Tulane Magazine Fall 2012 Issue

TUlane DEMISE OF A DAILY The Times-Picayune cuts back.

rough and TUMBLE Reggie Davis holds the line at Zynga

lindy and me Tania Tetlow always hoped to be Lindy Boggs

THE MAGAZINE OF TULANE UNIVERSITY

FALL 2012

Going, going, gone Is ink fading?

paula burch-celentano

campus carnival Silhouetted against the light from a Ferris wheel, partygoers watch a burst of fireworks over the Tulane uptown campus.

A carnival, complete with thrill rides, carny food and games for prizes, sprouted on the Lavin-Bernick Center quad during Homecoming and Parent/Family Weekend, Nov. 2–4.

Doormat Delivery On the cover: Is the daily newspaper vanishing before our eyes? Photo illustration

by Paula Burch-Celentano and Melinda Viles

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P R E S I D E N T ’ S

L E T T E R

Aristotle in New Orleans

mark andresen

by Scott S. Cowen

Robed Scholar Aristotle, imagined on a leisurely stroll in the French Quarter.

Following is an excerpt of President Scott Cowen’s convocation address to first-year students, delivered in August 2012.

Today, each of you becomes a member of a scholarly community that has evolved into one of the most respected and distinguished universities in the United States What does it mean to be a Tulanian? I’ve spoken many times about Hurricane Katrina and how it transformed Tulane, ushering in a new era of community service and experiential learning. Seven years later we are still reimagining ourselves, but with a spirit that looks not backward to the disaster, but ahead to the future.

At Tulane you will not live in an ivory tower. Even though you will wrestle with issues related to moral hazard, the meaning of a Shakespeare sonnet or the historical forces that led to the Vietnam War, you also will work at community centers, drop-in clinics, urban gardens, schools and churches, meeting unforgettable people, changing their lives and having your own lives changed by them.

Let me tell you about one service learning course that characterizes the kind of experiences you will have at Tulane. The course is

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called “Aristotle in New Orleans.” Its subject is rhetoric, the skill of persuasion that originated in ancient Greece and is a cornerstone of a liberal arts education.

“Aristotle in New Orleans” takes undergraduate students to inner-city middle schools, where they teach children the art and science of debate. When asked about how the experience affected her, one of the young participants said this: “Debate taught me that screaming is not arguing. Listening to the other side and saying your side is really what you should do.”

I couldn’t have said it better: Rhetoric is about listening, informing, reasoning and persuading—skills all of us need to lead a successful life.

The middle school debates have opened the minds of both the coaches and the debaters to different perspectives—which could be said to be the major aim of an undergraduate education. One of the coaches had this to say: “As much as we taught the kids about debate, they taught us about life.” Other coaches mentioned another crucially important result of the program: the children’s growing awareness that they might do the unimaginable—go to college.

Doing the unimaginable is what Tulane is about.

In bringing together intellectual analysis and real world application, “Aristotle in New Orleans” embodies another concept from the classical period: that there are two types of life, the contemplative and the active. The two need not be exclusive of each other. Since Katrina, Tulane has modified its approach to learning based on this belief. It has retained and enhanced the intellectual rigor, scholarship and research that is the traditional focus of a great university, but broadened its reach to include action and experience. Minds grow through the collision of ideas but also through interaction with people While you are at Tulane, my hope is that your arguments will carry weight not because you’re the one who speaks the loudest, but because you’re the one who marshals the best reasons. My hope is that you will open yourselves to different ideas, different points of view and different people. My hope is that you will not only be great thinkers, but great doers.

Our world needs you. At a time when the American dream has dimmed for many—particularly in our inner cities—you will be on the front lines, lighting the way and helping the doors of opportunity swing open. You will help others achieve the unimaginable.

TUlane C O N T E N T S Buried in the News The Times, they are a-changin’. See “Demise of a Daily” on page 14.

2 PRESIDENT’S LETTER Real-world education

Illustration © SEPS. Licensed by Curtis Licensing. All Rights Reserved

6 NEWs National election interest • President Cowen’s AAU role • Public Health and Tropical Medicine centennial • Who dat? Lynda Benglis • Tiny poison frogs in Panama • Hormone intervention for dementia • Musical culture of the Gulf South • Mosquito conundrum • Aspiration in Jones Hall • Coach Curtis “CJ” Johnson 12 SPORTS Women’s hoops • Support for Devon Walker

14 Demise of a Daily The Times-Picayune’s decision to produce and deliver a print newspaper only three days a week causes a furor. By Mary Ann Travis

20 Rough and Tumble Zynga’s Reggie Davis (L ’90) holds the line in the ‘Ville.’

By Nick Marinello

24 Lindy and Me A protege affectionately tells tales on her mentor, the Hon. Lindy Boggs (NC ’35).

By Tania Tetlow (NC ’92)

30 TULANIANS Sydney Morris’s education reform • New VP James E. Stofan • Mary Peachin • Tom Farley • Achievement awards 32 WHERE Y'AT! Class notes 37 FAREWELL Tribute: Leland Bennett 38 TULANE EMPOWERS Senegal conference • Beckman professorship • Yulman Stadium 40 NEW ORLEANS Angus Lind on fall’s charms T UL A N E M AGA Z I N E FA L L 2 0 1 2

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PRETENSION FOR GRANDEUR Classical architectural elements such as columns, entablatures and ornate decoration are found in New Orleans architecture all over town.

y e a h,

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ARCHITECTURE ON THE GULF COAST I get the magazine at home and love the new look—both inside and out!

This issue [summer 2012] is especially interesting to me as Errol Barron was the architect for my church (St. Peter’s by-the-Sea Episcopal Church, Gulfport, Miss.) I was on the building committee for the “first iteration” of that building, and was privileged to work with Errol. (A lot of that building went with Katrina, but we rebuilt, again with Errol as architect.) …

Thanks for a terrific story on a great architect, artist, musician, etc., and a super-nice man.

Maria Watson, NC ’65 Gulfport, Miss.

NINTH WARD STYLE As always, I enjoyed reading the latest issue of Tulane. What an oasis to have while living in the northern reaches of enemy [LSU] country.

The feature on drawings of New Orleans architecture brought back some forgotten images from the past. I grew up below the Industrial Canal in the Lower Ninth Ward off N. Rampart Street. The small, sometimes shotgun-built houses here were nevertheless often replete with the type of architectural designs described by Prof. Barron. Many had the columns, archways, grilled railings, etc., also found in the Quarter or Uptown. Thanks for the memories. …

Keep up the good work; I look forward to inviting the next issue of Tulane into our home like a good friend.

Larry LaBarrere, A&S ’69 West Monroe, La. WELL DONE I don’t think since I’ve been working [“New Orleans” column] for the magazine that I’ve seen an issue [summer 2012] so eyecatching and really pretty. The watercolors on the cover with the architect’s drawing were special.

His stuff really translated well into magazine format, especially the Napoleon House artwork.

But I liked the others also, and had to laugh that the S&WB pumping station was included.

I had a summer job there during high school as an assistant painter, and it was one of the worst jobs I ever had, very boring because the paint crew I worked with, well, they never worked, just sat around and complained.

The bird’s nest shot on the inside

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w r i t e cover was also spectacular. And the sketch with my column was perfect, and another irony—I have a K&B basket just like the one attached to the bike, which I just happened to walk out with right before K&B closed its doors.

Just a really well done issue.

Angus Lind, A&S ’66 New Orleans THRILL OF VICTORY Loved the article about the “stylishly dressed members of the 1973 Green Wave football team” in the most recent magazine [summer 2012, “Who Dat?”]. It mentions the Green Wave defeat of LSU in December 1973, which I remember very well. I was a freshman at Newcomb, and it was a short walk from JL over to the Sugar Bowl (with a detour by the Kappa Sig house!) Seems like that was a high-water mark for the Tulane football team for a while, but it was a real thrill to be one of those 86,598 fans.

Thanks for the memories!

Owene Phillips Weber Courtney, NC ’76 Orange Park, Fla. ABOVE GROUND AND SAFE FROM STORMS On page 7 of the summer 2012 issue of Tulane magazine in the section [“In That Number”] labeled 1976 you state that the collections [Museum of Natural History] are stored in subterranean bunkers. That is not true. The bunkers are the buildings that served as a naval ammunition depot during WW2. The buildings are above ground, usually on the order of about 4 1/2 feet.

A storm surge from the marshlands on the east side of the river would have to breach the levee on each side of the river in order to flood the ground where the bunkers are situated. They are thick-walled concrete structures, but to lessen the danger in case of explosions rupturing the buildings, soil from borrow pits on the site was placed on the roofs and on the sides of the buildings, hardly what you could call subterranean. I was curator of the amphibian and reptile collection before severing my association with the museum so I know the buildings.

I sat out Katrina in the building where I had my office.

A tornado could not have ruptured the building.

Harold A. Dundee, Emeritus Professor of Biology Metairie, La.

PRO LIFE I am certain Tulane Medical Center might contribute many more significant “life-saving” messages to be printed than the “life-taking” cited in the article [“Easier Birth Control,” summer 2012]. Such would certainly not offend as many people as this story does.

Robert C. McIntyre, B ’52 New Orleans MUMMY MYSTERY In looking through the beautiful, as usual, Tulane magazine, I see the article [p. 10] about Tulane’s mummies. The last paragraph states, “Less is known about the female mummy.

‘She is better preserved but the biggest mystery.’”

Ms. Nelson-Hurst should read the article in the [spring 1999] Tulanian magazine … on the work of Dr. Guido Lombardi, who made a very extensive study of this female mummy. … (affectionately named Nefer-a-thetu). …

Dr. Lombardi’s research concluded that she was, indeed, around 14–15 years old. She probably died in childbirth since she has physical damage consistent with a hard delivery. She was of high-class upbringing, due to her nutritional condition, her excellent mummification, and her feet, which had worn sandals instead of being worn from going barefoot.

Priscilla Hagebusch, B ’89 Newport, N.H. John Verano, professor of anthropology, replies: “Thank you for your letter and your suggestions. Indeed, Dr. Nelson-Hurst has read the 1999 Tulanian article as well as Dr. Lombardi’s excellent master’s thesis (on which I served as his thesis director.) Dr. Nelson-Hurst’s comment that the female mummy is the “biggest mystery” is true; the male mummy had an associated papyrus naming him and associating him with a temple at Thebes.

The female mummy unfortunately lacks any associated items that might identify her. Dr. NelsonHurst, an Egyptologist, is currently working on a more complete translation of the papyrus and is studying the coffins which came with the mummies.”

NOSTaLGIA FOR THE PARK The summer issue of Tulane has several critical letters about Latin spellings or omissions. In my high school in the 1920s, four

years of Latin were required for College Prep students.

But I want to be nostalgic about Audubon Park, across the street from the Uptown Campus where we medical students at Tulane took our first two years.

The park was where we relaxed.

