The Campaign for Tulane

D R A F T FO R D I SCU S S I O N

The Campaign for Tulane Our Vision and Priorities DRAFT 04.18.17 CONFIDENTIAL

The Campaign for Tulane

For New Orleans.

For the World.

This is the pivotal moment in our history.

Tulane has captured the world’s imagination.

With soaring interest from the brightest students, with brilliant faculty focused on problems that matter to the world, this is our moment to leap forward.

AND NOW, WE ARE DOUBLING DOWN ON AMBITION. We call upon you to share in this ambition.

Now is the time for us to join as one, to rally for the things Tulane holds most dear.

With your help there are no limits to what we can accomplish.

NOW IS THE TIME FOR TULANE UNIVERSITY.

The Vision

Our goal? To be the most innovative urban university in the country.

For 183 years we have been proving our relevance, clamoring to see what is around the corner and working to solve problems of dramatic proportions.

We are on the front lines of threatened environments and the vanguard of soul-stirring arts. The leading edge of the new entrepreneurial frontier and the health issues that put entire populations at risk. Of international medicine and law.

Tulane lives and breathes innovation because we are shaped by the unique alchemy of New Orleans. We understand that innovation requires risktaking and a little bit of adventure. Inspiration comes through creativity and playfulness. And solving intractable problems demands diversity of minds and perspectives, the willingness to work with others who think in entirely different disciplinary languages.

Tulane is rooted in the rich soil of New Orleans, born of its beloved culture and raised with its fierce spirit. And Tulane reaches out to the world, a global institution chasing problems that respect no national boundaries.

We stand for innovation. For pushing the world forward.

For solving seemingly impossible problems. We ask you to stand with us.

The Campaign for Tulane is a multi-year effort that will impact every aspect of the university—every student, every faculty member, all schools, units and centers—and ensure our leadership in shaping the future.

WITH YOUR HELP, WE WILL BECOME EVERYTHING WE’VE ALWAYS BEEN CAPABLE OF.

What we stand for.

We are embarking on our most ambitious campaign ever, and the resulting funds will touch every part of our campus and beyond. With this in mind, we have identified the following priorities as the focus of this initiative.

.01

WE STAND FOR NEW ORLEANS AND FOR THE WORLD.

.02

WE STAND FOR PIONEERING RESEARCH.

.03

WE STAND FOR TRANSFORMATIVE TEACHING.

.04

WE STAND FOR OPPORTUNITY AND DIVERSITY.

.05

WE STAND FOR BUILDING AN ENVIRONMENT TO SUPPORT EXCELLENCE.

HOW WE’LL MAKE THIS REAL The Center for the Gulf South will preserve and promote our extraordinary local culture, exploring the cultural intersections with Africa, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean through research, community engagement and new curricula.

The ByWater Institute will bring together researchers from across the university to address the peril and promise of water resources. We will leverage our coastal location along with our tradition of civic engagement and faculty resources to address the challenges of rising sea levels and coastal erosion.

The Center for Public Service is already the hub for all community service activities at Tulane, and with further investment, we will link theory with practice, integrate experiential learning, fund externships that expose students to the work of nonprofits, focus on transformative teaching rooted in service, and most importantly, build emotional intelligence to empower our students to succeed in their chosen fields.

We will increase our investment in Tulane’s Energy Institute, which coordinates energy research at the university.

We will continue bringing together faculty from business, economics, engineering, environmental studies, public health, law and other disciplines to advance our collective knowledge, with a focus on developing affordable, sustainable, environmentally responsible energy options.

We Stand for New Orleans and for the world.

Why? Because of all the leading, world-class research universities, Tulane is the only one that has New Orleans.

New Orleans makes us innovators. It adds syncopation to our teaching and improvisation to our research. It teaches Tulanians how to infuse our lives with moments of joy and inspires us to become creative risk-takers who succeed. It is the reason we don’t just think outside of the box, we take apart the box and make it into something better.

And New Orleans would not be the same without Tulane. Together we have reimagined what a city can achieve through social entrepreneurship and brilliant problem solving. We send our students out as a small army of creative innovators who take powerful action to improve our city because we know that it’s a proving ground for bettering life all over the world. The problems facing our region are a microcosm of the most important problems everywhere.

And so it is here that we will solve the global problem of coastal erosion. It is here that we will learn how to balance the need for energy with the protection of the environment. It is here that we will reimagine access to the finest medical care.

