fourth roommate.

“Archer, don’t bite your tail! Quit! Archer!” Hummel admonished her young charge. “He’s not supposed to chase his tail.”

Archer is a first-year student of sorts at Tulane University. In becoming Hummel’s sidekick around campus, he is in the first stages of being trained to work as an assistance dog for Canine Companions for Independence, a nonprofit organization that places trained dogs with clients who have physical and developmental disabilities.

Canine Companions has put five puppies in the hands of Tulane students in the last 18 months.

Archer arrived on campus along with his sister and littermate Ava on Sept. 5—two roly-poly, 8-week-old Labrador/golden retriever puppies who didn’t know how to sit or stay, let alone the complex tasks that will someday be their hallmark as assistance dogs.

They joined Kipper and Pindell, the two dogs that made up the inaugural puppy class when they came to campus last fall. And just after Archer and Ava settled in, a fifth puppy named Dane moved in on Sept. 24.

The students assigned to the five dogs—all Tulane undergraduates—are responsible for raising the young, untrained puppies to become model canine citizens. After 16 to 18 months with their puppy raisers, the dogs will go on to work with professional handlers before they are placed with their new families.

Kipper and his puppy raiser, Adam Kline, have become a fixture around campus. Kline, a junior public health major from Lexington, Kentucky, started the new registered student organization at

Tulane last year called TUSTEP or Tulane University Service-Dog Training and Education Program.

“Service dogs have ginormous impacts that people don’t really think about,” said Kline, 20, as he updated TUSTEP’s Facebook page from the mezzanine at the Lavin-Bernick Center.

Sporting his neon yellow and blue service-dog-in-training vest, Kipper laid patiently at his feet. But mannerly as he may be, the 13-month-old puppy in him still sneaks through.

“Kipper. Stand,” Kline commanded when Kipper would yawn and stretch out on the floor, rather than maintain the obedient posture at Kline’s feet.

PuPPy university Kline first considered starting a service dog–training program at Tulane after seeing a similar program with a different nonprofit at the University of Kentucky where his brother was a student.

In October 2012 he reached out to LeAnn Siefferman, the puppy program manager for Canine Companions’ southeast region, who was enthusiastic about working with college students.

“They’re young and they have a lot of energy—that’s helpful,” Siefferman said of the student puppy raisers.

Tulane is one of three universities in the country to have registered student organizations affiliated with the Santa Rosa, California–based Canine Companions. The other two are in Delaware and Virginia.

Tulane has around 100 people who have shown interest in TUSTEP. “The students at Tulane are already of a certain caliber,” Siefferman said, “so we’re getting some very accomplished, very capable applicants.”

Canine Companions looks for students with good grades and leadership skills. The sheer volume of paperwork and legwork the students need to undergo to get approved weeds out those who are serious from those who are not.

Kline said he started by talking to people around campus— students, faculty, staff. Were service dogs a good fit for a college campus, even one as public service–oriented as Tulane University?

The answer was a resounding yes.

“I did the research on what training would be like,” he said. “A big thing with it is socialization. And I knew students could potentially be better than anyone else at socializing dogs.”

Kline’s first few months with Kipper on campus raised more than a few eyebrows. Some people confronted him, not realizing he had approval to bring Kipper along. Students routinely stopped them, wanting to pet Kipper, not realizing that, as a puppy in training to be a service dog, Kipper is not allowed to be cuddled by just anyone.

“I had some issues with people wanting to pet him,” Kline said.

“Actually, I still have that.”

Kipper goes where Kline goes. When they are in class, Kipper is on the floor next to Kline’s feet or under a table. The only places Kipper doesn’t go are to the gym and to Kline’s science labs, and that is out of concern for the pup’s safety.

But that kind of freedom is earned. Raising an assistance dog from infancy isn’t all puppy breath and cuddles. The young puppies can’t immediately go to class. Canine Companions’ guidelines mandate they stick to small groups of people for the first several months.

“It was basically like having a baby,” said Hummel, a sophomore classical studies and digital design major from Mandeville, Louisiana.

“I haven’t gone out with my friends. I have no social life anymore.”

But that’s fine by her. Just two weeks after welcoming Archer into her Aron Residences room that she shares with two roommates, Hummel had fallen head over heels in puppy love.

“He’s like my child,” she said. “I think a lot of people just think of him kind of as another dog. But I know he’s going to change somebody’s life in addition to mine.”

Somebody like Mary Doyle.

‘Was nighttime. tWo o’clock. a stroke.’

It was Nov. 11, 1999. Mary Doyle, then 34, had her 10-day-old son, Sean, in her bedroom. Her husband, Stephen, and their oldest son Anthony, not quite 2, were sleeping in a nearby room.

“A stroke. I have a headache,” Mary said, her speech halting but clear. “Real bad, bad headache … Anthony and Stephen in the room next door.”

By the time Mary was able to wake Stephen, the bleeding in her brain had already caused her to do little more than point to their newborn son on the bed. She had swaddled him and put him on the bed, surrounded by pillows.

“She couldn’t sit so I laid her on the floor and started calling 911, her parents, my parents,” Stephen said.

Mary was diagnosed with arteriovenous malformation, or AVM, a tangled connection of blood vessels in the brain.

“The students at Tulane are already of a certain caliber, so we’re getting some very accomplished, capable applicants.”

—LeAnn Siefferman,

program manager for Canine Companions’ southeast region The prognosis was not good. She underwent emergency, lifesaving surgery followed by a month in intensive care. Then, another two months in in-patient rehabilitation, learning to walk and talk all over again.

“It’s like watching a kid with a little light bulb going off,” Stephen said of watching his wife rediscover all she had once done with ease.

Mary, once a skilled computer manager, was left trapped by aphasia—wanting to say something, but not making it able to escape her lips.

“Writing, arithmetic. All gone,” she said.

They first looked into getting Mary a service dog after they were forced to relocate following Hurricane Katrina. But the $16,000 to $18,000 price tag of a trained service dog was out of reach.

“We couldn’t afford it,” Stephen said. “We had two boys, we were still recovering from Katrina.”

Then on a 2008 trip to Disney World, the family saw a trio of Canine Companions puppy raisers. They struck up a conversation and filed an application.

Several months later, they welcomed Athlon to the family. There was an adjustment period—it took Athlon about two months to learn Mary’s halted commands. But watching the two together today is pure magic.

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Amazing Athlon

PAULA BURCH-CELENTANO

PAULA BURCH-CELENTANO

Top: Athlon pulls a basket of laundry for Mary Doyle to fold.

Bottom: Athlon, getting hugs from Mary Doyle, is more than a service dog.

He is a best friend.

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HigH stakes for families in need “That’s really why all of us are doing it,” Kline said after hearing Mary’s message for him and his classmates.

“It’s what the real reason is. People who just want to have dogs, that’s great. Nothing wrong with that,” he said. “But with the rigor of training and everything, you really have to have that underlying motivation.”

And the stakes are high.

The students not only work on basic manners, they are responsible for teaching the puppies commands that could stump even a veteran dog owner.

“Under is a command used a lot. It basically teaches the dog to go under a surface and be as small as possible,” Siefferman said.

There’s also “hurry”—that means the dog should go to the bathroom on command in any spot the handler chooses. Or “up” which teaches the dog to rise on his or her hind legs so that the dog will someday be able to retrieve cash or items at a checkout counter or turn light switches on or off.

By the time the dogs leave Tulane, they are expected to have mastered 30 commands. Before they are assigned to a person for work, they will have learned another 10 or so.

It costs about $60,000 to raise a service dog from breeding to placement. Only about 45 percent of dogs that are bred to become service dogs make it. The rest go on to other types of working jobs, such as search and rescue, or are put on an adoption waiting list.

The students at Tulane know that their every move, every word, every command is one step closer to their dogs graduating.

“I’m worried that he won’t perform well. I’m worried about his success,” Hummel said, watching Archer blissfully snooze on the floor. “It’s like my kid going off to college. Is he going to graduate?

I don’t know.”

But Hummel says she knows Archer is meant for greatness.

“I think he’s going to do big things.”

PAULA BURCH-CELENTANO

When Mary rises from a chair, Athlon immediately gets up from his bed to stand at her side, ready to work. And when she says the wrong command—when she says “push” when she means “pull”— Athlon always performs the task she wants, not the one she asked for.

When Mary drops a towel or the remote control, Athlon picks it up and hands it to her.

Although, Mary pointed out with a smile, he does take noticeably longer to pick up a dirty kitchen towel than a clean one, enjoying a good sniff before he hands it over.

And Athlon’s service goes beyond opening drawers or pulling a rope attached to the laundry basket to assist Mary with the wash.

He knows when she needs a friend. The stroke left Mary unable to process loud and crowded spaces. It makes going to parties or school events with the boys stressful on the whole family.

“Anxious,” she said. “I can’t deal.”

When she starts to struggle, Athlon is ready.

“The dog would just get up and put his head on her lap,” Stephen said. “And then she would start petting him and everything else around her would go away. It’s just her and Athlon.”

The Doyles brought Athlon to the Tulane uptown campus in the fall to meet with students who were considering joining the puppyraising program.

“I think it’s amazing that these college students, while they’re at that age, are willing to commit the time to train these puppies. It’s awesome,” Stephen said.

For Mary, she wanted the students to know the gift Athlon has given her.

“Companion. A companion … laying there and pet him,” she said, mimicking how she strokes his back.

Class of 2015 Adam Kline takes Kipper for a walk on Tulane’s uptown campus.

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On the

Front Lines in

Sierra Leone TuLanE DocTorS anD rESEarchErS ScraMbLE To TrEaT PaTiEnTS anD STEM ThE TiDE of ThE DEaDLy EboLa viruS in WEST africa .

By Barri Bronston and Sarah Netter

Suited Up Dr. Susan McLellan on the ground in Sierra Leone, wearing her PPE, or personal protective equipment.

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Serving Sierra Leone Part of curbing the spread of Ebola is investigating who a patient may have had contact with.

Kenema is a quiet town, skirting the edge of the rainforest in southeastern Sierra Leone.

Diamond trading posts dot the main city. Motorbikes beep as they bump across bad roads—some paved, some dirt. In the villages just outside town, extended families of 10 to 15 people rest under thatched roofs. Most people live on less than $1 a day.

The world’s eyes are now on this coastal West African country ravaged by the worst Ebola outbreak in history. But to a handful of scientists, doctors and researchers from Tulane University, Sierra Leone is a second home.

And unlike so many other doctors and researchers who rushed into West Africa to fight the Ebola outbreak, the team from Tulane was already there. Ebola came to them.

FEVER CONSORTIUM “It’s a small, little quiet town, Kenema is,” said Robert Garry, professor of microbiology and immunology at Tulane University. “The people are extraordinarily nice people. They’re wonderful people. They’re hardworking. They’ve been through a lot. They don’t have a lot.”