In the park was Huey Long’s Mountain. I had resolved not to mention Huey in the Deep South. I discovered that he was reverenced only in the rural communities for seeing that the country people got good roads and electricity. In the city he was considered a crook.

I, a Yankee from Colorado (“How old were you when you learned that Damnyankee was two words?”) was interested to learn that the Mountain was Huey’s gift to the children of New Orleans. He felt that every child ought to have the experience of climbing a mountain. If there were no mountains in New Orleans, he would build one. So he did. I was told that it rose a full thirty feet from bottom to top.

Is it still there? Must be eroded down somewhat by now. That was back in—let’s see—1936. …

Things do change. Now I hear that it is The Times-Picayune that is changing, shrinking. I read that in the UK the long-respected Oxford Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language will no longer be printed—in favor of the online version.

Yep, chillen, times do change.

So have I, as I approach my 100th. ... I saw in the Memorials that one of my old classmates had passed on, John Woodbridge. There are few of us still here on Earth. John and I were among the graduates invited into Alpha Omega Alpha, the honor medical society.

Louise Ireland-Frey, M ’40 Durango, Colorado

ipad version of tulane magazine available for free download from the app store.

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Drop Us a Line

E-mail us at: tulanemag@tulane.edu or U.S. mail: Tulane, University Publications, 200 Broadway, Suite 219, New Orleans, LA 70118

Letter from The Editor

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Editor Mary Ann Travis

Art Director Melinda Whatley Viles Features Editor Nick Marinello “Tulanians” Editor Fran Simon

paula burch-celentano

Contributors Keith Brannon Catherine Freshley, ’09 Alicia Duplessis Jasmin Kimberly Krupa Angus Lind, A&S ’66 Kathryn Hobgood Ray Ryan Rivet, UC ’02 Mike Strecker senior University Photographer Paula Burch-Celentano senior Production Coordinator Sharon Freeman

bonding experience

Hurricane Isaac staggered through Louisiana on Aug. 29, 2012, the seventh anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and two months before Hurricane Sandy devastated the Northeast, especially New Jersey and New York.

Luckily for most Louisianans, the damage from Isaac did not approach the destruction of Katrina, although homes outside the federal levee protection system were flooded and winds caused some ceilings to fall in, trees to topple and the electrical grid to go down for days.

Sandy’s damage was much worse than Isaac’s. The economic toll from Sandy is estimated at $50 billion. And the death toll is more than 100.

Amid the grief and upheaval, the long lines for gas, the homes destroyed and the shock of witnessing the force of a surging sea, New Yorkers and Jersey boys and girls experienced what New Orleanians go through with every catastrophic storm: they bonded with each other.

Even New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie and Democratic President Barack Obama embraced each other in Brigantine, N.J., in a common cause to

speed the recovery from the storm. The political adversaries pulled together as they called on the resilience and resolve of storm survivors to rebuild and put their lives back in order.

“Storms are always great for bringing people together,” said Brian Broom-Peltz, a Tulane senior studying chemical engineering. Broom-Peltz cheerfully spoke in the Lavin-Bernick Center on Aug. 31. He’d come there to charge his cell phone after two days without electricity.

The first order of business in getting back to normal is, of course, turning the power on.

And for students, power for cell phones and laptops is a priority. Those who had been confined to their Tulane residence halls or off-campus apartments during Isaac, swarmed Bruff Commons (see photo above) when the power came back on in that essential campus building.

“Hurricanes are serendipitous events, with lots of energy,” mused Broom-Peltz.

He spoke with the enthusiasm of a guy who had attended an extended hurricane party with friends during their Isaac confinement.

In every storm, there is a silver lining.

—Mary Ann Travis

Graphic Designer Tracey Bellina

President of the University Scott S. Cowen Vice President of University Communications Deborah L. Grant, PHTM ’86 Executive Director of Publications Carol J. Schlueter, B ’99 Tulane (USPS 017-145) 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 University Publications, 31 McAlister Drive, Drawer 1, New Orleans, LA 70118-5624. fall 2012/Vol. 84, No. 2

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1,641

freshman numbers The final tally of students in the 2012 first-year class at Tulane this fall is 1,641. The top five states from which the class is derived are Louisiana (207), New York (195), California (174), Illinois (116) and New Jersey (111). The average SAT score is 1338.

GEETY IMAGES

Fiscal Cliff New Crop of Voters

The political science department at Tulane hosted watch parties for the televised presidential debates this fall. The first two debates each drew nearly 50 students to Norman Mayer Hall for the viewings—and elicited some vocal reactions.

Gov. Mitt Romney’s remark about “binders full of women” in the second debate engendered responses from female students, said Celeste Lay, assistant professor of political science. “The men didn’t seem to care as much about that issue as the women, as you might expect.”

Universally, among the male and female students, interest was on the candidates’ plans for the economy. Students also were interested in Middle East policy—“Iran and Israel and those kind of issues,” said Lay. At the third presidential debate watch, which 20 students attended, Thomas Langston, professor of political science, said, “Tulane classes are never representative samples of the American voting public. My class seems to be overwhelmingly in favor of Obama.

“Sometimes it’s hard to get a debate going,” he added, “because there’s not much difference of opinion, but nevertheless, the students are quite interested. They’re engaged.”

The actual election results bear out that Tulane students, as Langston said, do not reflect the preferences of most voters in the state of Louisiana. On Nov. 6, Louisiana went by a landslide for Romney, who received 59.2 percent of the vote.

Tulane students, however, did follow the consensus of the rest of the nation as President Obama decisively won a second term.

Obama may not be as invested with “the charisma that his supporters were willing to grant him four years ago,” said Langston. “But he has the advantages of incumbency to compensate.”

The president has been “tainted by the reality of having to wield power, cut deals, make compromises and make choices.”

But for Obama’s supporters, “it’s a relationship. The romance may be gone but the commitment is still there.”—Mary Ann Travis

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Debate Watch Students gather to watch a televised presidential debate between Gov. Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama. Many students cast their ballot for president for the first time in the 2012 election.

In October, as the nation prepared for the presidential and congressional elections, Tulane President Scott Cowen stepped into a leadership position with the Association of American Universities (AAU). A major item on the AAU priority list: concern about the looming deadline for Congress to approve the federal budget.

In his first public act as newly elected chair of the AAU executive committee, Cowen, along with other leaders of national academic institutions, met with the Washington Post editorial board to discuss key higher education issues.

The AAU group expressed its support for Congress to act before the Jan. 2, 2013, deadline to avoid forced across-the-board cuts in the federal budget that could endanger the nation’s ability to innovate and compete. Less than 2 percent of the federal budget is allocated for universities and other basic research but 50 percent of U.S. economic growth may be tied to inventions that U.S. universities have had a role in developing.

“The research, education and civic contributions of the nation’s research universities are vital to America’s continued international leadership and economic prosperity,” said Cowen.

As AAU chair for a one-year term, Cowen serves as a spokesperson on issues of special concern to research universities. He represents AAU in meetings with policymakers and helps to develop national policy positions related to university research and graduate, professional and undergraduate education.

About AAU’s work, Cowen said, it “is particularly important at a time when our nation is making fundamental decisions about fiscal policy that could have a significant impact on research universities. I look forward to giving voice to our perspective on these and other issues in the upcoming year.”

Founded in 1900, AAU is a nonprofit association of 60 U.S. and two Canadian preeminent public and private research universities.

Tulane has been a member of AAU since 1958.

—Carol J. Schlueter

In That Number Public Health & Tropical Medicine

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100 years of public health and tropical medicine Formed at Tulane in 1912, the School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine was the first institution of its kind in the country.

Six years later it would be folded into the medical school, where it would exist as a division for nearly 50 years. In 1967, it reemerged from the medical school as the separate School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.

In November 2012, faculty, staff, students and alumni celebrated the school’s centennial.

1967

25,000

$

The original donation by Samuel Zemurray to launch the School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 1912.

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Grace A. Goldsmith (pictured left) became the first female dean of a school of public health in 1967. She was internationally recognized as a clinical nutritionist and authority on dietary diseases.

Number of departments in the school today: Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Epidemiology, Global Community Health and Behavioral Sciences, Global Environmental Health Sciences, Global Health Systems and Development, and Tropical Medicine

88

8,000 The school has more than 8,000 alumni.

The number of countries in which faculty are conducting public health research.

43 million 387

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infographic by tracey bellina

Total external funding.

No. 13

The school is ranked No. 13 in the U.S. News ranking of schools of public health. The master of health administration program is ranked No. 25 among healthcare management programs.

The number of Bachelor of Science in Public Health students, the fastest growing major at Tulane. The program began in spring 2006.

70

There are about 70 countries of origin represented by the students, faculty and staff of the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.

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Lynda Benglis (NC ’64) is a sculptor and iconic feminist artist.

“With bravado and humor she has carried her ideas to logical extremes, in a way that’s been hugely influential to a younger generation interested in everything from performance to process-oriented art,” wrote Hilarie M. Sheets in The New York Times on Feb. 10, 2011.

Benglis, shown here in 1987 with one of her bronze mesh wire, chrome-plated sculptures, received the Newcomb College Outstanding Alumna award that year. She said at the time, “It was at Newcomb that I learned I was an artist.”

Ever since she moved to New York City after graduating from Newcomb, Benglis has pushed the envelope in the art world. She invented the metal process necessary for her sculpture by consulting with oil rig manufacturers in her hometown of Lake Charles, La., creating work “bristling with allusions to the body and landscape,” said Sheets.

“Continually challenging one’s self in one’s work and one’s life” is the cornerstone of her philosophy, Benglis has said.

She scandalously challenged the male-dominated closed Minimalist New York art scene in 1974 with an ad that she paid for herself in a leading art magazine. In the advertisement, she provocatively posed to draw attention to gender stereotypes—and to her own work.

Museum of Modern Art curator Laura Hoptman said, “There’s nobody like Lynda. There’s a streak of independence that takes her outside the crowd, be it posing naked in the Artforum ad or putting sparkles on her work at the moment the austerity of Minimalism was raging.”

Benglis continues her work as a sculptor. Among her recent work is North South East West, a fountain installed in the gardens of the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin. According to The New York Times, “It revives the form of a swelling wave cast in bronze that she used for her first fountain, made for the 1984 World’s Fair in New Orleans.”

—Mary Ann Travis

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photo courtesy newcomb college archives

Who Dat ? Melting Stereotypes

livingston in louisiana collection Robert L. Livingston (A&S ’64, L ’68), longtime Louisiana congressman, has donated his Congressional papers to the Louisiana Research Collection at Tulane.

Livingston was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1977 and was reelected to 11 successive two-year terms.

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Natural Selection

Deyvis Gonzalez

Estrogen Therapy Tiny poison dart frogs living wild in Panama are providing clues about biodiversification, which, in turn, is helping conservation efforts for the species.

“Understanding how we got the diversity of life here on Earth is important for conservation,” says Corinne “Cori” Richards-Zawacki, an assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Tulane.