HOW WE’LL MAKE THIS REAL

We stand for pioneering research.

Why? Because it is in our DNA. Because it is who we have always been.

From Tulane’s founding as a medical college to tackle yellow fever, we have solved global problems. We push the boundaries of human knowledge forward by working to uncover the mysteries of the human brain. We assemble world-class minds to do battle with intractable problems.

We stand for unrivaled research in fields where we are uniquely qualified to make enormous impact, leveraging our location to study firsthand the impacts of diseases aff licting diverse populations.

We stand for discovery across all fields, because the solutions to the world’s most complicated problems will never be found within a single discipline. Innovation requires examining problems from every angle, using insights and wisdom from every field.

To reach higher and do more, we must invest all we can in our people and facilities. We will need endowed presidential chairs to compete for the best and brightest scholars, carefully chosen to amplify our research strengths. We will need the finest lab facilities and more research support. We will fund Centers that tackle the world’s most pressing problems by bringing together all fields of study to uncover real solutions.

With your help, we will find a vaccine for the Ebola virus. We will solve the mysteries of the brain and decipher the lessons of human history. With your help, we will change the world.

The School of Medicine is at the forefront of medical research. We are working to quickly and capably respond to both emerging diseases and longstanding conditions.

By investing in clinical research, we pioneer new technologies, discover cures and save lives in our community and around the world.

We will create ten presidential chairs that will attract high profile faculty whose work is visionary and interdisciplinary, helping Tulane make use of its modest size by tackling problems nimbly across fields. And by bringing in powerhouses within disciplines, we will provide clout and mentorship for entire departments.

We will increase support of Tulane’s Brain Institute, where the School of Science and Engineering and the School of Medicine are partnering to usher in a new era of discovery, learning and public influence in neuroscience.

As the only university in the nation with a School of Medicine, School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, a School of Science and Engineering, a National Primate Research Center, a Regional Biosafety Laboratory, and an affiliated clinical trials unit, we will endow a Center for Global Health, drawing on public and private funds to elevate and secure Tulane’s place as the premier institution for infectious disease research.

HOW WE’LL MAKE THIS REAL We will create 60 new named, endowed chairs, establishing a cohort of intellectual leaders who will transform the university at every level, and who will convene at an annual crossdisciplinary colloquium to examine issues from multiple perspectives.

Creating an Honors Program that attracts and engages the brightest students from around the world.

For those students who demand constant challenge, we will ensure that they have access to the most intense learning, to graduate level labs, and to every resource they need reach their potential.

Renewing our TIDES courses (Tulane InterDisciplinary Experience Seminars) to engage our freshman immediately with the most dynamic faculty.

TIDES courses will root students to New Orleans and the campus community, making them a part of our Tulane family and intellectual life from their first days on campus.

We stand for transformative teaching.

Why? Because there is nothing textbook about Tulane.

We stand for powerful teaching as the core of our mission. Because when we give our extraordinary students the tools to innovate, they will go out and reimagine the world.

We stand for learning that happens everywhere—across our campus and beyond. Because we go beyond powerful classroom lectures, we apply revolutionary models in our own teaching. Our students learn architecture by designing and building extraordinary spaces for local non-profits. They learn marketing and accounting by interviewing top management, touring facilities and even launching their own social entrepreneurships. They learn law by arguing cases in appellate court, and science by performing research in graduate laboratories. By pushing our students to work nimbly across disciplines, they imagine connections we never dreamed of.

At Tulane, we teach our students to love knowledge for its own sake, but also to understand how knowledge can change the world.

How to be leaders and how to collaborate. Confidence and humility.

With your help, we will expand our world-class faculty to ensure that every student has individualized attention, small interactive classes and the opportunity to do research. We will tighten the connections between the lessons learned in the classroom and the ways those doctrines are applied in service learning. With your help, we will build committed citizens of the world.

HOW WE’LL MAKE THIS REAL

We stand for opportunity and diversity.

Why? Because we want the best and brightest students, especially the ones who won the race even from behind the starting line.

Because we want to create a community that mirrors the world.

We stand for creating an engine of opportunity by finding talent and helping it flourish. We stand for seeking out that child from any neighborhood and making sure that she gets the education that will one day allow her to cure cancer.