For the past 10 years, Tulane has been a principal player in the Viral Hemorrhagic Fever Consortium based out of Kenema, a city of more than 125,000 people. Since 2004, researchers from the consortium have been immersed in the study of Lassa fever, which has striking similarities to Ebola, though not as deadly.

Last spring, as the Ebola virus started to pick up steam in neighboring Guinea, Garry, a principal investigator for the consortium, and Lina Moses, an epidemiologist and Tulane’s field sites manager for the Lassa fever program, were at work in Sierra Leone along with their consortium partners from Harvard University and Sierra Leone’s Ministry of Health.

“We knew immediately once there were cases showing up in Guinea that our team was at high risk,” Garry said. “I mean, the outbreak really started just a three or four hours’ drive from where we had been working.”

And when Ebola crossed the border into Sierra Leone, it was the team already in Kenema that the government turned to for help. The small isolation unit in the 350-bed Kenema Government Hospital was the only place in the region that was equipped to handle hemorrhagic fever patients.

But, it was not nearly large enough to handle what would come next.

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RAPID RESPONSE Garry was back in the United States for Memorial Day weekend, attending a wedding of a family friend, when he got a cellphone call from Sierra Leone. The first case of Ebola had been diagnosed there.

He was on a plane within days, taking with him all the personal protective equipment he could carry.

Moses, who had been in Sierra Leone since February, had gone home in early May to Louisiana for a three-week break to see her husband and her two young daughters.

She had been back in the United States for two days when she got her phone call that Sierra Leone had its first case of Ebola. She immediately got back on the plane and stayed for another four months.

“On the ground we were really overwhelmed,” said Moses, her voice cracking.

The Viral Hemorrhagic Fever Consortium had typically treated five Lassa fever patients per week at the height of a virus season. In those first four weeks of the Ebola outbreak, they recorded 106 Ebola cases.

“We were in over our heads very, very early,” Moses said. “And it was apparent it was going to get bad or have the potential to get bad.”

It was a sense of dread that would prove sickeningly accurate in the months to come.

‘DO yOu thINk thEy NEED mE?’ In those first six weeks of the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone, the Viral Hemorrhagic Fever Consortium team was largely on its own. The World Health Organization was running out of funding from its efforts to control the spread of Ebola in Guinea and Liberia, where workers in those countries believed, for a time, they would get the upper hand.

But in Kenema, the virus was only spreading.

“All activities related to Lassa completely shut down for me and my teams,” Moses said.

Clinicians—most of them doctors and nurses from Sierra Leone who had worked with the consortium for years—began early data gathering on the first Sierra Leonean Ebola patients, taking temperature readings and vital signs as well as more complicated monitoring of liver enzymes.

It is extremely unusual for researchers to be in a position to be so hands-on in those first early days of an outbreak, Garry said, and all the data collected in those first weeks is now being used to better diagnose Ebola and understand how it’s transmitted.

“We were able to do a lot of things that had never been possible before,” Garry said.

Moses trekked to the eastern district of Kailahun with her team,

Mecidine and Humanity Left: Lina Moses, an epidemiologist, meets with families in Sierra Leone.

Right: Dr. John Schieffelin preps for another long day at the hospital.

“This is a deadly

scary disease, and we haven’t seen the full impact of it yet.”

—Dr. Robert Garry professor of microbiology and immunology at Tulane University

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trying to trace patients’ contact with others. Who had they visited?

Where did they live? Who did they know that had been sick?

Moses and her colleagues were met with hostility from the Kailahun villagers, who often held a deep mistrust toward Westerners and had heard rumors that Ebola wasn’t even real. Roads were blocked, cars smashed.

“Our teams had rocks and stones and sticks thrown at them,” Moses said.

By mid-summer, WHO had moved into Sierra Leone, and Kenema Government Hospital had transformed into a full-blown Ebola ward. Two Tulane University infectious disease specialists headed to Kenema—Dr. John Schieffelin, clinical director of the Viral Hemorrhagic Fever Consortium, and Dr. Daniel Bausch, associate professor of tropical medicine in the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.

“It was like a three-ring circus,” Schieffelin said. “You’d have a lot of healthy people with minimal symptoms wandering around, and you’d have confused, symptomatic people wandering around.

They’d all be mixing together, and it was very scary.”

While they are living in Kenema, the team from Tulane University stays in a five-bedroom house with the luxury of running water—cold only—and flushing toilets. They get electricity from a generator for a few hours in the evenings.

Back in New Orleans, Dr. Susan McLellan, an infectious disease and tropical medicine specialist at Tulane, was getting the itch.

“Do you think they need me?” she asked Schieffelin and Bausch, both friends she had worked with before.

By then, Schieffelin was on the ground in Sierra Leone. He and Bausch were consulting for WHO, which had just announced it was scaling up efforts to battle Ebola in West Africa.

Initially, the answer was ‘no.’ So McLellan and her family headed to Highlands, North Carolina, for an already scheduled summer vacation. One day after they arrived, she learned through an email from WHO that her services were needed after all.

“My first response was, ‘What have I done?’” she said. “I was anxious before I left. I had trouble sleeping.”

With the resigned blessing of her husband and two teenage children—they knew this is just what she does—she returned home to New Orleans and made all the necessary arrangements, among them a mandatory physical and an online security exam. WHO found her a flight and got her to Sierra Leone within days. Before she knew it, McLellan was smack in the middle of the outbreak.

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RISING EPIDEMIC The number of cases in West Africa skyrocketed startlingly fast.

Within months those first few hundred cases turned into thousands.

And by November, there were more than 10,000 cases of Ebola.

Ebola began seeping into other countries—Nigeria, Senegal, Spain.

In September, the United States reported its first case, an African man traveling from Liberia to Dallas, Texas. He died on Oct. 8, infecting two nurses who had cared for him.

With the number of cases rising by the day, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the virus could potentially infect 1.4 million people just in Liberia and Sierra Leone by the end of January.

“This is a deadly scary disease, and we haven’t seen the full impact of it yet,” Garry said. “It’s a battle that is going to be difficult to win.”

Ebola spreads through contact with bodily fluids of people who have been infected with or died from the virus. Patients typically exhibit sudden onset of fever, intense weakness, muscle pain, headache and sore throat, followed by vomiting, diarrhea, rash, impaired kidney and liver function, and in some cases, both internal and external bleeding, according to WHO. There is no known cure, and 70 percent of patients who get the virus will die.

‘AlARM bEllS ARE RINGING’ Tulane doctors, working on the WHO team, rotated in and out of Kenema, providing direct care but jeopardizing their own health and safety in the process.

“It was always a concern, even though we were wearing the protective equipment,” said Schieffelin. “But once in a while there would be some sort of wardrobe malfunction—something not connected right, a tear in a glove, which meant that the integrity of your protection was broken and you needed to leave (the patient wards) immediately.”

Schieffelin stayed for about three weeks, shuffling between a ward for patients suspected of having the disease and a ward for those who tested positive.

“We would get entire families, as many as 12 people, in the ward at one time,” he said.

More often than not, patients died. Nothing hit McLellan harder than the death of 6-year-old girl who lost both of her parents to Ebola.

“I just watched her get weaker and weaker, and then she died, alone in her bed,” McLellan said. “It’s a profoundly comfortless disease from which to die because no one will dare touch you or hold you. No one touched that little girl.”

The fear of touching took a psychological toll on patients and staff alike.

“Nobody touches anybody,” said McLellan. “No one was taking chances—even though this is not the way you’re getting Ebola. I remember one time putting my hand on a nurse’s shoulder, and she flinched and said, ‘Don’t touch me.’”

When McLellan came home in August, one of the first things she said to her husband was, “Give me a hug.”

The Tulane team was hit especially hard by the loss of healthcare workers they had known for years from their work in the Viral Hemorrhagic Fever Consortium. They included Dr. Sheik Humarr Khan, who was considered a national hero in the fight against Ebola, and chief nurse Mbalu Fonnie.

“These weren’t just random healthcare workers who died. These were doctors and nurses whom we had worked with for 10 years or more,” Bausch said. “We do our part flying in and out to help but they are the real heroes.”

TESTING PROMISE After just a few weeks home in Louisiana this fall, Schieffelin and Moses headed back to Sierra Leone in November, this time to start clinical trials on a new rapid response test that would give doctors an Ebola diagnosis in a matter of minutes versus days.

Working like a glucose monitoring device, the test involves pricking the patient’s finger—requiring less blood and less invasive interaction with the patient than the current syringe and vial test.

McLellan was also headed back to Africa, but to nonaffected countries, such as Chad, Equatorial Guinea and Cameroon to work on preparedness.

While the international medical community is now fired up about containing the outbreak, Garry said he wished this type of vigilance and commitment could have come months earlier.

“A lot of people have died,” he said. “A lot of people I cared about have died.”

Bausch, too, expects to return but is devoting much of his time to consulting with WHO. He recently traveled to WHO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, to work on strategies that he hopes will bring Ebola under control for good.

“We want to see how we can move things along with experimental therapies and vaccines,” he said. “The alarm bells are ringing. But we’re still so far from the end of this.”

—Colleagues Lost—

Dr. Sheik Humarr Khan had been working with the Viral Hemorrhagic Fever Consortium for a decade and was a top doctor for the region, serving as the physician-in-charge at Kenema Government Hospital.

Khan, a 39-year-old soccer fan, had been on the front lines of the Lassa fever project and knew the risks of hemorrhagic fevers, but was in the Ebola wards from the start of the outbreak. He contracted the disease while treating patients and died in July.

Khan and four other healthcare workers were among 50 co-authors of an Ebola study published in the journal Science in late August after they had died. In the study, the scientists were able to show how rapidly the virus mutated as the outbreak spread.

Khan’s death was especially hard on his consortium colleagues from Tulane University who had worked side by side with Khan for many years.

“He was an absolutely great guy,” said Robert Garry, a principal investigator with the Viral Hemorrhagic Fever Consortium, describing Khan as “a very easy guy to get along with.”

Alex Moigboi was a nurse at Kenema Government Hospital and “the backbone of the clinical team,” said Lina Moses, the field sites manager for the Viral Hemorrhagic Fever Consortium. “He worked tirelessly.”

Moses said the nursing staff was afraid of Ebola and afraid of contracting the illness, but kept going back, over and over, day in and day out, knowing they were the only people trained to help.

Moigboi died from Ebola in the second week of July, leaving behind children and a family.

“When Alex died it was a huge blow. A huge blow to the nursing staff. Dr. Khan was distraught,” Moses said.

Serious and studious, Moigboi was often found taking notes by patients’ bedsides. Those notes would later prove critical to research conducted about the virus.

“He always wanted to learn more,” Moses said.

In the Lab Dr. Robert Garry has been working on a rapid diagnostic test that would diagnose Ebola in minutes.

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ryan rivet

Shake the Salt at the new GoldrinG Center for Culinary MediCine at tulane university—the world’s first teaChinG kitChen affiliated with a MediCal sChool—MediCal students and their potential patients learn the healthy art of Good CookinG and the basiCs of food as MediCine.

by Keith Brannon

Cutting Up students chop and dice their way to learning new skills.