“If we want to conserve a species, we also need to conserve its ability to adapt and undergo natural evolutionary processes.”

In the field at sites on the islands of the Bocas del Toro archipelago and the adjacent mainland of Panama, Richards-Zawacki and a team of students spent the summer studying the relatively rapid biodiversification of the dart frog.

Aposematism—the combination of toxicity and bright coloration—is the major defense mechanism of the poison dart frog. In Panama, these frogs have skin with a variety of colors: blue, green, red, orange, white and spotted. “Their coloration is an advertisement of sorts, saying ‘do not attempt to eat!’” says Richards-Zawacki.

In one experiment, the students observed the behavior of chicks upon spotting the vividly hued frogs. The students’ observations helped answer questions about how predators hunt frogs based on coloration.

“The chicks pick up the frogs in their beaks, but the frogs taste bad so they spit them out right away,” says Richards-Zawacki. Among the questions that she and the students are asking: “Do the chicks avoid all of the colors—green and blue, as well as red? Or just the color that they’ve learned to avoid?”

The team also looked at how barriers to reproduction may influence diversification.

“Mate choice and the genetic basis for colour variation in a polymorphic dart frog: inferences from a wild pedigree,” by Richards-Zawacki, was published in the August Molecular Ecology, along with a team member’s photo on the cover.—Fran Simon

Frog Colors A blue morph of the Aguacate peninsula strawberry poison frog, Dendrobates pumillo, presents an example of evolutionary changes.

Tulane students traveled to Panama this summer, gaining experience as researchers while observing the frogs.

AGING FEMALE BRAIN Researchers are investigating whether use of estrogen during midlife slows age-associated cognitive decline in women.

Middle-aged women who use hormone therapy are usually doing it to relieve hot flashes, night sweats, irritability and insomnia—the unpleasant symptoms of menopause.

But research conducted by Jill Daniel (G ’97, 2000), associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at Tulane, suggests that hormone therapy could have other effects in women by helping to stave off cognitive decline and dementia associated with old age.

Daniel has received an award of nearly $1.4 million from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Aging to study how short-term estrogen use in midlife may have long-term consequences for the aging female brain and associated cognitive abilities.

“Estrogen administration begun during a critical window near menopause is hypothesized to prevent or delay age-associated cognitive decline,” says Daniel. “However, due to potential health risks, women often limit use of estrogen therapy to a few years to treat menopausal symptoms.”

Daniel has long worked to understand the impact of ovarian hormones on the brain and on memory across the lifespan.

She says, “As the population of the United States ages, increased incidence of age-associated dementias will become a major public health issue. Interventions that could delay the onset of cognitive decline by even one or two years would have a major impact.”

The NIH award is funding the five-year study through 2017. Daniel’s co-investigator is Nandini Vasudevan, assistant professor of cell and molecular biology.—Kathryn Hobgood Ray

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S.I. TWITTER 100 Gabe Feldman, professor of law, has been named to the

Sports Illustrated Twitter 100, a list of essential social media sites. Feldman has 26,000 followers at his handle @SportsLawGuy. Feldman tweeted, “Not often I end up on same list as @mettaworldpeace.”

N E W S

American Tune Music is perhaps the best picture there is of a culture and the history of a place, says Joel Dinerstein, associate professor of English, director of the New Orleans Center for the Gulf South and director of the new coordinate major in Musical Culture of the Gulf South.

Everyone loves music. But most people don’t know what to do with it beyond enjoying it, consuming it and being entertained by it.

“For the American experience, in particular, I think you can learn as much about our history from the popular music as from the literature,” Dinerstein says.

To understand America and its people at a given time, “just listen to the music,” he says. “You might start with two genres that have their origins here—jazz and blues.”

Music scholars who have not lived here usually do not understand the organic quality of New Orleans music, says Dinerstein.

“New Orleans has a dynamic music scene that is always working, expanding, experimenting, influencing other musicians,” he says. “In every generation and for nearly every genre, New Orleans musicians have been a major national influence.”

New Orleans music may well be the richest vein of American music, says Dinerstein, who is a jazz scholar. “New Orleans has an ongoing musical tradition that keeps intersecting every new music form that arises because that’s how music works and lives here.”

Bringing New Orleans music into the American narrative is one of the primary objectives of the new major and the Center for the Gulf South.

Spurred by a grant from Music Rising, a philanthropic organization dedicated to preserving the musical heritage of the Gulf South, Dinerstein wrote the curriculum for the interdisciplinary major that brings together courses in anthropology, music, history, theater and dance, English, communication and French.

“We are creating a field of study that doesn’t really exist yet,” he says.

—Mary Ann Travis

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Musical Influence New Orleans jazz and blues are not stuck in the past. These genres and the musicians who play them are continually changing and intersecting with every other musical form in America.

The weather is a culprit, but may not be the only consideration behind the country’s worst outbreak of West Nile virus this past summer. Public health researchers are investigating whether the virus itself has changed.

“We have never had this many mosquito infections before,” says Dawn Wesson, associate professor of tropical medicine at the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. “The virus may have mutated and is acting a bit differently.”

Wesson and colleagues hope to shed further light on why the West Nile virus season was so active. There were 1,118 cases in people with 640 severe cases and 42 deaths in the United States as of late summer.

Most scientists agree that weather is a factor behind the increase in infected mosquitoes.

A late drought last year helped concentrate populations of birds that carry the virus and mosquitoes that transmit it. A mild winter meant more of the insects survived and bred, while a wet summer in the South caused a population boom for mosquitoes.

The investigators are isolating the virus in the lab to study its infection dynamics to determine what might be different than prior strains. They want to find out whether this year’s strain of West Nile is more infectious for mosquitoes.—Keith Brannon

mosquito transmitter Mosquitoes are the focus of the lab of tropical medicine researcher Dawn Wesson. The numbers were “off the charts” for mosquitoes infected with West Nile virus this year. paula burch-celentano

thinkstock

West Nile Virus

Gallery Xavier Gonzalez

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Aspiration On a daily basis, students entering Joseph Merrick Jones Hall on the uptown campus walk by Aspiration— a bas-relief created in 1940 by muralist and sculptor Xavier Gonzalez.

Although the sand-hued relief—carved from Rocheron limestone and trimmed in gold—stands approximately 9 feet by 12 feet, its presence is surprisingly unobtrusive.

Etched across the top of the relief’s eight panels are the words, “This library is founded upon the collections of the Newcomb College Library and the Tilton Memorial Library of Tulane University and of the Howard Memorial Library MCMXL.” Much like the experience of looking at an old photograph,

contemplating the stone relief can induce wonder regarding what the artist wanted to say.

Aside from the engraved words, which explain the initial use of the building constructed in 1939–40 as a library, a viewer ponders the significance of the female figure with flowing hair.

She appears to be floating to the right, symbolizing forward movement.

Above one of her hands is a bird. Above the other hand is a star. A crescent shape at her feet may reference astrology or indicate motion.

Perhaps Gonzalez has portrayed a muse.

He was hired by Ellsworth Woodward, founder and director of the Newcomb Art School, to teach drawing and design in 1929. During his tenure at

Newcomb, Gonzalez met and later married Ethel Edwards (NC ’37). Gonzalez left Tulane in 1942. He and his wife eventually settled in Manhattan. He died in 1993 at age 94.

After the library collections were moved across Newcomb Place into the current HowardTilton Memorial Library in 1968, Tulane Law School occupied the building from 1971–95. The building acquired its current name in 1968 to honor Joseph Merrick Jones, an attorney who served as president of the Board of Tulane.

While Jones Hall was the home of the law school, the basrelief was hidden behind a wall bearing a portrait of Jones. Now an assistant provost at Tulane, Ann Salzer (NC ’78), who worked at the law school for a time,

says, “I don’t know who thought it was a good idea to Sheetrock over that beautiful marble engraving.”

In the mid 1990s, after the law school departed to its new location in Weinmann Hall, Jones Hall was renovated and Aspiration restored to visibility again. A bottom panel was added to document the building’s original and renovation architects, Nathaniel Curtis Sr. of Moise Goldstein and Associates and Nathaniel Curtis Jr. of Moses Engineers, respectively.

Jones Hall today houses Special Collections of HowardTilton Memorial Library, the classical studies department, the Roger Thayer Stone Center for Latin American Studies and the Jewish studies program.

—Alicia Duplessis Jasmin

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Interview Curtis “CJ” Johnson, Head Football Coach Less than two years after he won a Super Bowl ring as receivers coach for the New Orleans Saints, Curtis Johnson was recruited to be head football coach of the Green Wave.

This is his first season with the team.

After coaching in the NFL, what do you think about coaching in a college environment?

I really like the college environment because I like to be around the studentathletes. They are young and still learning the game, and they are very eager to learn. I enjoy working in a college atmosphere and seeing all the young people. It makes me feel young.

How are you enjoying being head coach?

I love being a head coach. Sometimes there are tough decisions to make, but that comes with the job title.

I enjoy not only the coaching aspect, but the radio shows, the speaking engagements, getting to know the parents and most of all meeting our great fans. It’s been a lot of fun so far.

You’re working with an incredibly young team, does that make you optimistic going forward?

The future is very bright here. We have a lot of young guys playing against fifth-year seniors on the other side of the ball, and they are responding to the challenge. Our younger players have not backed down from anyone this season.

If you could say one thing to Tulane fans about the future of the program, what would that be?

Our program is definitely moving in the right direction. We had a tough schedule and experienced some adversity early on, but we settled down and played some good football.

I like our players and believe we have the best staff in college football. All I ask is that our fans come out and support these young men. I believe they will make everyone proud of Tulane football.—ryan rivet

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This has been a tough season for your team. How did you keep your players fired up to play every week?

With all the adversity we have faced this season, this group of young men has demonstrated a tremendous amount of character and has really been stellar. They want to win and make the university proud.

You’ll

LOVE yulman stadium Construction of the new on-campus football stadium will be comYULMAN s tA d i U M

pleted by July 2014. Among the venue’s amenities will be a state-of the-art synthetic turf field featuring green and white checkerboard end zones, harkening back to historic Tulane Stadium. (See more about the new Yulman Stadium on page 38.)

S P O R T S

paula burch-celentano

Team Inspired

parker waters

Campus Rallies Round Player After finishing third in Conference USA and losing in the second round of the WNIT championship last season, the Green Wave women’s basketball team has been labeled as the one to beat this year in C-USA. With the slogan “Team inspired, championship motivated,” the players have their eyes on the ultimate prize for the 2012–13 season, says Lisa Stockton, head coach.

“This team wants to be a dominant one,” Stockton says. “This team is one that I feel wants to push for something we’ve never done before. We have to get to the NCAA Tournament to have a chance at that.”

The squad graduated only one starter from last year, and the overall experience of the team is expected to be an advantage this season. Improvement among younger members should make the team that much more formidable.

“I don’t see any weak links,” Stockton says.

“I think we’re probably stronger from top to bottom than any team I’ve had in the last five years. It’s a matter of how people play their roles and how we mesh.”—R.R.