We stand for an educational community that mirrors the world, with students from farms and inner cities, from poverty and privilege, from every race and religion. Because the world’s future depends on our ability to learn that we have more in common than we have apart. Because diversity fuels innovation. We create spaces that bring us together with people we would never otherwise meet.

With your help to fund scholarships and financial aid, we can make Tulane more accessible to brilliant students, so that their talents can transform the world. With your help, we will make Tulane more vibrant and diverse. We will make Tulane a place where students will learn the fundamental values and crucial career skills of respect and inclusion. We will make Tulane a more powerful community, where students will learn to find common values and experiences with people from entirely different backgrounds.

We will greatly increase endowed scholarship support to remove financial barriers, so that every deserving student has access to a Tulane education— expanding our current admission outreach to underrepresented communities.

The Center for Academic Equity will provide the support necessary for first generation students, and those who have overcome extraordinary disadvantages, to flourish.

It will make sure that small hurdles do not derail promising academic careers, and ensure that these inspiring students are empowered to make use of every resource we have to offer.

Through the Academic Success Center and the Center for Professional and Career Development, we will offer all students a blueprint that empowers them to unite academic advising with success and career programs.

HOW WE’LL MAKE THIS REAL The Commons will create a transformational communal space, a place for eating and engagement, for studying and collaboration. It will also place the Newcomb College Institute at the center of campus life.

We will build stunning new residence halls and create communities around focused intellectual themes. Students will engage with academics in every facet of their Tulane experience.

These residential colleges will create communities within the broader Tulane family, encouraging connections among diverse students based on common interests and passions.

We will fund a Digital Technology Center to focus on humanities, social sciences and sciences: one center to serve all disciplines, supporting scholarly and academic activities that are conducted or enhanced through the use of digital technology.

We will support the Tulane Fund for Undergraduate Education as a vital source of institutional momentum that sustains our unique undergraduate experience. The Tulane Fund will allow undergraduate alumni to assume the responsibility for those who follow, connect all generations and enjoy the spirit of a shared experience.

We stand for building an environment to support excellence.

Why? Because we stand for ambition and creating an environment necessary for innovative excellence. Tulane is an unparalleled treasure, a magnificent urban campus that will thrive for the next 183 years.

Our physical spaces foster innovation. By challenging our students to step onto a performance stage, or to build electronics for the first time in the Maker Space, we push them beyond their comfort zones.

With design thinking studios that playfully expand creativity, we expand their ability to solve intricate problems.

Student life and Green Wave athletics provide an essential sense of community. Our Newcomb Art Museum and our library system provide students with opportunities to engage with the rare, the beautiful, the challenging. By keeping foundational support at a high level, we not only retain the status of our world-class schools, centers and institutes, we go beyond, providing our students with an unparalleled experience.

Our students will learn from each other in residential learning communities organized around intellectual themes. We will create inventive engagement for our students in every aspect of their lives, where they eat, where they sleep, where they play. With dynamic spaces like the Commons, we will embed opportunities for synchronicity — connections between students and faculty, between artists and law professors — sparking ideas at every turn.

With your help, we will catalyze the future.

The world we have inherited is calling for a more capable, more equipped, more powerful Tulane University.

It’s calling for the vision that is ours: one that’s distinct, vibrant, and bold.

One that truly stands apart for both the immediate future and the greater good.

And it’s calling for generous support from you.

Support The Campaign for Tulane

It’s you who can help develop the next generation of public health pioneers, business entrepreneurs, cultural leaders, researchers and scientists.

It’s you who can help others ensure that their communities are stronger tomorrow than they are today.

It’s you who can help chart the paths to smarter, more mutually beneficial relationships with the natural world —in the Gulf Coast and beyond.

IT’S YOU WHO CAN HELP TULANE STAND EVEN FURTHER APART. Tulane has proudly embraced our own view of the world for nearly two centuries. That view has never been more relevant or more critical to shaping our university and our world.

With your support of this campaign, we will ensure that our course of discovery, compassion and vision stands apart for generations to come.

Tulane is the university that the 21st century needs. From its very origins, Tulane has saved lives and solved problems. It moves forward with unmatched determination, with character forged like steel by the fires of crisis. Tulane faces its future with an unparalleled boldness — a fearless desire to innovate, to cross boundaries, to shatter barriers, to inspire our community and to change the world. — PRESIDENT MIKE FIT T S, INAUGUR AL SPEECH