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ryan rivet

In a nation where two out of three of us are overweight, the most confusing medical advice is likely the most ubiquitous: You’ve got to eat better.

But what does that mean, exactly?

Most have no idea. And when poor diet competes with smoking as a leading cause of disease and early death in America, practical advice about how to eat right is surprisingly off the menu at most doctors’ offices.

“Physicians don’t really have a great understanding of food,” said Tulane internist Dr. Timothy Harlan, a former chef. “They have a pretty good understanding of nutrition concepts, but patients don’t eat nutrition—they eat food. Our patients don’t go to the grocery store with a grocery list that says one bottle of monounsaturated fat, one pound lean protein and one box of complex carbohydrates.”

More than 75 percent of physicians aren’t comfortable talking to their patients about diet, and fewer than one in eight medical visits include any nutrition counseling, according to a recent survey by the Bipartisan Policy Center.

That disconnect between the kitchen and the clinic is why Tulane University School of Medicine launched the nation’s first culinary medicine program nearly three years ago. Tulane was one of the first to teach medical students and doctors how to cook so they can better counsel their patients about adapting their diets to improve their health.

In August, the program outgrew its initial makeshift home and moved into a newly built, 4,600-square-foot showcase kitchen in the heart of a bustling, new fresh food retail development in Mid-City.

Spotlighted behind a wall of windows next door to a newly opened Whole Foods Market, the Goldring Center for Culinary Medicine at Tulane University is the world’s first teaching kitchen affiliated with a medical school.

COOKING CLASS The gleaming, industrial-sized kitchen is packed with enough stainless steel cooking equipment, exhaust hoods, ranges and refrigerators that it could easily pass for the back house of a five-star restaurant.

Instead, it teaches healthful cooking techniques to medical students, residents, doctors, chefs and members of the community and offers programs on how food affects managing obesity and other diseases.

Alumnus William Goldring and the Woldenberg Foundation funded the new facility.

“Our goal is to teach medical students and residents how to cook and translate the information that they learn in the first two years of medical school—the pre-clinical basic sciences—with the conversations that they are going to have with their patients about food,” said Harlan, Goldring’s executive director.

The new facility is more than five times bigger than the center’s former space. Instead of cooking on hot plates, students gather around eight professional cooking stations and a larger, fully outfitted chef’s presentation area with two overhead LCD screens for lecture-based classes. The kitchen is so much bigger that the school can now expand its core nutrition elective to almost 200 medical students per year, up from the 130 students taught in its first two years.

The classes are so popular there are more than 100 people on the wait list for the public courses in the new facility.

“It’s like going from working in a food truck to a full restaurant kitchen,” said Leah Sarris, Goldring executive chef and program director. “I have so much more space for medical students to work alongside me and help run the classes.”

Sarris, a former culinary nutrition instructor at Johnson & Wales University College of Culinary Arts in Rhode Island, teaches all of the Goldring Center’s cooking classes. She’s the nation’s first chef to work

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as a full-time instructor at a school of medicine.

Looking to eat heaLthier?

Goldring Center for Culinary Medicine executive chef Leah Sarris has seven quick tips to get started on eating better.

1. Rethink youR dRink. ditch the soda and sugar-sweetened beverages. A 20-oz. Coke contains the equivalent of 17 packets of sugar. Be wary of fruit juice and processed orange juice, which are surprisingly high in sugar. A tasty alternative is water with citrus.

2. MAke youR own BReAkfASt. Go-to staples are highfiber cereal with bananas or egg sandwiches with spinach and feta on whole-wheat english muffins.

3. opt foR whoLe GRAinS inSteAd of pRoCeSSed CARBS. that includes brown rice, whole-wheat pasta and whole-grain bread.

4. eAt LeSS MeAt And LoAd on the veGGieS. Substituting half the meat in a recipe for more vegetable reduces costs while raising the nutritional value and fiber content. Avoid too much meat. it’s high in saturated fat and calorie-dense.

5. MeASuRe youR SALt BefoRe you Add it. Most of us easily eat two to three times the 2,300 milligrams daily-recommended limit of salt.

6. uSe MoRe pLAnt-BASed fAtS to iMpRove heARt heALth. this includes olive oil, vegetable oil and nut-based oils.

7. Be LABeL ConSCiouS. Learn how to read nutrition labels, paying close attention to serving sizes, total calories and the amount of sugar, salt and trans fats.

Look for foods high in fiber and try to raise your fiber intake to 30 grams per day.

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The eight-week medical student elective starts with the basics— knife skills, kitchen efficiency and how to read nutrition labels and recipes. The foundation of the center’s cooking philosophy is the Mediterranean diet, which research has shown is best for the heart and overall health. It calls for adding more vegetables, beans, fruits, nuts, whole grains, fish and healthy plant-based fats while limiting excess dairy, meat and alcohol.

The cooking portion of the first class covers concepts of “calorie density” versus “nutrient density.” To make the point, students prepare a typical supper of spaghetti and meat sauce using four recipes. Each recipe gets progressively fewer calories per serving size, more nutrients and additional fiber, from the first—a traditional carb-fest with semolina pasta and a heavy meat sauce—to the last, a meatless version with whole-wheat pasta, vegetables and lentils.

At the end of each class, students eat their work together as they go over the nutrition content for each dish and how it illustrates a larger concept that applies to patient interactions via hypothetical case studies. In the spaghetti case, it shows how traditional recipes can be easily changed to reduce calories while increasing their nutritional content just by adding more vegetables and using less meat.

Another class translates the basic science lessons on fats to diet interventions that affect cholesterol levels and which specific foods can have an impact. That means less butter, cheese, fatty meats and animalbased fats and more plant-based fats like olive oil, avocados and nuts.

Third-year medical student Dennis Ren says the program teaches them how to start the conversation with patients.

“If I say something like, ‘Well, what kind of milk do you drink now?

Oh, you’re drinking whole milk. Have you thought about changing from whole milk to maybe 2 percent or 1 percent?’ That’s something specific,” he said. “We can utilize every small little opportunity as a teaching moment.”

FLAVOR BOOST Salt is another big problem for patients, many of whom are eating two to three times the salt they need.

“Almost 70 percent of the salt we get in our diet comes from processed foods,” Sarris said. “Getting people to think about lowering their salt in dishes is a challenge because their palates have adjusted to higher sodium.”

Her trick is to add acids like citrus juice or vinegar to amplify flavor without salt. She also uses herbs and boosts a dish’s flavor with mushrooms or dashes of cheese.

The tips worked for Mona Chawla who calls herself a culinary convert. The 31-year-old healthcare administrator wasn’t much of a cook

ryan rivet

CULINARY RESEARCH Stories like Francis’ are exactly what the center hopes to accumulate in the coming years. And it’s working on a research project to document how small, regular diet interventions can have a big impact on a patient’s health.

“That is our goal within the next five years—that we can show that a medical student, a resident or a practicing physician engages with us in our programming and their patient population gets better,” Harlan said. “We are working on those randomized trials right now.”

Other medical schools are taking notice. Eight have licensed Tulane’s culinary medicine curriculum to start their own programs along with two healthcare centers. Many more are expected to follow.

“We believe that over the course of the next five years that we will have a tremendous impact just by the sheer volume of programming that we are doing,” Harlan said. “And the other medical schools become the real force multiplier. Because now you have hundreds and hundreds of medical students and physicians whose attitudes are changed and who do begin to believe that food is medicine.”

Black Bean Burgers Here’s a recipe from the Goldring Center for Culinary Medicine.

These burgers make great leftovers.

You can freeze individual burgers by wrapping them in plastic and then thawing them for a quick lunch or dinner. (For more recipes, go online to tulane.edu/tulanian/index.cfm, or check out the Tulane Mags apps for iPads or Androids.)

kei th bra nn on

before she enrolled in the community cooking classes last year. Now, she’s a kitchen knife pro who’s lost weight, no longer drinks diet sodas and plans most of her meals in advance. She’s swapped out her office candy jar for a bowl of seasonal fruit.

She’s now training for a triathlon.

“Once I was in this mode of, ‘I can cook for myself, I can eat healthier or if I’m not cooking I can still make healthier decisions,’ there has been a change in my health,” she said. “I am not as tired anymore because I am fueling my body appropriately.”

The classes can even make a difference for seasoned physicians like San Diego pathologist Dr. David Francis, who took the nutrition Continuing Medical Education course with his wife, internist and medical school alumna Dr. Karen Gordon Francis (M ’81).

His typical breakfast went from a calorie bomb of eggs with bacon, sausage and fried hash browns to steel-cut oatmeal with almonds.

Snacks of muffins from the hospital dining hall became snacks of raisins and nuts.

“I was eating a pretty typical heavy guy’s diet,” said Francis, whose body mass index put him close to obese before he changed his eating habits and started exercising. “I ate what middle America eats, which is why we have so much Type 2 diabetes and obesity in this country.”

He’s lost almost 30 pounds, is no longer diabetic and lowered his cholesterol by more than 100 points.

“My wife said, ‘I don’t have guys on lipid-control medicine that do that well,’” Francis said.

Black Bean Burgers 1 (15 oz) can black beans, reduced sodium, drained and rinsed or 1.5 cups cooked black beans ½ ea red bell pepper, chopped small ½ ea onion, chopped small ½ cup low-fat cheddar cheese, shredded 1 clove garlic, minced 1 tbsp ground cumin 1 tsp dried oregano ¼ tsp salt To taste pepper Pinch cayenne pepper (optional, or can use 1 tsp chopped jalapeno) 1 egg ¾ cup whole-wheat bread crumbs As needed olive oil spray 6 ea tomato slices 2 cups lettuce or spinach 6 ea whole-wheat hamburger buns Preparation: Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Gather all the ingredients and equipment. Mash beans in a large bowl with a fork or potato masher. Mix in red pepper, onion, garlic, cheese, seasonings, egg and breadcrumbs. Mix well. Shape into 6 burger patties. Line a baking sheet with foil and spray with cooking spray. Place burger patties in a single layer. Cook in oven until burgers firm up and reach 165 degrees, about 12 minutes. Serve on a toasted bun with lettuce, tomato and 1 tsp ketchup or other favorite condiment.

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OCEAN EXPLORATION Art Borja (A&S ’87), a biology teacher with Hillcrest Academy in Phoenix, is a 2014 Science Communication Fellow with the Nautilus Corps of Exploration Program. A 15-year teaching veteran and a doctoral candidate in biology, Borja sailed in September, exploring the Caribbean Sea from the coasts of Puerto Rico to Granada.

T U L A N I A N S

PAULA BURCH-CELENTANO

Mentors

Toilet Revolution

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Changemaker Anoop Jain leads the Humanure Power Project, which is converting toilet waste into electric power in India.