On a warm September afternoon in Tulsa, Okla., just before halftime in the Green Wave’s second game of the season, tragedy struck. While tackling an opposing player, Tulane senior safety Devon Walker collided with a teammate and suffered a cervical spine fracture.

News of the injury soon was widely reported on sports television, and just as soon, it seems, people wanted to know how they could help Walker and his family.

On the Tulane campus, administrators created a fundraising web page, messages poured into a Facebook fan page and students made and sold T-shirts and wristbands to raise funds and demonstrate support for Walker, whose No. 18 became a familiar sight around town.

The New Orleans community mobilized, too. Fundraisers organized

by Tulane students found support from well-known businesses and restaurants such as Mardi Gras World and Galatoire’s. New Orleans Saints wide receiver Joe Morgan donated raffle items that included Saints home game tickets, autographed Saints gear and a dinner with Morgan, with the proceeds going to the fund. Photos popped up on the Internet of two young boys who set up a lemonade stand to collect money for Walker’s fund.

Such generosity was not confined to New Orleanians. During the Green Wave’s game against Ole Miss, Rebel fans bought T-shirts and made donations, and one of the first donations to Walker came from the College Football Assistance Fund—$10,000, just two days after his injury.

Walker continues to convalesce and has released a statement thanking all those who have reached out to him.

“I can’t begin to tell you how grateful I am for your generosity and support,” Walker said. “I especially want to thank everyone who sent cards and letters. I read them each and every one. They give me the inspiration to keep on pushing.”—Ryan Rivet

Coming Together Students attend a rally to show their support for injured football player Devon Walker.

Many bought T-shirts and wristbands to raise funds for Walker and his family during his convalescence.

CHAMPIONSHIP MOTIVATED Sophomore Danielle Blagg brings experience and drive to the Green Wave women’s basketball team. Last year, Blagg was named Conference USA Freshman of the Year.

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Demise of a

Daily When the owners of The Times-Picayune, New Orleans’ 175-year-old newspaper, made public in May their decision to print the paper only three days a week and to simultaneously beef up the “news gathering” operation of the paper’s companion website, NOLA.com, a furor ensued.

Is the move to online a threat to democracy or an inevitable next step in the digital revolution?

by Mary Ann Travis

It’s no picayune thing. Word got out in late spring that Advance Publications, publisher of The Times-Picayune, had a plan to reduce the print frequency of the paper. City civic leaders were caught off guard. Loyal readers were infuriated. Advertisers dismayed. And staff members (if they kept their jobs; 200 employees were fired) disheartened.

Protests were staged at music venues and online. Tom Benson, owner of the New Orleans Saints and Hornets sports teams, offered to buy the newspaper to keep it a daily. The mayor, the archbishop, university presidents and two Louisiana U.S. senators sent a letter to the owners, the Newhouse family, pleading for reconsideration.

But all to no avail. This newspaper is not for sale.

As of Oct. 1, The Times-Picayune is printed only on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. A new company has been formed, the NOLA Media Group, which includes the paper and the news website NOLA.com.

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Extra! Extra!

Will print journalism go the way of extra editions and paper boys?

It depends on whom you ask.

h. armstrong roberts/retrofile

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“I couldn’t in my wildest dreams imagine this city without a daily.”

Civic dialogue Anne Milling (NC ’62) of New Orleans learned of the plan for scaling back the newspaper when a friend sent her an email at 7 a.m. on May 24. David Carr, a New York Times writer, had reported on his blog that Advance Publications, which owns newspapers and websites in more than 34 cities in 11 states, would be making a radical change to the print Times-Picayune newspaper.

Milling immediately reacted. She bought a URL for the website, www.savethepicayune.com. “I just assumed, very naively, that everybody would feel the same way as I did. Of course, we’re going to save the Picayune,” says Milling.

“This city is so special. I couldn’t in my wildest dreams imagine this city without a daily.”

The newspaper is “a common thread that runs through the community,” says Milling. She had served on The Times-Picayune advisory board since 1984. The board was not informed of the changes at the newspaper until after the decision was reported in the press.

The Times-Picayune was an integral part of the city’s recovery after Hurricane Katrina, says Milling. “I give them total credit, everywhere I go, that we wouldn’t be where we are today without The Times-Picayune.”

The newspaper’s reporters, editors and publisher empowered civic

—Anne Milling (NC ’62), community activist

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Sign of the Times A grassroots campaign to save The TimesPicayune emerged last summer after it was announced that the paper would be cutting back print editions and staff.

organizations and encouraged grassroots organizations to get involved, says Milling. “They were right there watching every aspect of the city, state and federal government.” When things were done right, “they applauded it. When there were problems, they came down hard with editorials. We could not have recovered without The Times-Picayune.”

The newspaper “sets the civic dialogue,” says Milling. There’s a commonality among citizens when they are reading a newspaper that is accessible to everybody. And without it—and with 36 percent of the city’s residents without Internet access in their homes—the citizens of New Orleans literally “won’t be on the same page,” she fears.

OLD-SCHOOL JOURNALISM The first assignment after Hurricane Katrina for Times-Picayune reporter Bruce Eggler (A&S ’68) was covering Mayor Ray Nagin’s Bring New Orleans Back Commission. During the few months of the commission’s existence in late 2005 and early 2006, Eggler wrote stories about its meetings and public forums, which were marked by heated, emotional exchanges among participants traumatized by the storm.

As is typically the case with governmental panels, the commission “produced some reports that nobody ever read or did anything with,” says Eggler. But, still, “it was a useful exercise.”

Eggler’s work as a journalist began when he was a student at Tulane. He wrote for the Hullabaloo—“one of the few papers in the world with a name as silly as The Times-Picayune,” he quips.

Eggler might be called an “old-school” journalist. Reporting is where the fun is, he says.

He sits through meetings where 30 things may be discussed. He then has to decide what are the two or three things that are “important and/or interesting and that people will want to know and read about.”

“I sift and synthesize,” Eggler says.

Eggler’s current beat is city government and governmental agencies, including the city council, city planning commission and preservation, transportation and urban planning organizations.

His job is to “try to make sense of what happens” at the countless public meetings he attends. He’s also the Saturday night editor (“not exactly a plum assignment,” he says).

The basic function of a reporter “is to go out and to gather information and then put it into some coherent form for a reading public, or a viewing public, if you’re on TV, or a listening public, if you’re on radio.”

And the role of reporters is still relevant, says Eggler. “You still need someone to gather the news and write it in a way that tries to bring some insight.”

Eggler is staying at The Times-Picayune news organization, where he’s been employed for more than 40 years. He’s moving with the rest of the news gathering operation from the old plant on Howard Avenue to sleek offices at Canal Place in downtown New Orleans. His stories appear on NOLA.com first. Then a “curator” back at the Howard Avenue facility selects which stories will appear in the three-days-a-week print newspaper.

Eggler is not surprised at the depth of affection that people in New Orleans have expressed for the daily Times-Picayune.

“I’m more surprised that in other cities [such as Birmingham, Huntsville and Mobile, where Advance Publications also has cut back to three days a week the print newspapers that the company owns in those Alabama cities] there appears to have been little or no reaction. It seems bizarre to me that people would not say, ‘I want a daily newspaper.’”

But maybe people have become so accustomed to getting news on their smart phones, or computers, or tablets, Eggler says, “they don’t feel a need for a daily paper.”

PIONEER DAYS The changes at The Times-Picayune/NOLA.com came about through business decisions by Advance Publications that “are revenue-based and totally nonemotional,” says Paul Greenberg, director of the

media arts and journalism program in the School of Continuing Studies at Tulane.

The company, says Greenberg, ignored “the whole sense of loyalty and attachment that the community has to the product.”

But, then again, what choice did the company have? Advertising revenues have been declining steadily over the past several years.

Steve Newhouse, chairman of Advance.net, the digital division of Advance Publications, wrote on Poynter.org on Aug. 3, 2012, “We are in the midst of a digital revolution and instead of constantly being disrupted by our numerous online competitors, we decided to reinvent ourselves.”

Greenberg, a close observer of the media on his blog Greenberg Rants (www.greenbergrants.blogspot.com), says, “They had to do something to survive. It was not a popular decision to go down to three days a week but I don’t know if they had a real option there.”

The demand is diminishing for news printed on paper. Breaking news is delivered at all hours of the night and day to mobile platforms on electronic devices that people carry with them everywhere. Photos, graphics, video, illustration, animation, text and audio are all part of the package. News consumers are constantly looking for updated fresh content. The competition is fierce with an unrelenting rush to post content quickly.

But Greenberg is not ready to write off print entirely. He says, “We don’t know yet what’s going to happen with print. We’re watching it decline but I don’t think we’re watching it disappear.”

He says, “We are absolutely in the pioneer days of digital journalism. We are at the starting line.”

For any news organization to flourish, it must have sufficient income. The new business model for digital journalism is still being figured out, says Greenberg.

CHANGING LANDSCAPE In the thick of the digital journalism revolution is New York Citybased Natasha del Toro (NC ’97).

“I believe in journalism and the importance of journalism,” she says, “but I also think that there needs to be some big changes in the industry.”

Del Toro earned her master’s degrees in journalism from Columbia University in 2004 and ’05. She’s worked for the Tampa Tribune and TIME magazine and other news organizations. She’s produced documentaries for PBS Frontline World, and she’s currently host of Public Television World Channel’s “America ReFramed,” presenting documentaries on issues such as immigration, electoral politics and race relations. She’ll travel to Colombia on a Fulbright Fellowship in January. She’ll teach there and look into the ecological situation in the Choco rainforest.

The circumstances and the financial pressures under which she works are making it more difficult for her to do the kind of work she’d like to be doing, she says. “You start to wonder, is this more of a hobby?”

At TIME, she did video journalism, going to Haiti after the 2010 earthquake and covering the mid-term Congressional elections from Washington, D.C. This fall, she’s in the middle of finishing up a project, “Below the Line: Portraits of American Poverty.” She began the project at TIME, teaming up with still photographer Joakim Eskildsen. They traveled to California, South Dakota, the Bronx and New Orleans, collecting stories of people living below the poverty line.

“The landscape has changed so dramatically in the years since I left journalism school,” says del Toro. Newsrooms across the country have been cutting staff. Budgets have been slashed. Reporters are sent out on assignments with video cameras in hand.

“I think what ends up happening is that the reporting falls by the wayside,” says del Toro.

To be a good reporter, you have to be skilled interviewer. A reporter

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“I believe in journalism and the importance of journalism, but I also think that there needs to be some big changes in the industry.”

—Natasha del Toro (NC ’97), New York City–based journalist

needs “to pay attention to what people are saying, rather than worrying about camera angles,” says del Toro.

When TIME deemed the “Portraits of American Poverty” project over budget, del Toro and Eskildsen received the magazine’s blessing to continue it on their own. They turned to Kickstarter, an online funding platform for creative projects, raising $10,266 from 176 small donations to complete the project.

But is this any way to earn a living?

“It’s the Wild West right now,” says del Toro. “It’s a time of a lot of experimentation. It’s figuring out how to pay for it, how to make it sustainable. I am hopeful. I just think it’s going to take a little time to figure out the [business] model.”

People need reliable, accurate, trustworthy, credible information to make informed choices, says del Toro. “Our democracy is at stake. It may sound like a cliché, [but] we need an informed society to continue advancing and to protect people.”

Investigative reporting especially has been hard hit in the new digital journalistic economic model, says del Toro. “It takes time and money to do investigative reporting.”

Watchdog role Anne Milling echoes del Toro’s concern: “I feel that it [the newspaper] is part of democracy,” says Milling.

“I think it’s part of the democratic process to be well-informed, to do what is best for the whole. And you can only act in the best interest of the whole when you have correct knowledge,” she says.

With the demise of the daily Times-Picayune, Milling is concerned that a reliable source of information—and a watchdog—for community interests may be slipping away. She fears that “the community is going to be the loser in the whole process.”

Milling laments more than the loss of a paper delivered every morning to her doorstep, to be perused while sipping coffee.

Milling founded Women of the Storm in January 2006. She leads the nonpartisan, nonpolitical alliance of Louisiana women whose families, businesses and lives were affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The organization lately has been asked by the Louisiana Congressional delegation to play a role in monitoring federal funds directed for coastal restoration through the Restore Act. “There are issues that are facing this city that require, just demand, constant monitoring,” says Milling. In addition to coastal restoration, she mentions educational reform and the development of the new medical corridor among the complex matters that call for in-depth scrutiny.

“The list of things on our plate, which are exciting, needs that watchdog, in a constructive way. So that’s what disturbs me,” says Milling.

Who is going to objectively watch what’s happening along the coast, with coastal erosion, rising sea level? Money is coming in from the BP oil spill settlement and other dollars may be directed to Louisiana, but who is going to vigilantly track whether the state is spending the funds wisely? asks Milling.

“As you know, in Louisiana, things can go awry,” she adds.

Newspaper war Contrary to what many locals feared, New Orleans has not actually become the largest American city without a daily newspaper. On the very day, Oct. 1, that The Times-Picayune stopped being a daily, the Baton Rouge Advocate moved into the New Orleans market with a daily print newspaper.

Other news websites like The Lens are pursuing investigative stories, in competition with NOLA. com.

“It’s a lot of unknowns right now,” says Milling. “And, of course, New Orleans will survive. We’ve survived worse thing than this. And we will find a way to get our news and be informed. It’s just going to take time.”

New Orleans has plenty of stories left to tell.

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paula burch-celentano

Evening Edition A newspaper box stands empty on the corner of Nashville and St. Charles avenues.

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jeff singer

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Rough and

Tumble Zynga’s Reggie Davis holds the line in the ‘Ville.’

by Nick Marinello

Eight o’clock in the morning along Townsend Street. Bicyclists whiz by, one after another, helmeted and backpacked. Game on: the twowheeled work commute is in full swing in SoMa—South of Market, downtown San Fran. Gritty and agile. Aged, renewed, high-tech chic and hipster cool. Warehouses and restaurants, lofts and art galleries.

And imposing itself upon an entire block, bold as a brick fortress, is the headquarters of Zynga, the online game company that purchased the structure for $250 million only few months back.

Upstairs on the third floor, Reggie Davis (L ’90) has already been at work for an hour. And his day won’t end until maybe 10 or 11 p.m.

Davis, senior vice president and general counsel at Zynga, says he’s “wired to work a lot of hours,” but he’s putting in more time than usual these days.

If the SoMa building is a symbol of the meteoric rise of Zynga, a leading developer of social gaming with 300 million monthly users logging in to play games such as FarmVille, CityVille, Bubble Safari and Words With Friends, then the hours of overtime put in by the company’s legal department are evidence of what at the very least is a hiccup in Zynga’s mission to “connect the world through games.”

“We are going through a challenging time,” admits Davis.

It’s early August, and Zynga has been bufTechno Halo feted by a spate of recent lawsuits, includReggie Davis stands ing one for copyright infringement brought in front of Zynga’s kaleidoscopic entrance. by major competitor Electronic Arts. And

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Nuance notwithstanding “I understand nuance and, professionally, live in a deep world of nuance,” says Davis, “but I like things kind of black and white.” A former offensive guard from his undergraduate days at Harvard, Davis says he enjoys the “rough and tumble” of the legal world.

“I like the freedom that I had as an offensive lineman,” says Davis. “Here’s the ball and we need to get it across the line. It’s pretty damned simple.”

Appreciation for nuance notwithstanding, Davis has been known for throwing a few elbows. Shortly after Electronic Arts filed its suit against Zynga, Zynga legal fired back with its own suit. In a statement, Davis threw a body block: “Today … we also filed a counterclaim, which addresses actions by EA we believe to be anticompetitive and unlawful business practices. …”

Back in 2009, Davis’ legal team sued competitor Playdom (a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Co.) for misappropriation of trade secrets, winning a highly favorable settlement, the details of which are confidential. In 2011, Zynga legal went after the Brazilian company Vostu for copyright infringement related to a number of their titles including the popular FarmVille and CityVille, winning another major (and undisclosed) settlement.

“They were copying our games so closely that we could show errors in code on the screen,” says Davis. “Some of the houses weren’t attached to some of the streets—a design flaw—and they had the exact same design flaw.”

And when the 19 attorneys in Zynga legal aren’t playing defense, they have been assisting the company in running a two-minute drill of

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despite rising revenues, the company posted a second quarter loss a couple of weeks back, sending its stocks spiraling downward and setting the high-tech blogosphere aflame with snarky predictions of Zynga’s imminent demise.

It’s the snark that seems to really get under Davis’s skin. In the three years he’s been with Zynga, the company has experienced the kind of mind-reeling success that few startups enjoy.

When he arrived in April 2009, Zynga was working out of a cramped, leased space down the street with 14 employees and $29 million in the bank. Today, it has its own 670,000-squarefoot building, 3,200 employees worldwide and $1.6 billion in cash. When the company went public in December 2011, it did so as the third largest technology IPO in history.

“And because we made $400 million in revenues last quarter—and it wasn’t quite what they thought we were gonna make—well, if you read the press we are now an abject and utter failure,” says Davis.

It’s the kind of statement you’d expect from a member of the top brass when the chips are down, but here’s the thing: Davis’ outrage and disappointment in how his company is being treated doesn’t sound like lip service. It seems like …well … outrage and disappointment.

And as he sits down to talk about from whence his company has come and where he expects it to go, as well as his own origins and life arc, Davis—all 6-foot-2-inch, 200-and-something top-of-his-field bareknuckled-litigating pounds of him—comes off in some ways like a big kid. Not childish, mind you, but childlike. With Davis, what you see may be what you get.

All Aboard!

Davis clowns around with the “Zyngabago,” a playful fixture inside of Zynga’s San Francisco headquarters.

Opposite page: The company logo is stretched across all four corners of the massive downtown structure that Zynga calls home.

acquisitions, gobbling up a host of game developers including Newtoy (Words With Friends), OMGPOP (Draw Something) and Unoh, one of Japan’s leading social games companies.

In February 2011, Davis was named Best General Counsel, Private Company at the Best Bay Area Corporate Counsel awards. Zynga legal was named one of the nation’s 10 “most inventive legal teams” this summer by Inside Counsel magazine. In an article accompanying the announcement, the magazine cited the way in which Zynga made its privacy policy—a bit of legalese that is seldom read by anyone—available to users: by turning it into a game called, what else, PrivacyVille.

“I’ve learned along the way that, boy, me being the guy who gets nominated for whatever is not nearly as rewarding as being on a team of people who are awarded for something,” says Davis. “The team thing feels so much better.”

The team thing If you go through your notes after talking with Davis for a few hours, you find that the word “team” comes up 52 times. You can learn a lot about someone through the things he repeats often.

In the world, there are those who go it alone and those who go it in groups. And then there are those who seem to always wind up leading those groups.

Davis was captain of his high school’s football team and president of its student body. Later, he became captain of the Harvard Crimson football team and later still, while in law school, student body president at Tulane.

“I’ve always been a guy that people have liked and picked as a leader in whatever group I’m in,” says Davis. “And I always felt comfortable in that role.”

Now in charge of a team of 38 people (including support staff), Davis views teambuilding as an important part of his duties.

He says he wants his people to feel happy about their experience with the company. “And I want them to succeed,” he adds.

To that end, he reaches into a tool bag filled with sound managerial utensils such as autonomy, accountability and reward. And when times get particularly tough he’ll advocate for empathy.

“I’ll tell them, ‘Give your brothers and sisters the benefit of the doubt,’” says Davis. “Everyone here is internalizing information in different ways. If someone seems a little off or edgy or short, give them the benefit of the doubt. We need to pull together now.”

And if the angst gets too thick, there’s always the Dallas Cowboy cheerleader uniform.

“Reggie is really good at costumes,” begins Eugene Lao, a deputy

nick marinello

general counsel at Zynga. “I did not have either the pleasure or displeasure of seeing this live, but I’ve seen photographs: Reggie dressed up as a Dallas Cowboy cheerleader, and it was something extraordinary to see.”

“My wife handmade the whole costume,” says Davis. “She thought it was a great idea.”

Before coming to Zynga, Davis worked as an outside litigator for a San Francisco law firm and a litigation manager for Yahoo!. On two occasions during that time he arrived at work dressed as a cheerleader.

“I remember the first time. It was nine in the morning on a Thursday, Halloween Day, and I was looking at my wife saying, ‘You know what? This seemed like a great idea a couple of weeks ago over a couple of beers, but now in the bright light of day, this is a little hard.’”

It’s the kind of thing that you don’t go into half-heartedly. “You kinda have to be out there to put that thing on.”

Whatever the initial embarrassment, it was worth it, he says.

“I can tell you that both days I wore that outfit, my day consisted of moving around surrounded by a group of people who were smiling. It’s kind of hard not to enjoy that.”

Three years in N.O. Last May, Davis returned to Tulane to deliver the commencement address to the graduating law class. Whereas some guys might feign a dignified and polite satisfaction with the honor of such an invitation, Davis jumps right in about how cool it was to be there.

“It was fun at the graduation speech,” he says. “I was pretty pumped up. I was really prepared, then we put on all the gowns and things and I got excited about the speech and had a lot of energy.”

He characterizes his message to the grads as a “pep talk.”

He recalls looking out at his audience and telling them the following: “I’m sure you got on the treadmill and worked really hard in high school. You got on the treadmill and worked really hard at a great

college. You got on the treadmill and worked really hard at Tulane Law School. You can’t defer happiness to sometime in the future when you make partner in a law firm or win your big case or do whatever big professional thing you’re going to do. Happiness is a now thing.”

It’s a message that can be difficult to always integrate into his own life, he admits, but over the years he’s learned to sort his priorities.