NETWORKING From left, Nick Curran (B ’13), Lizzie Piazza (B ’13), Haley Moskow (B ’13) and Albert Lojko (TC ’94) gather in their Thomson-Reuters office in Manhattan.

ALBERT LOJKO

Humanure Power, the brainchild of Anoop Jain (PHTM ’13), earned him $100,000 and the 2014 Waislitz Global Citizen Award at the third annual Global Citizen Festival in New York on Sept. 27, 2014.

The award recognizes the efforts of Jain and his staff to build public toilet facilities in rural communities in India. Humanure Power turns methane gas from human waste into power for local communities.

The electricity they generate is then used to power a water filtration system that allows the team to distribute clean water at competitive, market-rate prices. Roughly 650 million people in India live without toilets, and 400 million people lack electricity.

“Being able to use clean, enclosed public facilities instead of relieving oneself in an outdoors location promotes individual well-being and reduces the risk of water-borne diseases,” said Jain.

Humanure Power’s first facility—eight toilets each for men and women—opened in the Supaul district of Bihar, India, in July. After the team set up a network of lights elevated on bamboo poles, lighting the streets in the area, 150 used the facility the following day.

Members of the Humanure team include Emma Jasinski (A ’14), Dani DiPietro (PHTM ’14), Benjamin Mauro (PHTM ’12) and Neha Dubli, a current School of Public Health student.

While he was a student at Tulane, Jain participated in the Changemaker Institute, an accelerator program for student-led social ventures facilitated by the Tulane Center for Engaged Learning and Teaching (CELT). Tulane staff also aided Jain in preparing for the Dell Social Innovation Challenge (which garnered a $30,000 award) and the Echoing Green Fellowship (he was a 2013 Global Fellow).—Madeline R. Vann

On the sixth floor of 3 Times Square in Manhattan, a squad of Tulane alumni has developed a tough-as-nails reputation within the ranks of international media outlet ThomsonReuters. And they are working to recruit more Tulane grads to join them.

Albert Lojko (TC ’94) started out as a senior analyst with The Carson Group, which was sold to Thomson Financial in 2000. The company merged with news agency Reuters in 2008 to form Thomson-Reuters.

When Thomson-Reuters is looking for new hires, Lojko turns to his Tulane roots.

“It’s a great opportunity to get great talent and make sure that [fellow alumni] get meaningful jobs,” he said.

Lojko was in New Orleans this fall with co-workers Lizzie Piazza (B ’13) and Nick Curran (B ’13) to interview students at a networking event on campus.

Wendel Walker (UC ’05) also reached out to the alumni network to advance his career. Walker connected with Carline Mildor (NC ’96), assistant vice president and associate general counsel at Nationstar Mortgage in Dallas.

“She was able to get my resume in front of the right hiring manager,” said Walker.

“I’m happy to report I have accepted a new role with a mortgage company that fits my experience and background.”

The Tulane Office of Alumni Relations supports alumni finding mentors through TulaneConnect.com and a variety of networking resources and activities.

—Johanna Gretschel and Fran Simon

Dispatch Jeron LaFargue W H E R E

Y ’ A T !

1950s GEORGE BEDDINGFIELD (M ’56) announces he has published his fourth novel, Wildfire, based on the spread of HIV disease from coast to coast in the 1980s and ’90s. Beddingfield retired from surgical practice and accreditation surveys for The Joint Commission in 2008 to devote himself full time to fiction writing. He says he has several more novels on the drawing board.

GARY MORCHOWER (A&S ’59, M ’62) was honored by the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America’s North Texas chapter at its third annual Honorees of Distinction Dinner. The Pediatric Society of Greater Dallas recently honored Morchower with its Lifetime Achievement Award.

Morchower volunteers his time with Special Olympics and the Tulane University School of Medicine board of governors.

1960s JACK KUSHNER (A&S ’60) gave the lecture “Democracy and Global Health Care Delivery Systems” to the International Congress of Arts, Communications, Science and Technology at Cambridge University in England. The university presented him with a certificate of achievement.

ROULHAC BUNKLEY TOLEDANO (NC ’60) wrote “Azoteas Everywhere,” for the Preservation Resource Center’s Preservation in Print. Toledano’s 13th book, Plan Book for New Orleans Architecture, based on drawings from New Orleans Notarial Archives, was published by Pelican Press. On the Tulane School of Architecture website, Toledano has posted a biographical

LEE CELANO

1940s PAUL “NED” GRAFFAGNINO (A&S ’48, M ’51) announces the publication of a book about his late brother, PETER CARL GRAFFAGNINO (A&S ’36, M ’39), Dr. Graff Remembers: World War II Reflections. The memoir, compiled and edited

by Barbara Walden Dent and Robert Drury Graffagnino (Dr. Graff’s son), originated from Peter Graffagnino’s monthly column in the Bulletin of the Muscogee County (Georgia) Medical Society, where he practiced obstetrics and gynecology before his death in 1984. The book includes recollections of the physician’s experiences as a front-lines medical officer in the U.S. Army beginning in 1941. He won the Silver Star for gallantry in action as he stayed with the wounded infantrymen in the caves of Anzio, Italy, before being captured by the Germans in 1944. He also describes the malnutrition, psychosis and post-traumatic stress he suffered after the Germans marched prisoners 100 miles on foot from Poland to Germany in the winter of 1945 in front of the advancing Russian Army.

Paul and Peter Graffagnino’s father, the late PETER GRAFFAGNINO (M 1912) studied surgery under Rudolph Matas at Charity Hospital and later was a member of the faculty at the Tulane School of Medicine. Ned Graffagnino retired from a practice of child and adolescent psychiatry and now lives with his wife, Betty Lou, in Napa Valley, California.

CHEERLEADER Jeron J. LaFargue (L ’58) was head cheerleader on the Tulane University seven-person squad in 1954, and he has been a cheerleader for the state of Louisiana.

The retired lawyer living in Lafayette, Louisiana, has collected memorabilia, including Green Wave football game ticket stubs and a piece of AstroTurf from old Tulane Stadium.

He has shoeboxes full of mementos, including souvenirs from Louisiana fairs and festivals. His grandfather started the Calcasieu-Cameron Parish Fair and then his father took over that position. LaFargue himself ran the fair until 1977. He served as president of the Louisiana Association of Fairs and Festivals for two years and was inducted into the organization’s Hall of Fame.

He worked closely with the agriculture commissioner and the commissioner of tourism to promote Louisiana’s fairs and festivals, which generate a substantial source of revenue throughout the state.

“Louisiana has more fairs and festivals than any other state,” LaFargue boasted.

A festival, he explained, promotes a particular Louisiana product, while a fair is a showcase for the wide variety of products grown or raised in the state.

The best festival, in his opinion? The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. The best fair, currently? The Franklinton Fair, with its dairy barn, cracklin’ cooking demonstration, sugar cane syrup making and educational exhibits for adults and children.

LaFargue lobbied U.S. Sen. Russell Long (D-La.), chair of the Senate Finance Committee, who successfully put forth legislation allowing proceeds from horseracing to be nontaxable, as fairs were deemed educational.

After he had finished the “fast track” at Tulane Law School, LaFargue was in the U.S. Army JAG Corps and then spent 20 years as a private practice lawyer in Sulphur, Louisiana. LaFargue also served as chief of litigation for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, for 10 years and was Louisiana assistant attorney general for six years.

“I love my state, and you never get it out of your blood,” LaFargue said.

His heart still bleeds green, too.

LaFargue and three other 1954 cheerleaders—Lavinia Brock Bircher (NC ’58), Connie Stewart Green (NC ’57), and Julia Cherry Sippel (NC ’55)—returned for Homecoming this fall and were recognized on the field during the Memphis vs. Green Wave football game on Nov. 15 in Yulman Stadium.—FRAn Simon

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MAJESTY OF REX Lee A. Farrow (G ’98), a professor of history and associate dean of liberal arts at Auburn University–Montgomery, completed a book on the American tour of Russian Grand Duke Alexis, who often is associated with the first daytime Mardi Gras celebration and the founding of the Krewe of Rex in 1872. The book will be published by Louisiana State University Press in December.

W H E R E

Y ’ A T !

sketch of Charles Bein, a 1912 Tulane graduate, who was an influential figure in the early days of the architecture school and in the Arts and Crafts Club of New Orleans.

CAROLE SHELBY CARNES (NC ’62) announces the publication by Nautilus of A Street in a Town Remembered: A Memoir of Shelby, Mississippi (1852–2010). She is married to SHELBY TUCKER (L ’59).

LYNN PALMER BARTON (NC ’63) and her husband, DAVID BARTON (M ’62), together received the 2014 Nashville Business Journal’s Health Care Heroes Lifetime Achievement Award for co-founding Alive Hospice, one of the first hospices in the country, in 1974. Lynn Barton, who is on the executive board of Jewish Family Service of Nashville, Tennessee, received the Chesed Award from Jewish Family Service for her contributions to the Jewish and the wider Nashville communities. She is a social worker who has a private psychotherapy practice and she also is a divorce mediator and collaborative divorce facilitator.

LYNNE D. FELDMAN (NC ’67) released her new book, Integral Healing (Integral Publishers, 2014), which describes her battle with breast and lung cancers, as well as a life-threatening bacterial infection, during a three-month period. She self-authored an integrative healing program that has won the praise of medical professionals as well as alternative and complementary healers.

DONALD D. GRAY (E ’68) has retired from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at West Virginia University after 30 years on the faculty.

ARTHUR J. WRIGHT (A&S ’68), an attorney with Thompson & Knight’s Dallas office, is listed in The Best Lawyers in America 2015 in the field of energy law, natural resources law and oil and gas law.

HOWARD SHERIDAN (M ’69) is chair of the Tulane University School of Medicine board of governors. Sheridan and his wife, Brenda, established the Dr. Howard and Brenda B. Sheridan Endowed Scholarship Fund at the medical school and are lead donors for the Tulane Center for Advanced Medical Simulation and Team Training. The Sheridans live in Fort Myers, Florida.

1970s FRANK BARRY JR. (A&S ’70, L ’73) is the incoming chair for the Admiralty Law Institute at Tulane University. Barry was preceded in this position

by ROBERT B. ACOMB (B ’51, L ’53). Barry has been practicing maritime law at Deutsch Kerrigan & Stiles since 1974. He and his wife, JAN GONZALES BARRY (NC ’71, L ’73), live in New Orleans and have two children and two grandchildren.

THOMAS H. GRIMSTAD (M ’73), president and CEO of LAMMICO, announced a LAMMICO merit scholarship to Madeline O. Jansen of

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Metairie, Louisiana, to begin studies at the Tulane University School of Medicine. Jansen, who graduated from Stanford University in 2012 with a bachelor’s degree in human biology, was recognized for academic excellence. She conducted research in the psychiatry and behavioral sciences department at Stanford University School of Medicine, wrote a resource guide for students with eating disorders and created an Internetbased obesity prevention program. LAMMICO, the only physician-owned company specializing in medical professional liability insurance products and services for Louisiana physicians, has given 55 merit scholarships to first-year medical students from Louisiana.