“Reggie loves his family and he’s not shy about that,” says Stephanie King, a corporate attorney at Zynga.

Indeed. It’s no more than 10 minutes into the interview for this story before Davis is bringing up his wife, Rebecca (NC ’89), and all their boys by name: Henry, Oliver, Baxter and Elliot.

Turns out Tulane has been very good to Davis; he met Rebecca (Joslin) in New Orleans during his third year at law school and her senior year at Newcomb College. They both were preparing to head out to the West Coast after graduation.

“I proceeded to stalk her for two months before I got the nerve to ask her out,” he quips.

The couple returns to New Orleans as often as they can.

“Granted, we have a stylized relationship with New Orleans now, which is that we go back for the Jazz Fest, to see friends and for special occasions—it’s not working and humping and hustling, the way everybody who lives there does. But I’ll give you four years in Boston for three in New Orleans any day of the week. I just loved my experiences there.”

Five starters Meanwhile, back above SoMa, in the offices of Zynga legal, Reggie Davis keeps his sense of humor when talking about the future of the company.

“Wall Street doesn’t really love us,” he says. “When you’re having tough economic times in the U.S. and abroad, money isn’t rushing into companies that sell virtual gas to your virtual tractor to harvest your virtual crops.”

The weeks and months to come may well prove to be some of the most difficult of his career, but Davis remains stoic, the kind of guy you want on your team during tough times, especially when the clock is ticking down.

“If I wasn’t doing this, I might have coached football,” says Davis in a wistful moment. And you can bet if he did coach football, his team would not play a finesse game with a lot of passing and trickery.

“It would all be about the offensive line and ground game,” he says.

Five brutes starting up front, with three “could-be starters” on the bench, champing at the bit right behind them.

“I’d run a ground game and I would keep the score close,” he says.

“And win it—wear them out in the fourth quarter.”

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jerry ward

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Lindy and Me

By Tania Tetlow, NC ’92

If you are very lucky, you meet by chance the one person who makes all the difference in your life. In my case, it was entirely premeditated.

For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to be Lindy Boggs, the most famous of Newcomb’s graduates. She was my congresswoman in New Orleans, a powerful politician of unquestioned integrity and famed charms. Along with every other sensible little girl in New Orleans, I worshiped her.

The trick was figuring out how I could convince her to take me under her wing and teach me everything I needed to know to save the world, preferably before I finished college. The first step, clearly, was to meet the congresswoman, but how? During my freshman year at Newcomb in 1988, Jean Danielson, director of the Honors Program, suggested I try writing a letter and simply ask to meet her. This seemed far too obvious a plan to work, but my more elaborate fantasies of accidentally saving her life were not panning out.

“Dear Congresswoman, I would like to be you when I grow up. Could I please meet you?”

Shockingly, her secretary called me to set up an appointment. The anxiety! The excitement! When the day finally arrived, my parents dropped me off at the federal building downtown for my appointment with destiny. I wore stockings, I think, and something approaching a suit. The walls in her lobby were lined with photographs of the congresswoman with presidents and popes and other rulers of the universe. She seemed omnipotent.

It turned out that she was also small and loving and nice. She had pale blue eyes just like mine and sat with her feet demurely crossed at the ankles, back straight, bright scarf tied around her neck. I don’t remember exactly what we talked about other than that she seemed sincerely interested in me, which even then seemed ridiculously generous.

Tête-à-tête The author, Tania Tetlow, right, and her mentor, Lindy Boggs in a 1991 portrait shot in Boggs’ Bourbon Street courtyard.

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© Bettmann/Corbis/AP Images

Women’s Equality Boggs, standing directly behind President Gerald Ford, joins other congresswomen during the signing of a proclamation declaring “Women’s Equality Day” in 1974.

Lindy thrives on connecting with each of the multiple generations that have benefited from her hard work.

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I do remember that she instructed me to join various women’s political groups, which I did promptly, though I had to wait a year to turn 18 to join the League of Women Voters.

Two summers later, I got to intern for her in Washington, D.C., carefully stuffing envelopes and answering phones, hoping to catch her in conversation. That month, on July 20, 1990, she announced her retirement from Congress, at the age of 74, to pass the torch to a new generation. More importantly, her daughter Barbara Boggs Sigmund was dying of cancer, and she wanted to be at her side.

Barbara died in October 1990, and when the 101st Congress ended, Mrs. Boggs returned to New Orleans. She came to Tulane University with an office and a title, special counsel to the president. I went across campus to the Tulane president’s office to ask about a student worker job in her office, maybe to do research for speeches or whatever her staff might need. It turned out that she had no staff, so they agreed to hire me. I was thrilled, though poor Lindy got a teenage college student to replace her entire congressional staff.

I did my best to keep her schedule and to keep things vaguely organized. Her supposed retirement was nonexistent; she gave hundreds of speeches a year all over the world, and did an annual tour of university graduations to accept honorary degrees. She joined countless nonprofit boards and made every appearance requested of her around the country. It would have been an exhausting schedule for someone a third of her age. As I put the latest plaque on the looming pile of awards in her office, I teased her that her new career was accepting awards full-time. I loved to ask her, “Mawmaw” (that’s what I called her), “How many honorary degrees do you have now?” “I have no idea, darling.”

Lindy still did constituent services as if she were still in office. Senior citizens would call with their Social Security problems. She would listen to their entire story and then spend hours on the phone with the Social Security Administration to get it solved. I am 50 years younger than she is, but I could barely keep up. I never knew whether to try harder to protect her time, or just to stand back and admire her stamina.

Every ring of the phone promised a new adventure. Lady Bird Johnson would call to schedule their annual spring vacation together. (They

liked to go to Acapulco.) When I asked her what I should wear for her fundraiser for presidential candidate Bill Clinton, she said: “We can wear whatever we like, darling. We’re the hostesses.” She took me to mass on holy days of obligation and insisted on giving me a dollar for the collection plate.

She was the dearest grandmother you could have, but one who had the kind of power you wish your grandmother could have had. She had befriended world leaders, hiked in Antarctica, and chaired the 1976 Democratic Convention, the first woman to do so. She took me with her to the 1992 Democratic Convention. She has known presidents from Teddy Roosevelt, who visited her family when she was a child, to Barack Obama.

I shuttled between two worlds in college: one where I listened to professors lecture about American history, and another where I could ask Lindy what really had happened. She would tell me about the Washington wives and daughters who did much of the work of government behind the scenes.

Lindy carefully tutored me about women in politics, about power and conscience, about the purpose of a life’s career. We spent lots of time debating the models of women in power. Are women inherently more virtuous? Must women always exercise power through sweetness and gentle tact, or should they be allowed to act more like powerful men?

Lindy operated in an era when her nonthreatening charms and graciousness were the most effective way for a woman to wield power. Congressmen marveled at her ability to whisper in the ear of the Speaker of the House, Tip O’Neill, and get whatever her district needed. A staff person for Louisiana U.S. Senator J. Bennett Johnston told me that they dreaded his meetings with Lindy because he would return sheepishly, having promised her the world.

At the time Lindy entered politics, as the wife of a congressman in 1940 and elected in her own right in 1973, she probably had no choice about how to be effective. But even given the option of other models, Lindy would not have changed. She builds consensus by showing sincere respect for the best in others. She invokes fear only in the possibility of disappointing her. She is insistent in asking others to do the right thing, but pushes them without feeling anger.

Her perspective and her stories transformed my college experience.

She made me feel part of the unbroken chain of young women who enter Newcomb each fall and graduate each spring. I could squint at the oak trees and imagine Lindy Claiborne as a teenager on campus in the 1930s, wearing her white gloves and heels, “cutting a rug” on Saturday nights, and politely refusing bathtub gin.

Lindy started Newcomb in 1931, a 15-year-old girl from the country and an only child raised by a houseful of women. The nuns at her convent school graduated her first in her class, though she was too young to be admitted to Newcomb College. So Lindy traveled to New Orleans from her plantation home in New Roads, La., to convince Newcomb dean Pierce Butler to let her enroll early. She had one piece of information to her advantage: she knew that he loved Shakespeare. When he sternly asked her age, she replied with her utmost attempt at charm and sophistication: “To be or not to be, that is the question. I cannot tell a lie, to thine own self be true, I am only 15, but. …” She started that year.

The Depression changed everything, even for those privileged enough to go to college. Until then, college meant finding a husband and educating oneself enough to grace him with sparkling conversation. Newcomb, like many women’s colleges, had a rule that if a student married, she had to quit school. The Depression postponed marriage for young men who could not afford it. For Newcomb women, striving for an actual career suddenly seemed both possible and a matter of survival.

Because no one could get serious too quickly, students dated casually and often. Lindy tells stories, with laughs and winks, of scheduling multiple dates on the same night and struggling to get back to the dormitory in time for the next boy to pick her up. Two of her suitors

Double dating Lindy and Hale Boggs (on the left), from the 1936 edition of the Collegiate Kaleidoscope yearbook. The accompanying captions reads: “T. Hale, T. Lo, and the College Widow (Lovely Lindy).”

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got so tired of splitting time with her that they finally decided to take her out together.

Lindy wanted to be a professional photographer like the famed photojournalist Margaret Bourke White, who immortalized bridge builders and factory workers. Although she discovered at Newcomb that she was absolutely no good at photography, she kept working toward a career as a journalist and became the Newcomb editor of the Tulane Hullabaloo. At that time, women were not allowed to be the editor-in-chief of the paper, and that post was filled by Hale Boggs. Hale courted Lindy by leaving an apple every day on her desk to ward off the medical student she was dating: An apple a day keeps the doctor away.

Lindy took the art classes for which Newcomb was renowned, but found her own way to shape them. One of her professors, a handsome young man, had the annoying habit of expounding endlessly about rococo—the elaborate gaudy style abundant in New Orleans architecture. He hated it and would not stop talking about it. Lindy and her friends found his views a little pompous and his tirades tiresome, so they wrote a letter pretending to be an anonymous student expressing her love for him. The imaginary student knew she could never expect the professor to return her love, they wrote, but if he could give her any hope at all, all he needed to do was to mention the word “rococo” during class. Flummoxed, the professor would occasionally let the forbidden word slip and then blush and change the subject. Lindy tells this story with a smirk and great professions of embarrassment.

She graduated from Newcomb in 1935 and scrambled with everyone else for one of the few jobs available. She was hired by St. James

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Parish to teach history and English, and moved into a house in Romeville, La., with three others. This would become the first of about five careers, and possibly her favorite. Of her many suitors, Lindy would eventually pick Hale Boggs, handsome, fun loving, and fiercely intelligent. She married him in 1938 and moved to New Orleans, where Hale worked as general manager and director of the Tulane Alumni Association and became a leader in the movement to reform local politics.

In 1940, at the age of 24, Lindy became a congressional wife. She spent the next three decades raising a family, being ready in case Hale brought the president home for dinner, organizing the Kennedy inaugural ball, managing Hale’s campaigns, helping him agonize over his unpopular votes for civil rights, and traveling with him all over the world.