DEBORAH LITTLE (G ’73) announces the publication of her second book, Sunrise Where My Heart Is, by Llumina Press. The book is a true story told through a series of essays, reflections and letters that her parents wrote to each other in 1944 and 1945, while her father was stationed in Hollandia, New Guinea, and Manila, Philippines.

JUDY KOZONIS SNIDER (SW ’75) announces the launch of “If I Call a Name at Night,” a pop ballad for which she and her husband co-wrote the lyrics with Billy Rae Stewart. This is her first song, and she is delighted it is available digitally worldwide. She hopes to write many more songs.

GARY WILTZ (A&S ’75, M ’79) is the incoming and first African-American president of the Tulane Medical Alumni Association. Wiltz, a family medicine physician, has devoted his life to bringing care to the underserved. Now the chief executive officer of Teche Action Clinics, he has grown his practice from one run-down house to 10 clinics that serve nearly 15,000 people from eight parishes in Louisiana.

TIM MESCON (A&S ’76) is retiring as president of Columbus State University in Georgia. He is moving to Amsterdam to become senior vice president and chief officer for Europe, Middle East and Africa for AACSB International— The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business.

KEVIN O’BRIEN (G ’79) is executive director of the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art in Biloxi, Mississippi, which is undergoing a 15-year construction project. He previously had a 25-year career as director of museum facilities in the Midwest and Florida.

1980s JOHN BOBER (A&S ’80) received the Equipment Leasing and Finance Association’s 2014 Distinguished Service Award for his contributions to the association and the equipment finance industry. He is managing director, global technical controller for GE Capital in Norwalk, Connecticut. He and his wife, LESLEY SNELLING (PHTM ’85, M ’90), reside in New Canaan, Connecticut.

PETER D. RUSSIN (A&S ’85) has been recognized as a 2014 Florida Super Lawyer in the category of

bankruptcy/business litigation. Russin works in Meland Russin & Budwick’s Miami office.

1990s ANNE REHKOPF TOWNSEND (NC ’90) joined the board of the Association of Junior Leagues International. Townsend, a member of the Junior League of Brooklyn since 1996, served as its administrative vice president and on its fundraising and membership committees. She has worked in the field of development for over 20 years and runs a fundraising strategy consulting firm working with nonprofit organizations in New York.

LAWRENCE CLOSS (A&S ’91), CEO of MaxHome, announces that his New Orleans–based home improvement company is first in the construction category of Inc. Magazine’s 500|5000 list of America’s fastest-growing companies, and is 52nd overall. MaxHome serves residents throughout greater New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Houston and has developed partnerships with manufacturers and retailers such as Sam’s Club, Home Depot and Walmart.

DREW GREENBLATT (B ’91), president and CEO of Marlin Steel, was featured in The New York Times business section in a story, “From Making Bagel Baskets to Thinking Much Bigger,” on April 30, 2014.

In October, KAREN BOLINGER DeSALVO (M ’92, PHTM ’92) moved from her position as head of the U.S. Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology to acting U.S. assistant secretary for health. In her new role, she is helping the U.S. Health and Human Services Department with its response to the Ebola epidemic. DeSalvo recently received the Spirit of Charity Award from the Medical Center of Louisiana Foundation in New Orleans.

REBECCA SANCHEZ (NC ’92) announces the publication of Social Skills Assessment Through Games: The New Best Practice by 3C Institute.

Sanchez, who received master’s and doctoral degrees in cognitive and developmental psychology from the University of Kentucky, has more than 10 years of research and project management experience in the areas of cognitive and developmental psychology, mental health and substance abuse prevention.

PAUL HENDERSON (L ’93) was a visiting scholar at the Santa Clara University School of Law this fall in the law and social justice program. He is deputy chief of staff, public safety, in the Office of the Mayor for the City and County of San Francisco. He appears regularly as a legal analyst for CBS and MSNBC on topics such as the recent Michael Brown case in Ferguson, Missouri.

NOEL PACE (B ’93) is helping veterans secure free legal aid through the Health Rights Clinic of the University of Miami School of Law, where he is a student. A colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve, Pace is an Equal Justice Works AmeriCorps JD Veterans’ Legal Corps Fellow.

Dispatch Thomas Clark LAUREN BUSCH SINGER (NC ’93) launched a division of her culinary and hospitality public relations firm in New Orleans last year and recently signed on as agency of record for Emeril’s Homebase.

J.P. HYMEL (E ’96), board chair of Crescent City Schools in New Orleans, was recognized in October by the Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools with the Excellence in Governance Award for a record of excellence in board leadership, demonstrable actions that positively impacted the advancement of their organization’s mission, and a strong organizational commitment.

THOMAS J. ADAMS (A&S ’98) co-edited a collection of essays Working in the Big Easy: The History and Politics of Labor in New Orleans, published last summer by the University of Louisiana–Lafayette Press. Adams is a lecturer in American studies in the Department of History and the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney. He lives in New Orleans and Sydney, Australia.

JESSICA WARNER PARDEE (NC ’99, G ’01, G ’09) published her first book, Surviving Katrina: The Experiences of Low-Income African American Women, last spring with Lynne Rienner Publishers. She is an assistant professor of sociology at the Rochester Institute of Technology. This year, she and her husband, Bruce Herring, celebrated five years of marriage.

2000s ERIN SHEPARD BRACK (NC ’00) studied the ecosystems of Bahía de los Ángeles UNESCO World Heritage Site and the Sea of Cortez during summer 2014. Brack, a science teacher at Breakfast Point Academy in Panama City Beach, Florida, took the graduate course in pursuit of her master’s degree from Miami University’s Global Field Program.

DEREK D. BARDELL (G ’01, ’02) was named Region 1 Post-Secondary Teacher of the Year by the Louisiana Association of Computer Using Educators for meritorious service to the students of Delgado Community College.

DEBORAH BURST (UC ’00, ’03) announces the publication of her first book, Hallowed Halls of Greater New Orleans: Historic Churches, Cathedrals and Sanctuaries, by The History Press. The book includes an introduction by author Anne Rice. Burst is a freelance writer and photographer of travel, culinary culture and architecture. She is a co-founder of the Northshore Literary Society.

mandie mills | CenTeRs FOR disease COnTROl and pRevenTiOn

BRENT BAMBERGER (B ’95) launched Brandish Studio in 2012. The creative agency based in Walnut Creek, California, is a group of designers, developers, photographers and videographers who help craft and launch brands. “We’ve been busy helping everyone from technology companies to real estate agents to law firms rebuild their brand presence,” Bamberger writes.

ON THE FAST TRACK When the Ebola outbreak forced the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to ramp up vaccine research, they called on Thomas Clark (A&S ’92, M ’96), a top epidemiologist with more than a decade of experience combatting infectious diseases.

“It’s the biggest response we’ve ever put together,” said Clark, who was named the vaccine team co-lead of the CDC’s Ebola response.

Clark started with the CDC in 2003 as a medical epidemiologist before rising through the ranks to be named acting chief of the Meningitis and Vaccine Preventable Diseases Branch of the Division of Bacterial Diseases in 2013.

It was a position he would hold only for a few months, being reassigned after the Ebola outbreak. Clark, who also headed up efforts to control an outbreak of meningitis B in 2013 at Princeton University in New Jersey and the University of California–Santa Barbara, is now overseeing three potential vaccines for the Ebola virus, two of which have already moved forward to the first phase of human clinical trials.

“This is also unprecedented to go through a development path that usually takes five to 10 years in just a few months,” Clark said. But as the virus continues to spread, especially in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, Clark warned that there is “much work to be done” before being able to put a vaccine into widespread use.

Clark is familiar with the regulatory process for vaccine approval, having led the efforts to vaccinate Princeton and UCSB students against meningitis using an unlicensed vaccine. It was a proving ground that is now coming into play in the Ebola outbreak.

The CDC team on the frontlines of the Ebola crisis will keep working until it is under control, Clark said, even as team members’ families worry about continued exposure.

Even Clark’s own mother, he said, needs reassurance.

Once a vaccine is available, Clark said the first batches likely would be given to healthcare workers and first responders who are treating patients.

“We’ve moved pretty quickly from figuring out how to evaluate the vaccine to how we could vaccinate people,” he said.—SARAH NETTER

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Dispatch Lynnell Thomas MICHAEL HORN (A&S ’02) was promoted to partner at Archer & Greiner, one of New Jersey’s largest law firms, where he practices general litigation in the firm’s Hackensack office. Horn was formerly assistant district attorney in New York City specializing in corporate fraud matters.

CARRIE JOHNSTON (NC ’02) completed a PhD in English literature at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. She is now a visiting assistant professor of English at Quincy University in Illinois.

PATRICk REILLy (B ’02) and his wife, Alisha Reilly, welcomed their first child, Keira Colleen, on Sept. 24, 2014. The family lives in Dallas.

michael malyszko

LESLEy WALkER (NC ’02) earned a master’s degree in Spanish translation and interpretation from the Monterey Institute of International Studies. Walker interned with the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean in Mexico City. She is now a California and federally certified Spanish court interpreter and works for the Sacramento Superior Court.

TOURIST DESTINATION Lynnell L. Thomas (G ’97) took her first tour of a plantation outside the city limits of New Orleans when she took a class with English professor Rebecca Mark.

A native New Orleanian, Thomas had no interest in making such an excursion, but Mark convinced Thomas that it would open her eyes to the history of the Old South.

The tour did more than pique Thomas’s interest in plantation living conditions. It led to her questioning the mythologies perpetuated in tourism advertising and the guided tours that thousands of out-of-towners take every year.

She embarked on a thorough study and critique of tourism and how the actual experience of African-Americans is overlooked or misrepresented in romanticized narratives presented by the tours.

After she received her Master of Liberal Arts from Tulane, Thomas went on to earn a PhD from Emory University. She is now an associate professor and chair of American studies at the University of Massachusetts–Boston.

Thomas had moved to Boston in August 2005, just a week and a half before Hurricane Katrina hit, upending her research for a time and displacing her family from their New Orleans homes.

As New Orleans struggled to recover from the storm, Thomas saw how “the contemporary tourism narrative shaped some of the responses to Hurricane Katrina.”

She picked up her research again. And the result is Desire & Disaster: Tourism, Race, and Historical Memory (Duke University Press, 2014), in which Thomas examines how New Orleans is presented—pre- and post-Katrina—by the tourist trade.

She said, “All of those things that I talk about, I’m a product of and appreciate. It is this strange thing of being an insider and also being critical.”

New Orleans long has been a place of desire, luring visitors to the city “to do things that they felt they couldn’t do in other places,” said Thomas.

But along with the pleasures that New Orleans offers—good food, music and other charms—it is a city with a painful past of a slave economy, segregation and discrimination.