Hale’s plane disappeared over Alaska in 1972. In the midst of her grief and uncertainty, Lindy was forced to decide whether to run for his seat. In a 1973 special election, Lindy was elected to Congress by an overwhelming margin and instead of merely holding the seat for a designated male successor, she served with great distinction for 18 years.

Lindy always recites what the nuns taught her, “You can get anything done in life as long as you are willing to give someone else the credit.” Sometimes I bristled at that advice as it applied to her, though, because as much as people adore Lindy, she does not always get credit for the things she accomplished.

Lindy never brags. She has a way of sincerely claiming that she just happened to be in the right place at the right time and was lucky enough to be able to help. She tells the story of her greatest legislative accomplishment that way, the inclusion of women in the Equal Credit Opportunity Act at a time when women had enormous difficulty getting business loans, mortgages, or even credit cards in their own names. When she was first elected in the early 1970s, a bill was making its way through Congress that would forbid lenders from discriminating by race or national origin. When the bill came through her banking subcommittee, Lindy quickly added in “sex and marital status” and told the committee members sweetly, “I am sure you all just overlooked this issue.” The amendment passed unanimously and signs prohibiting gender discrimination now hang on the walls of every bank in America. Lindy, however, gives credit for this accomplishment to the women’s business organization that met with her and educated her about the problem, and the luck of being in the right room at the right time.

Lindy does have a postscript to this story, however, in which she expresses uncharacteristic delight in what she accomplished. Soon after the Equal Credit Act passed, she bought a condominium closer to the Capitol. Her bank denied her a mortgage, one she clearly qualified for, without any explanation. Lindy looked at the banker and explained sweetly that the bank was quite clearly breaking a law that she authored.

She got her loan.

After my graduation from Newcomb in 1992, Lindy sent me off to Harvard Law School with hugs and urgings of caution about that “Yankee Protestant school.” She then embarked on yet another adventure.

In 1997, President Clinton asked a favor of her, to serve as ambassador to the Vatican. Only half-joking, I offered to go with her and she said, “Oh, no, darling, we would get into too much trouble together.” If diplomacy is all about nuance and consensus, she was the perfect choice for a crucial position. She helped foster the relationship between the most powerful nation in the world and a church that influenced (and had intelligence about) every country in the world.

I spent a week visiting Lindy in Rome in 1997, wandering around cafes during the day and following her to diplomatic parties at night. At breakfast in the formal dining room of the embassy residence, a butFriends ler in a white coat and brass buttons served us Lindy (far right) and espresso. As soon as he was safely out of sight, Newcomb friends pose Lindy pulled out a hidden jar of instant Louisifor a photo on the steps of Gibson Hall. ana coffee with chicory to add to her cup.

michael democker

We headed out every day in her bulletproof Mercedes with police escort. Lindy would liven Entourage up the ride by making me sing opera to the Boggs and a cadre Italian driver and making him sing back. The of bodyguards, driver careened around Rome, driving even during her time as through ancient pedestrian squares. Elderly U.S. ambassador ladies, their heads covered in black, wagged to the Vatican. their fingers at us for being so rude. Noting my discomfort, Lindy leaned over and told me: “Either look very important or very ill.”

Even when she could not understand a word that people were saying to her in Italian, she responded in English, smiling and bowing while they babbled praise. Being 80 allowed her to flirt with cardinals with impunity, to the astonishment of the State Department staff and the delight of the cardinals. In almost every picture of Lindy and Pope John Paul II, he is holding her hand. We teased her that the pope, several years her junior, had a crush on her. She would blush and deny it.

Lindy came back to New Orleans in 2001, and I got to spend time with her again, going to dinner and finding jazz to sing along to. (We have some pretty good harmonies.) Four years later, her heart was broken by Katrina, but she cut down the tree that fell on her Bourbon Street home and kept fighting for all of the people who called her for help. On her 90th birthday, in 2006, she received handwritten notes from the president and the new pope, Benedict XVI. She spends most of her time in Washington now, with her daughter, Cokie Roberts, and son, Tommy Boggs, with her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

In March, she turned 96, still sharp and funny and generous. She tells me that former president Bill Clinton calls regularly to check on her.

I have never heard an introduction of Lindy at an event that did not

include the word “gracious,” but I worry that people mistake that quality for mere good manners. Lindy’s charm does not stem from a disciplined politeness, but a sincere delight in every person she meets. She exudes goodness—not the pure, cloistered virtue of those who manage to avoid the evils of the world, but the integrity of one who has fully participated in the struggle for social justice.

And as for me, Lindy has made all the difference. I have met some very successful women who are weary of mentoring, resistant to the expectation that they assist every young woman who comes along.

They understandably resent the ingratitude of a younger generation oblivious to how much better they have it, and wonder if they are not better off making their own way.

Lindy thrives on connecting with each of the multiple generations that have benefited from her hard work. She pushes us most by her example and her high expectations. Once I complained to her wearily about politics; she sighed and answered, “I know darling, but someone has to do it.” She taught me that the point of life is to use all of the gifts you have been lucky enough to receive. The point of life is to spend your life trying.

Tania Tetlow (NC ’92) is the Felder-Fayard associate professor of law and director of the Tulane Domestic Violence Clinic at Tulane Law School.

Before joining the Tulane faculty, she worked as a commercial litigator and served as a federal prosecutor.

“Lindy and Me” is a chapter from Newcomb College 1886–2006: Higher Education for Women in New Orleans, edited by Susan Tucker and Beth Willinger. (Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, La., 2012) Reprinted with permission.

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WWII SURVIVOR Erwin R. Johnson (E ’52), a prisoner of war who endured the Bataan Death March in the Philippines during World War II, hosted the annual reunion of Mukden Prison Camp survivors. Three men joined Johnson at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans on Oct. 3, 2012.

T U L A N I A N S

Edu Reformer Sydney Morris (’07) studied political science at Tulane, never dreaming of becoming a teacher, and she certainly never thought she would be at the helm of Educators 4 Excellence (E4E), an education reform organization. But as we all know, hurricanes have a way of changing things.

After Hurricane Katrina, Morris found herself volunteering in afterschool programs through New Orleans Outreach. “I was able to see, perhaps in the most extreme instances, the incredible impact that schools and teachers were having on students’ trajectories,” she says.

The impact on Morris was powerful. Following graduation, she joined Teach for America as a second grade teacher in the Bronx, N.Y. “I absolutely fell in love with it,” she says. She thought she had found a career. But, by the third year, Morris started feeling frustrated.

“There was a weird juxtaposition between the autonomy I had inside the classroom and outside, where I had little say in the broader decisions being made, all of which impacted my profession and my students.”

Morris’ colleagues shared her frustrations. While teaching full-time, she and another teacher founded E4E, wanting to “shift the dynamic, not to be subjects of change, but agents of change ourselves.”

In addition to the New York chapter, E4E now has a Los Angeles chapter with more sites on the way. Some 7,500 teachers across the country have signed the E4E declaration to become members.

E4E is tackling big issues: quality of teachers, teacher evaluation systems and accountability, among others. In just two years, the organization’s recommendations for layoff procedures were incorporated into a New York senate bill, and E4E teachers influenced major litigation in Los Angeles around teacher layoffs and legislation on evaluation.

—Catherine Freshley

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Agent of Change Sydney Morris talks to teachers about issues that concern them the most.

PARTNER WITH ALUMNI James Stofan is looking for alumni volunteers who are passionate about Tulane and have expertise they can lend.

James E. Stofan, now in his fourth month as the new vice president of alumni relations, previously served as Vanderbilt University’s associate vice chancellor of alumni relations.

“I’ve been on a ‘listening tour’ of the campus, meeting with the Tulane leadership team to map out the future of our alumni programs,” Stofan said, “and I’m especially eager to hear and learn from our alumni.”

Stofan has spent his entire career at universities, first in student activities and then in alumni relations. He decided to pursue a university-based career right out of college because, he said, “being around faculty keeps you smart and being around students keeps you young.”

At Vanderbilt, Stofan scored a trifecta of “firsts”: the first comprehensive strategic planning process for the alumni relations program, the first $100,000 endowed scholarship campaign with African American alumni, and the first initiative to use social media tools to engage alumni more comprehensively. Before Vanderbilt, he spent 10 years directing alumni relations for the University of California, where he coordinated more than 10 campus alumni programs representing more than 1.5 million alumni worldwide.

Stofan holds a bachelor’s degree in math from California State University and a master’s degree in college student personnel from Central Connecticut State University. He plans to use a data-driven approach to guide the Tulane alumni relations office and will be sending out a survey to alumni soon. In collaboration with the Tulane Alumni Association board of directors, Stofan will be formulating a three-year strategic plan.

From the outset, Stofan has placed a high priority on strengthening relationships with alumni volunteers. “I enjoy working with alumni volunteers because they are passionate about the institution, and they have a range of expertise they can lend,” he says. “It’s important that they are seen as true partners and have meaningful roles.”

—Fran Simon

Paula burch-celentano

catherine freshley

Alumni Get New VP

Dispatch Mary Peachin W H E R E

Y ’ A T !

1940s GERALD BERENSON (A&S ’43, M ’45) announces the publication of You Can Fix the Fat From Childhood and Other Heart Disease Risks, Too, co-authored with NANCYKAY SULLIVAN WESSMAN (PHTM ’89). Berenson is principal investigator of the Bogalusa Heart Study, which he launched in 1973 and which recently received a continuation of federal funding.

Berenson is a research professor of epidemiology at the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. This September, Berenson celebrated his 90th birthday with his wife, JOAN S. BERENSON (NC ’53).

1950s GEORGE BEDDINGFIELD (M ’56) announces the release of his second novel, a medical thriller titled Conditional. The novel tells of the collaboration between a physician and an FBI agent struggling to resolve medical mayhem triggered by a sociopathic hospital CEO.

1960s JACK KUSHNER (A&S ’60) spoke this past summer at Oxford University on, among other topics, “Personalized Medicine With Genetics.” He has been invited by the American Biographical Institute USA and the International Biographical Center, Cambridge, England, to the 2013 World Forum in Boston as a U.S. ambassador.

BARRY FISHMAN (A ’62) completed a series of 80 paintings based on the Ta Chuan/Great Treatise and the I Ching/Book of Changes. For more information, visit http://www.etaoin.com/ yj_cat00.html.

ERROL BARRON (A ’64) received the American Institute of Architects Louisiana Medal of Honor, the highest award given by the organization to architects who have sustained a lifetime affecting the profession of architecture, and who have significantly advanced the profession and provided strong influence on fellow practitioners. Barron has taught architecture for more than 35 years. He is the Favrot Professor of Architecture at Tulane. He is a principal of Barron/Toups Architects, an award-winning firm entering its fifth decade of business. Barron received the medal at the organization’s annual design conference in Lafayette, La., on Sept. 28, 2012. (Barron’s illustrations are featured in the summer 2012 Tulane magazine.)