It is a disservice to the richness and depth of New Orleans culture to neglect, deny or distort the pain as well as the pleasure that is imbued in it, said Thomas. “It certainly won’t help us preserve it.”—MARY ANN TRAVIS

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JULIE SkACEL GIBSON (L ’03, PHTM ’03) is a senior legal officer at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. She represents U.T. Health and U.T. Physicians on a wide variety of healthcare law matters. She lives in Houston with her husband, Anders, and their two children, Ella, 5, and Henry, 2.

ALAN JAMIESON (E ’03) received the 2014 National Center for Women and Information Technology’s Undergraduate Research Mentoring Award. Jamieson was promoted to associate professor of computer science and granted tenure at St. Mary's College of Maryland. kEVIN AFGHANI (L ’04) retired from practicing law in 2012 and opened a craft beer bar in Dallas named Craft and Growler.

ASHLEy PAUL (NC ’04) married Jeff Hertz on Oct. 5, 2014, at Trump Tower in Chicago.

AMANDA SERUyA kATZ (NC ’04) and RACHAEL kATZ WALSH (NC ’04) were bridesmaids. Ashley Paul Hertz is a brand developer for Kohl’s Department Stores, and Jeff Hertz is an attorney in Chicago. The couple lives in Milwaukee.

JOE QUICk (TC ’04) and kATIE MEDLIN (A ’05) were married on Oct. 11, 2014, in New Orleans.

The wedding was attended by LINDA SLOTE QUICk (NC ’70), NICOLE MORGENTHALER (A ’05), TINA TAyLOR GREIFZU (B ’02), and JOHN GREIFZU JR. (TC ’03). Medlin is a director at HR&A Advisors in New York and Quick is a strategic management and analysis manager for Bunge in White Plains, New York. The couple resides in Norwalk, Connecticut.

EMILy DUDAk TAyLOR (L ’05) has been named a partner at The Law Center for Children & Families in Madison, Wisconsin. Dudak

SWIM BRIGHTLY During her senior year, Clare Donovan (’14) invented glow-in-the-dark swim goggles. Now she’s launched a company for the patented FlowGlows (www.flowglows.com). The company’s mission is to get more people swimming and to promote water safety, especially for special-needs individuals.

F A R E W E L L Taylor’s practice focuses on immigration for children and families and LGBT issues. She writes and speaks locally and nationally in her practice areas.

DAVID SPECTOR (TC ’05) and his wife, Heidi Zak, launched ThirdLove, an online intimates boutique, in November 2013. ThirdLove has a free app that helps clients find their correct bra size without entering a fitting room. Before establishing ThirdLove, Spector worked with IBM and Google on the development of Google Checkout and Urchin WebAnalytics software.

He later became a partner at venture capital firm Sequoia Capital.

MARGARET “MEG” LACEY (B ’06) and BRETT ALLEN (B ’06) were married on July 26, 2014, in Woodstock, Vermont. The wedding party included JOSHUA ROTHSTEIN (B ’06), JOSHUA ROSENFIELD (B ’06), BRIAN BURKE (B ’06), MICHAEL HELLER (B ’06), SETH GLODOWSI (TC ’06, M ’11), SAMANTHA FISHMAN (B ’06), AMANDA FIX (B ’06), RACHEL WEISS (B ’06), NICOLE BENO (B ’06) and VANESSA MICHEL (NC ’06, B ’14).

Meg Lacey Allen works as a nursery school teacher at the 92nd Street Y. Brett Allen is an associate at Midland Steel, a steel distribution company. The couple lives in Manhattan.

SCOTT LYON (B ’07) and KATIE OLINDE (B ’07) were married on Dec. 21, 2013, at the Audubon Tea Room in New Orleans. KEVIN KUSH (B ’06) and LEILA LABENS (B ’06) were in the wedding party. Scott Lyon is SEC reporting manager at Ensco, and Katie Lyon is a financial analyst at SBM Offshore. The couple lives in Houston.

AMANDA BEARL (’08) married Jeremy Lemire in August 2013. JENNIFER TZIK (’08) was the maid of honor and DAN HUDSON (’08) was an usher for the Mardi Gras–style wedding in Minneapolis. Bearl works in a research lab at the University of Minnesota and is pursuing a master’s degree in integrated behavior health at the school. Her husband is a surveyor for Anderson Engineering. The couple bought a house on the Mississippi River.

WILLIAM BISHOP (L ’08) joined Stone Pigman Walther Wittmann as an associate in the corporate and business law practice group in the firm’s New Orleans office. He works with mergers and acquisitions, restructurings and general corporate matters. Bishop joins Stone Pigman from Jones Walker.

KRISTIN ADELE OKOLI (’08) is a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities in the Tulane University Department of French and Italian.

Okoli received a combined doctorate in French and African American studies from Yale University in May 2014. She is teaching a graduate seminar on the Creole Atlantic. Her teaching and research interests include Louisiana literature, Haitian art and literature, 19th-century French literature and culture, and popular music and performance in French and Creole. Her first book project surveys representations of “la

belle Creole,” or “the beautiful Creole woman,” in France, Louisiana and Haiti.

Tracy Conrad, assistant professor of medicine and pediatrics, of New Orleans on Oct. 24, 2014.

DANIELLE DIMONDA (PHTM ’09) and SPENCER HAY (’09) were married in East Setauket, New York, on Aug. 9, 2014. Members of the wedding party included DEBORAH DENUYL GRAY (’09), WILLA MAUD FETROW SMITH (’09), EMILY ROSEN PILLAR (’09), TYLER WOHLWEND (’09), JASON ROSENBERG (’09), PATRICK DICOSIMO (’09) and CHRIS MOLLIGAN (’09). Danielle Hay is a project director at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and Spencer Hay is a field service engineer for Malvern Instruments. The couple lives in Houston.

Hilda Fremaux Gott (NC ’32) of Katy, Texas, on Aug. 22, 2014.

ALEX GLUSTROM (B ’09) won the Audience Award for Best Louisiana Feature at the 2014 New Orleans Film Festival in October for Big Charity, a documentary about the life and death of the now abandoned, 300-year-old hospital.

Gustave A. Manthey Sr. (B ’39) of New Orleans on March 5, 2014.

PEGGY M. WELSH (L ’09) joined the firm Gordon Arata McCollam Duplantis & Eagan as an associate in the firm’s New Orleans office. Welsh advised on New York law matters for the purchase and sale agreement of Mitsubishi Corp. in its multibillion dollar investment in a new partnership. This transaction won The American Lawyer’s Global Legal Awards’ Mergers & Acquisitions Deal of the Year–Chile in 2013.

Althea Huey Laughlin (NC ’40) of Memphis, Tennessee, on June 18, 2014.

2010s MATTHEW LYONS (B ’10) is publisher/director for the West Coast operations of Seasons Magazines: Your Community Connection. The quarterly print publication has 10 magazines in the Northeast and one in Texas; Lyons is leading the expansion in California.

Milton F. Hilbert Jr. (E ’42) of New Orleans on Sept. 26, 2014.

THOMAS McAFEE (’10) continues to make national news as founder and president of the tech startup Distinc.tt, a social app for people who identify as LGBT. He was invited to the White House in July 2014. Media including The Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, CNET and TechCrunch have covered Distinc.tt.

ALEX B. ROTHENBERG (L ’12) joined Gordon Arata as an associate in the firm’s New Orleans office. He focuses his practice in the area of oil, gas and energy litigation. Prior to joining the firm, he clerked for U.S. District Judge Nannette Jolivette Brown of the Eastern District of Louisiana.

JUSTIN “BERNIE” MONTRIE (G ’13) is serving in the Peace Corps in Belize as a rural family health volunteer.

SHEARON ROBERTS (G ’14) is co-author of Oil and Water: Media Lessons From Hurricane Katrina and the Deepwater Horizon Disaster (University Press of Mississippi, 2014). The book analyzes the journalism and experience of local journalists covering the two devastating crises on the Gulf Coast five years apart. Roberts is an assistant professor of mass communication at Xavier University in New Orleans.

Adrienne McCardell McCoy (NC ’36, M ’40) of Mountain Brook, Alabama, on July 31, 2014.

Fred P. Bronfin (A&S ’38, L ’41) of New Orleans on July 23, 2014.

Betty Ormond Gray (NC ’39) of Monroe, Louisiana, on Aug. 16, 2014.

Wilfred H. Charbonnet (E ’40) of Ocean Springs, Mississippi, on Aug. 22, 2014.

Elmer J. Harris (M ’41) of Huntsville, Alabama, on June 23, 2014.

Alvin R. Christovich Jr. (A&S ’42, L ’47) of New Orleans on Aug. 12, 2014.

Dorothy Schuth Prat (UC ’42) of New Orleans on Sept. 12, 2014.

Frederick J. R. Heebe (A&S ’43, L ’49) of Metairie, Louisiana, on Aug. 10, 2014.

Joy Clay Plauche (A&S ’43) of Mandeville, Louisiana, on Sept. 14, 2014.

Anna Marie Roy Ribbeck (NC ’43) of Covington, Louisiana, on July 30, 2014.

Frances U. Raper Simms (M ’43) of Houston on June 24, 2014.

William M. Allums (M ’44) of Shreveport, Louisiana, on June 28, 2014.

Mary Mitchell Brandon (NC ’44) of Davidson, North Carolina, on May 23, 2014.

Thornton L. Cappel Jr. (E ’44) of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on Sept. 16, 2014.

Fay M. Randall Jr. (M ’44) of Birmingham, Alabama, on July 14, 2014.

Shirley Heiman Ermon Eason (NC ’45) of New Orleans on Sept. 13, 2014.

Warren J. Gadpaille (A&S ’46, M ’52) of Bigfork, Montana, on July 9, 2014.

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CARROLL GALLERY BENEFACTOR Philip J. Carroll Jr. (G ’61) of Houston died on Oct. 6, 2014. An oil industry executive and former CEO of Shell Oil, he served as a member of the Board of Tulane. The Carroll Gallery of the Newcomb Art Department at Tulane is named in honor of his wife, Charlene Phillips Carroll (NC ’59), in recognition of the Carrolls’ generosity to the university.

F A R E W E L L Florence Ricker Inman (NC ’46) of Atlanta on Aug. 27, 2014.

Samuel R. Dunbar (B ’53) of Alexandria, Louisiana, on Aug. 31, 2014.

Ora-Westley Schwemmer Cady (G ’60, ’66) of Lafayette, Louisiana, on Aug. 14, 2014.

William T. Beaty II (A&S ’47) of Union, South Carolina, on July 24, 2014.

William C. McElhannon (A&S ’53) of Gladstone, New Mexico, on July 17, 2014.

Vivian Goldberg Marshall (NC ’60) of Lewiston, New York, on Aug. 31, 2014.

Jane Rodrigue Bryant (NC ’47) of Decatur, Illinois, on June 23, 2014.

Robert M. Butler (B ’54) of Jena, Louisiana, on Aug. 23, 2014.

Bill McMinn (G ’60) of Odessa, Texas, on April 24, 2014.

Richard J. Field Jr. (A&S ’47, M ’49) of Centreville, Mississippi, on July 22, 2014.

Robert C. Kriebel (A&S ’54) of Brookston, Indiana, on Sept. 28, 2014.

Mary Burke Biggs (NC ’61) of Gulfport, Mississippi, on June 23, 2014.

Richard W. Hughes Sr. (A&S ’47) of Cade, Louisiana, on Sept. 23, 2014.

Marilyn Levy Planer (A&S ’55) of Atlanta on Sept. 11, 2014.

Cleo Ross Goodwin-Jones (SW ’61) of Columbia, South Carolina, on July 27, 2014.

Staigg G. Ray (A&S ’47) of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, on July 15, 2014.

Barbara Brill Simmons (NC ’55) of Sarasota, Florida, on Aug. 3, 2014.

Joseph R. Le Blanc Jr. (E ’61) of Fulshear, Texas, on June 19, 2014.

Katherine Caffery Baker Senter (NC ’47) of New Orleans on June 26, 2014.

Jerry Glyn Bagwell (M ’56) of Paris, Texas, on March 9, 2014.

Bonnie J. Burt (NC ’62, G ’80) of New Orleans on July 18, 2014.

Andrew D. Hagan (A&S ’48) of Belleair, Florida, on July 24, 2014.

Peter G. Burke (A&S ’56, L ’60) of New Orleans on Sept. 17, 2014.

Nelson V. Guidry Jr. (A&S ’62) of Metairie, Louisiana, on Aug. 15, 2014.

Mary Frances Prioleau Kump (NC ’48) of Lady Lake, Florida, on Aug. 13, 2014.

Peter L. Green (E ’56) of Hunstville, Alabama, on Sept. 1, 2014.

Warren M. Simon Jr. (L ’62) of Lafayette, Louisiana, on July 25, 2014.

George E. Macdonald (G ’48) of Laredo, Texas, on Aug. 23, 2014.

Donald V. DePasqual (A&S ’57) of Dickinson, Texas, on March 8, 2014.

Leland Dennis II (A&S ’63) of Salt Lake City, Utah, on June 26, 2014.

Milton C. Vigo (A&S ’48, ’50) of New Orleans on Aug. 8, 2014.

Benjamin L. Gorman (A&S ’57, G ’65) of Gainesville, Florida, on Aug. 11, 2014.

Joseph M. Nadell (A&S ’63, M ’67) of New Orleans on Aug. 14, 2014.

George J. Buchert Sr. (B ’49) of Metairie, Louisiana, on Sept. 20, 2014.

Bernard L. Ruckstuhl (E ’57) of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on Feb. 19, 2014.

William Alan Simmons (B ’63) of Crescent City, Florida, on July 28, 2014.

S. K. Hartley Jr. (A&S ’49, L ’51) of Lafayette, Louisiana, on July 21, 2014.

Clarence A. Tilger II (A&S ’57) of Grand Junction, Colorado, on Sept. 19, 2014.

Shelby Ferris Fitzpatrick (NC ’64) of Kent, England, on Aug. 3, 2014.

Jesse O. Morgan Jr. (A ’49) of Shreveport, Louisiana, on Sept. 2, 2014.

Elizabeth Maught White (NC ’57) of New Orleans on Sept. 1, 2014.

William M. Di Tullio (A&S ’65) of Bangor, Maine, on Aug. 3, 2014.

Warren C. Perkins (A&S ’49) of Gretna, Louisiana, on Sept. 12, 2014.

Winton Edwin Williams (B ’57) of Gainesville, Florida, on June 27, 2014.

Walker Y. Ronaldson Jr. (G ’65, L ’68) of New Orleans on Aug. 19, 2014.

Heron S. Collins (G ’50, ’52) of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on Sept. 9, 2014.

Jo Ann Menne Hager (SW ’58) of Birmingham, Alabama, on Aug. 15, 2014.

John L. Winters (G ’65) of Oxford, Mississippi, on July 6, 2014.

Otto A. Levy (B ’50) of New Orleans on Sept.

19, 2014.

William G. Koonce (B ’58) of League City, Texas, on July 14, 2014.

Jo Anne Fife Brockhoff (UC ’66) of Slidell, Louisiana, on Sept. 21, 2014.

Paul K. Anderson (G ’51) of Calgary, Canada, on June 23, 2014.

Elizabeth M. Marshall (NC ’58) of Alexandria, Louisiana, on Aug. 1, 2014.

Arthur Ekizian (G ’66) of Visalia, California, on Aug. 4, 2014.

Clarence J. Martin (A&S ’51, L ’54) of Alexandria, Virginia, on Aug. 8, 2014.

David E. Penney III (A&S ’58, G ’65) of Bogart, Georgia, on June 3, 2014.

Woodward Heard Register (A&S ’66) of Waveland, Mississippi, on July 27, 2014.

David S. Sherman Jr. (B ’51) of St. Louis on Sept.

13, 2014.

Robert L. Drew (A ’59) of Covington, Louisiana, on June 27, 2014.

Pamela Macdiarmid Hoover (UC ’67, PHTM ’90) of Charlottesville, Virginia, on Aug. 27, 2014.

Shirley Haddock Campbell (NC ’53) of Atlanta on July 7, 2014.

M. Ethel Payne (PHTM ’59) of Wheeling, Illinois, on Aug. 24, 2014.

Harold M. Miller Jr. (E ’67, ’68) of Cambridge, Maryland, on July 8, 2014.

Jack T. Coleman (M ’53) of Mobile, Alabama, on Aug. 17, 2014.

J. Wasserman (B ’59) of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on Aug. 1, 2014.

Dorothy A. Broding Holland (PHTM ’68) of Dadeville, Alabama, on July 13, 2014.

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Dianne Powers Orlesh (G ’68) of New Orleans on July 28, 2014.

Betty Ann Wilhelm (SW ’68) of New Orleans on July 31, 2014.

Louis G. Gruntz Jr. (E ’69) of Jefferson, Louisiana, on Aug. 29, 2014.

John J. Nevins (SW ’69) of Venice, Florida, on Aug. 26, 2014.

Thomas B. Merritt Jr. (A&S ’70, G ’74) of Metairie, Louisiana, on July 7, 2014.

James P. Thompson (A&S ’71) of Pensacola, Florida, on Jan. 8, 2014.

Stephen N. Trivigno (A&S ’71, G ’75) of New Orleans on Aug. 13, 2014.

Louis D. Misko (E ’72) of San Diego on July 3, 2014.

Charles R. Waldron (A&S ’72, B ’75) of Front Royal, Virginia, on Sept. 13, 2014.

Russell E. Yates II (UC ’72) of Jacksonville, Florida, on July 21, 2014.

Michael Weinstock (A&S ’73, L ’76) of Atlanta on July 5, 2014.

Anatole Pohorilenko (G ’74, ’90) of Cheltenham, Pennsylvania, on April 1, 2014.

H. Stanley Feldman (A&S ’75) of Charleston, South Carolina, on June 30, 2014.

Samuel J. McGrew (UC ’76) of Metairie, Louisiana, on Aug. 10, 2014.

Dale Kunkel (SW ’77) of Sedgwick, Kansas, on April 28, 2014.

Shelley Van Geffen Poole (L ’78) of Austin, Texas, on Sept. 23, 2014.

Arnold L. Goodman (A&S ’79) of Tampa, Florida, on June 29, 2014.

Eric P. Trethewey (G ’79) of Roanoke, Virginia, on Sept. 1, 2014.

FIRST DIRECTOR OF JEWISH STUDIES It was an honor to have known JOE COHEn, English professor and first director of Jewish studies at Tulane, a program he established in 1981. He died on Sept. 25, 2014, in New Orleans. [In this 1986 photo, Cohen is pictured with a student, Robin Atlas (NC ’86).]

I got to know Joe when I arrived at Tulane to take over the directorship of Jewish studies in 2003.

Right away everyone tugged, “You’ve got to meet Joe. Go down to the Riverbend, the second floor, he’s got a used bookstore [Great Acquisitions Books].”

So I went. I found a sea full of books—books on the shelves, of course, but also no floor—only books. He came out from the back, a little guy, a bit slumped over, but he greeted me with a big smile. “Joe Cohen,” he said, stretching out his hand. “You’re Brian, the new head of Jewish studies.

“There are some important things you need to know to make Jewish studies flourish.”

What were those things? “Never believe a dean, never take no for an answer when your department depends on a yes, and keep good relations with the community since you never know who is giving when.” I boiled it down to keep on your toes, be friendly with everyone and try to provide a real service for the community.

Later we met again, and he spoke of his love for Tulane, while recounting the visits to the university of such luminaries as the writers Amos Oz, A.B. Yehoshua, T. Carmi and Yosef Yerushalmi. I was in awe of him; could I do the same or better?

Recently, we presented Joe with a plaque to honor his years of service to Jewish studies. We invited his family to celebrate with the department. He was fragile, used a wheelchair and a cane, but he was still sharp and prickly, his smile as round as ever.

But I often worried that he was disappointed with me. After all, I hadn’t brought the world’s best writers to Tulane; I hadn’t made the department into the same kind of community resource that he did. But he calmed me down. At that last meeting, four or five months before his death, he held my shoulder and smiled at me and said, “You’ve done wonders here.” I beamed back at him in awe and gratitude.

—BRIAn HOROWITz Brian Horowitz is Sizeler Family Chair of Jewish Studies.

Jonathan W. Fox (A&S ’88) of Jupiter, Florida, on Aug. 1, 2014.

William C. Edmund (B ’89) of San Juan Capistrano, California, on Aug. 19, 2014.

Helen J. Smith (UC ’90) of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on July 26, 2014.

John S. Berault (PHTM ’80) of New Orleans on July 12, 2014.

Nicole Spalding (SW ’90) of New Orleans on Aug. 1, 2014.

Daniel R. Stuart (B ’82) of Kenner, Louisiana, on June 22, 2014.

Donald J. Frederic (PHTM ’94) of Dover, Arkansas, on July 4, 2014.

James S. Shearman (A&S ’84) of Vero Beach, Florida, on Sept. 15, 2014.

Leila O. Grandstaff (SW ’94) of Lafayette, Louisiana, on April 5, 2014.

Craig P. Fischer (A&S ’87) of Houston on June 28, 2014.

Marina Markovich Adams (L ’96) of Winnetka, Illinois, on Aug. 30, 2014.

armand bertin

Tribute Joseph Cohen

Philip Johnson (UC ’97) of New Orleans on Sept.

5, 2014.

Edwin S. Nelson (UC ’00) of Greensboro, North Carolina, on Aug. 9, 2014.

G. Dudley Fish III (PHTM ’01) of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on Aug. 25, 2014.

Luis F. Maldonado Jr. (UC ’02) of Harvey, Louisiana, on Aug. 29, 2014.

Andre C. Shiromani (L ’04) of Tallahassee, Florida, on May 26, 2014.

Katherine Dines (NC ’05, ’06) of Marco Island, Florida, on July 10, 2014.

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glazer Family brick drive Jill and Avie Glazer, founding donors of Yulman Stadium, have launched a campaign for commemorative bricks from $250 to $10,000 to further support fundraising for the stadium. The Glazers will match every gift for the bricks that will permanently adorn Game Day Plaza outside Yulman Stadium. For more information, go to tulanegreenwave.com/bricks or call 855-928-3275.

W A V E M A K E R S

Parent Fund

As a law student, Jim McCulloch (A&S ’74, L ’77) didn’t plan on a career in energy law.

He focused instead on maritime law, immersing himself in Tulane’s unrivaled admiralty curriculum.

Now, McCulloch is an energy industry veteran who serves as senior vice president and general counsel for Houston-based Forum Energy Technologies. And he has committed to help Tulane leverage its strength in maritime law to build the same profile in energy law.

In September, McCulloch and his wife, Susan, gave $2 million to endow the McCulloch Chair in Energy Law. The gift enables Tulane to recruit a top legal scholar and is meant to be the lead gift in a broader campaign to raise funds to create an endowed center in the field.

“The McCullochs’ gift is generous and visionary,” said David Meyer, dean of Tulane Law School. “The McCulloch Chair will enable us to drive new research and innovation in energy law and close the loop with Tulane’s closely aligned strengths in maritime, environmental and international law.”

McCulloch’s focus on maritime law as a student proved instrumental in his early career, which included work for a shipping company in Florida and a stint in the admiralty section at Phelps Dunbar law firm. He joined Global Marine, a leading international offshore drilling contractor, as an assistant general counsel in 1983 and later spent 12 years as the company’s senior vice president and general counsel.

“It was helpful to have an interest in a niche area of the law,” he said.—Linda Campbell

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SAbree HILL

JACKSON HILL

Energy Law

During legendary accounting teacher Beau Parent’s lectures, he would often pause, look around his class and say in a booming voice, “Make cents, Make sense?”

His relentless efforts for 37 years to get his students to understand accounting helped hundreds of A. B. Freeman School of Business undergraduates get through Financial Accounting.

When word spread that 73-year-old Parent had died on July 20, 2014, calls of concern from former students began streaming into the school.

“It’s difficult, this fall term, without Beau in his classroom,” said Michael Hogg, professor of practice who knew Parent for nearly 25 years. “He was one of the most gifted teachers I’ve ever met.”

Parent, a certified public accountant, developed the Freeman School’s five-year Master of Accounting program, taking pride in helping students get internships at firms all across the country, Hogg said.

Parent was a frequent winner of the school’s Bachelor of Science in Management Honor Roll Teaching Award, and also earned the James Murphy Award for Excellence in Teaching. He twice received the Howard Wisner Award given by undergraduates to teachers who demonstrate special interest in students. He was faculty adviser for the school’s chapter of Beta Alpha Psi, an honorary accounting fraternity.

A fund in Parent’s memory has been established to support scholarships for students like those whom he taught and mentored throughout his career.

Gifts can be made to the Tulane University Office of Development, P.O. Box 61075, New Orleans, LA 70161, or at giving.tulane.edu/beau.

—Carol Schlueter

Accounting Ace Beau Parent inspired students to succeed in accounting.

legal training

Through a partnership with Valero Energy Corp., Tulane law students tour the company’s refinery in St. Charles Parish, Louisiana, to learn about complex compliance issues encountered by lawyers representing clients in the energy business.

Law SChoLarShiP The family of the late Judge Edmund M. Reggie (L ’49) has established an endowed scholarship fund in his memory. Reggie, who died in 2013 at age 87, was inducted into the Louisiana Political Hall of Fame in 2004. A city judge in Crowley, Louisiana, for 25 years, Reggie also counseled presidents, governors and senators, local and state officials and other political hopefuls.

W A V E M A K E R S

Phyllis Taylor Center

Design Thinking

THINKSTOCK

The Taylor Center will hire faculty to work collaboratively to solve problems in the environment, education, health care and more.

Phyllis M. Taylor, chair of the Patrick F. Taylor Foundation and a member of the Board of Tulane, has announced a $15 million gift to Tulane University to establish the Phyllis M. Taylor Center for Social Innovation and Design Thinking.

The center will bring Tulane faculty, students and researchers from a wide array of disciplines together to work collaboratively on practical solutions to real-life problems in the environment, education, health care and more.

“The goal is to move Tulane to the forefront of universities engaged in solving social problems,” Taylor said. “And to do so with humility, recognizing that the best ideas often arise from the collective wisdom of the community and not always from the theoretical musings of experts.”

The Taylor Center will hire faculty who specialize in design thinking—the process of finding pragmatic, efficient and sustainable solutions to societal problems. These faculty members will work with current university faculty to develop an array of social innovation and social entrepreneurship courses at the undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate lev-

els that engage students in seeking solutions to social ills.

“The goal is to move Tulane to the forefront of universities engaged in solving social problems.”

—Phyllis Taylor “The Taylor Center will build on Tulane’s strength in addressing real-world problems through interdisciplinary collaboration,” Tulane President Mike Fitts said. “We are so grateful to Phyllis, a true visionary, for creating a center vital not only to the future of Tulane but to the future of our society.”

The center will also bring Taylor Social Innovation Fellows—world-renowned social

entrepreneurs and practitioners—to Tulane as visiting professors. Tulane’s Grand Challenges, a series of contests established by Taylor that awards cash prizes to the best ideas for addressing environmental degradation and other world problems, will also be housed at the Taylor Center.

A graduate of Tulane Law School, Taylor serves on the New Orleans Business Council, Smithsonian National Board, Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation, Education Commission of the States, Catholic Leadership Institute National Advisory Board and Xavier University Board of Trustees.

Her numerous honors include the Dermot McGlinchey Lifetime Achievement Award from Tulane, induction into the Paul Tulane Society, the Alexis de Tocqueville Award from United Way, Integritas Vitae Award from Loyola University–New Orleans, Distinguished Citizen Award from Southeast Louisiana Council of Boy Scouts of America, Business Hall of Fame Laureate from Junior Achievement and being named an Honorary Marine by the United States Marines.

—Mike Strecker

T UL A N E MAGA Z I N E d e c e m b e r 2 0 1 4

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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

Native Tongue

by Angus Lind

’Twas back in early September, and the Tulane freshmen were just mastering some important campus directional issues, such as how to get to Camellia Grill. I was channel surfing, trying to settle onto a local TV news broadcast to watch.

Up popped Bob Breck, the veteran meteorologist for WVUE-TV News.

After 36 years on the air, Breck is still the unpredictable and amusing Energizer Bunny of the Fox 8 weather staff. He had in tow Greg Adaline, a new morning anchor from Lansing, Michigan. It was his first day on the job.

For opportunist Breck, this was like shooting ducks in a baited field.

He welcomed the Michigander, then marched the poor guy over to a whiteboard where he had written six names: Tchoupitoulas, Burgundy, Tchefuncte, Maurepas, Delacroix and Thibodaux. He asked Adaline to pronounce each one, a daunting task for anyone who hasn’t spent more time here than a Mardi Gras weekend. Adaline got two right—well, sort of. At least Breck didn’t tell him Tchoupitoulas is pronounced just like it’s spelled.

And when Breck told Adaline that the river Tchefuncte was pronounced Che-funk-ta, he asked, “Why doesn’t it end in ‘a’?”

“You never ask why down here,” replied Breck.

No newbie wants to fumble the ball with local names, or the viewers will jump all over him or her. I got to thinking about the geographically diverse crowd of 1,600 Green Wave freshmen (from 46 states and 18 foreign countries) who had just landed in Noo Awlins, dawlin’ and faced a similar task in order to assimilate into the local scene—how to pronounce or correctly mispronounce names of streets, cities and towns, bodies of water and parishes, not to mention deciphering local colloquialisms (“Ya want dat po-boy dressed?”).

Milan, Italy’s fashion capital, anywhere else in the world would be pronounced Mee-LAHN. Here the street is MY-lin. Burgundy the street is not named for the French wine region but for France’s Duke of Burgundy. But it’s not BUR-gun-dee, it’s Bur-GUN-dee. Even though the French founded New Orleans, and we can probably all agree that everything sounds better in French, what you’re hearing in many cases is fractured French. Carondelet should be Kah-ron-deh-LAY but it’s Kuh-ron-duh-LET. As Breck said, don’t ask.

“I always tell prospective students that attending Tulane is the closest you can get to studying abroad while staying in the United States,” writes

40

d e c e m b e r 2014 T ULANE MAGA ZINE

local lingo It’s a mystery how to pronounce some New Orleans’ names.

Jeff Schiffman, senior associate director of undergraduate admission and a 2005 Tulane graduate, in his blog on “NOLA Lingo.” No doubt about it—y’all turn on WWL-AM 870 radio’s sports talk shows sometime. You’ll be summoning a Cajun translator after listening to former Saints quarterback “Cajun Cannon” Bobby Hebert, “Big Chief” Deke Bellavia, Louisiana State University and Saints hero Hokie Gajan and analyst Mike Detellier.

“I actually started saying ‘Y’all’ before I even headed home for winter break my freshman year,” said Schiffman, a Marylander. “And by the time my first semester was over, it was a regular part of my vocabulary, much to the confusion of my Northeastern friends.” He said a lot of the local terminology was baffling and took some getting used to.

He correctly identifies the five reasons why this city is so unique. New Orleans has its own culture, music, food, architecture and language. Language is the toughest nut to crack. (“Wheredyageauxta high school?”) It’s like breaking a code. Street pronunciations are confounding. Natives speak a tongue all their own. Enunciation and grammar are not our forte. The accent has been likened to Brooklynese. For newcomers, trying to grasp the mystique and mystery of this city and the hold it has on people can be perplexing—but also a helluva lot of fun.

There isn’t a city in the country that has the stories behind its street names that New Orleans does. Not only do we have streets named for French and Spanish royalty, presidents, politicos, philanthropists, military heroes, explorers, founding fathers, land developers and saints, but also for pirates and rogues, scoundrels and crooks. There’s even a street that crosses Esplanade named Mystery. And that it is, for there is no story as to why it was so named.

In this city’s long history, it was a port of entry for an exotic and unlikely mix of French, Spanish, English, Irish, Acadians, Caribbean and African blacks, Germans, Sicilians, Yugoslavians, Native Americans and later, Central Americans and Vietnamese. Stir that pot almost three centuries till well blended and it’s a little easier to understand why the Crescent City is so funky, so outrageous, so multicultural, so party-oriented (blame that on the French). Because of that mix we have, as Schiffman put it, “our own kind of language that, in all honesty, makes sense really only to us.”

Tru dat.

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ryan rivet

Wish You Were Here Carnival time.