JOEL M. FRIEDMAN (A&S ’64) is president-elect of the New York State Dental Association for 2012–2013. In addition, Friedman was chosen as Attending Surgeon of the Year in Oral Surgery at New York Presbyterian Hospital–Weill Medical Center.

PHOTO FROM MARY PEACHIN

Since retiring to Madison, Miss., BRUCE E. WENZEL (A&S ’59) has taught at Jackson State University, Bellhaven University and at Tulane University School of Continuing Studies’ Madison campus, where he continues to teach classes in physics and forensics.

WILD ENCOUNTERS Mary L. Peachin (NC ’62) is a freelance adventure/outdoor travel writer and photographer who loves wild encounters. She has gotten up close to a great white shark, beluga whales, giant manta rays, grizzly bears and Komodo dragons.

Walking among the dragons of Indonesia (shown above), Peachin says she didn’t feel threatened, though she remained cautious. “They appear to avoid encounters with humans and the younger ones scurried away. Older dragons are known to retreat from humans unless cornered. When threatened, they will hiss and swing their tail. I have great respect for wild animals, and for sure, I would never allow my presence to threaten them.”

Peachin has traveled the world as a primarily solo adventurer for 40 years, and for 16 years she has maintained a website that recounts her travels. Her publications include The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Sharks (republished as Sharks: The Sleek and the Savage), Scuba Caribbean and Sport Fishing in the Caribbean, as well as magazine articles.

Peachin was a social worker in Chicago until she quit work in the late 1960s to raise her two children. After her children were grown, she got into skydiving, bungee jumping, scuba diving, snorkeling and cross-country bicycling. Her husband, David, introduced her to flying, and she became a commercial pilot with instrument certification.

“I think I’m an adrenaline junkie,” says Peachin. What keeps her going? “Curiosity.

Some people are interested in the stars. I’m interested in wildlife.”

In Tucson, Ariz., where she lives now, Peachin is known as a businesswoman (she owned an art-framing gallery for 15 years) and community service champion. The former United Way president and founding chair of the Arizona Cancer Center has received many awards including Woman of the Year from the City of Tucson and the Arizona Governor’s Award.

“How lucky could I be? I have a great husband and children, a wonderful life,” Peachin says.

“And always a great adventure to look forward to.”—FRAN SIMON

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TOMBSTONE TOUR Ren Davis (PHTM ’76) announces the publication of Atlanta’s Oakland Cemetery: An Illustrated History and Guide with his wife, Helen Davis. Ren Davis is a native of Atlanta whose writing and photography have appeared in such publications as the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Georgia Magazine and Atlanta Magazine. The couple has co-authored several books, including Georgia Walks and Atlanta Walks.

W H E R E

Y ’ A T !

CHARLOTTE BARKERDING TRAVIESO (NC ’64) retired from her position as executive director of the Tulane Office of Alumni Affairs, which she held for more than 12 years, on Sept. 28, 2012. Travieso says she is enjoying traveling and spending time with family and friends.

In December she and several women from her high school class will be celebrating their 70th birthdays with a Caribbean cruise going out of New Orleans. Travieso volunteers for a number of education-oriented causes, including Xavier Prep School, and she is president of the board of Louise S. McGehee School in New Orleans.

She remains active with the Krewe of Muses and the Shades of Praise Gospel Choir.

FRANCIS JOSEPH RICHARDSON III (B ’65), an independent filmmaker, is producer and videographer of the weekly television series “Live the Messages” on Acadiana Open Channel.

Richardson also is president of Richardson Intellectual Property Management Consultants.

He previously served in the administration of President George H. W. Bush. He lives in Lafayette, La. RUSSELL W. STEELE (M ’67) received the Leonard Tow 2012 Humanism in Medicine Award from Tulane University School of Medicine.

Steele also received a Lifetime Contribution to Education Award from the American Academy of Pediatrics.

SUSAN BISHOP-WRABEL (NC ’68) joined the board of trustees of the Washington Community Housing Trust, a nonprofit organization. She also was appointed to the Washington, Conn., Planning Commission.

ROBERT K. DAWSON (A&S ’68) was elected to the 2012-2013 board of governors of Wesley Theological Seminary. Dawson is president and founder of Dawson & Associates, a government relations firm headquartered in Washington, D.C. NICK LUND (G ’68) is president of TRACKS, an organization of more than 400 volunteers that build and maintain over 200 miles of trails in the Apache-Sitgreves National Forests of northeast Arizona. Lund also is chair of the Arizona State Committee on Trails and cochair of the Arizona Game and Fish Heritage Fund Public Advisory Committee.

1970s MARY “KK” NORMAN (L ’70) has retired as judge of the Second City Court in Algiers, La. Norman was the first woman elected to the position and served for 19 years as the only judge in Second City Court. Norman became known for her calm demeanor and dogged determination, as well as for her love of weddings, which earned her an interview with the Discovery Channel and the nickname “Judge of Love.”

She looks forward to performing wedding ceremonies in her retirement years.

GROVER MOUTON (A ’71) and NICK JENISCH (A ’03) lead the Tulane Regional Urban Design

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Center, which educates public officials in the U.S. and abroad. Mouton and Jenisch are currently working closely with several Chinese government agencies to aid in the implementation of a master plan for a new town in Jintang, Chengdu. Among other elements, the plan includes green infrastructure and designs for new civic buildings, as well as guidelines to define and control the urban character of each new town district.

MARK STONECIPHER (A&S ’72) announces the publication of Caesar’s Silver, a historical novel about an escaped slave and the legend of a hidden Shawnee treasure. Stonecipher is a salesperson for Honda in Marysville, Ohio.

He also is an administrator and staff writer for OHRunners/Milesplits, the leading high school track and field website in the U.S. After spending more than 30 years in corporate America, RONA SIMMONS (B ’72) retired in 2011 and is now focusing her efforts on writing and photography. Simmons published a novel and a collection of short stories in 2012.

MILTON DUREAU JR. (A&S ’73) retired after more than 38 years with the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office. Dureau started as a forensic drug chemist in what was the office’s newly formed crime laboratory and worked his way to commander of laboratory services, responsible for the crime laboratory, DNA laboratory and crime scene division.

MITCHELL S. KUSHNER (A&S ’73) is city health officer for the Long Beach, Calif., Department of Health and Human Services. He took the position in which he is responsible for oversight of clinical services, communicable disease control, promotion of public health goals and promoting public health issues in August 2012. Kushner previously worked for nine years with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, most recently as medical director for the Community Health Services Division, where he provided medical oversight to 14 public health centers across the county. He is a longtime Long Beach resident.

DAVID RICH (A&S ’73) announces the publication of his first novel, Caravan of Thieves, by Dutton. Rich has sold screenplays to most of the major studios and to many production companies in the U.S. and Europe. He wrote the feature film Renegades starring Kiefer Sutherland and Lou Diamond Phillips. Rich now lives in small-town Connecticut.

LYNN S. GARSON (NC ’75) announces the publication of her memoir, Southern Vapors.

Garson has held readings at the Decatur Book Festival, the Southern Writers Showcase and the Jewish Book Festival in Atlanta. Garson is associate counsel at McKenna Long & Aldridge in Atlanta.

JUDY KOZONIS SNIDER (SW ’75) won a Mom’s Choice Award for I Love You, Be Careful.

STEPHEN WEBRE (G ’75, ’80) holds the Garnie W. McGinty Chair of History at Louisiana Tech University, where he is head of the history department and has taught since 1982.

CAROLYN ROSSI COPELAND (NC ’76) is producer of Freud’s Last Session, a hit production in Chicago and New York. Copeland has been producing theater since 1979, when she founded The Lambs Theatre Company in the heart of Times Square. She is currently executive producer of Strouse IP, a company that controls and manages the works of the composer Charles Strouse. She and her husband, architect James Masson Copeland, have four children: Margaret, Beatrice and twins Marion and Eugenia. For the first time in 25 years, their nest is empty.

CONNIE HAYDEN-McPEAK (SW ’76) retired as coordinator of Child Find after 35 years with the Hillsborough, Fla., County public school system, which is one of the country’s largest.

Hayden-McPeak is passionate about children with special needs and she continues to volunteer on their behalf in Tampa, Fla. STEPHEN K. HACKER (E ’77) announces the publication of How to Coach Individuals, Teams and Organizations to Master Transformational Change: Surfing Tsunamis by Business Expert Press. Hacker, a founding partner and CEO of Transformation Systems International, is chair-elect of the American Society for Quality.

RAY TYREE (A&S ’77) joined FirstNBC Bank in New Orleans as a regional manager. Tyree was the campaign chair for the firm’s March of Dimes March for Babies for the Louisiana River Region. Tyree and his wife reside in Destrehan, La., with their three children.

HONEE A. HESS (G ’78) is executive director of the Worcester Craft Center, one of the oldest craft organizations in the country, in Worcester, Mass. Hess was director of education at the Worcester Art Museum, where she founded Art All-State and other programs. Among many community involvements, Hess, who lives in Worcester, volunteers for First Night Worcester and Family Health Center.

1980s THOMAS BABCOCK (G ’80) announces the publication of Utatlan: The Constituted Community of the K’iche’ Maya of Q’urarkaj by the University Press of Colorado.

ASHLEY BELLEAU (NC ’80, L ’84) was named to the 2012 New Orleans CityBusiness Women of the Year list, which recognizes 50 honorees for their career and their community contributions. Belleau is immediate past president of the Federal Bar Association.

LINDA MALONEY (NC ’83) compiled and edited Military Fly Moms: Sharing Memories, Building Legacies, Inspiring Hope, published by

Dispatch Tom Farley Tannenbaum Publishing this year. Maloney, now a retired officer, was one of the first women in U.S. history to join a combat flying squadron.

She is the founder of My Mom Flies, a company that encourages and supports mothers who are managing family and career priorities. Maloney lives in Rhode Island with her husband, Dan, and two sons. Among the 71 military officers featured in the book are Air Force Lt. Col. CHRISTI FALAVOLITO LEGAWIEC (E ’96), a pilot deployed to Oman in August 2001, who was among the first crews to put troops on the ground for Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, and former Marine Corps pilot ALEXIS ROMINGER McCABE, a student at Tulane School of Medicine. Legawiec is the mother of two children, and McCabe has one daughter.

After 31 years of service, FRANCES FENN CHANCEY (UC ’84) retired as a lieutenant colonel from the U.S. Army in June. She writes, “Tulane Army ROTC gave me the opportunity to travel the world and contribute to so many important missions—from peacekeeping in Bosnia, to acting as the lead action officer for Hurricane Katrina, to writing plans to combat weapons of mass destruction.” Chancey plans to continue working at U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla. G. MARTIN MOELLER JR. (A ’84) is the author of the fifth edition of the AIA Guide to the Architecture of Washington, D.C., published by the Johns Hopkins University Press in June 2012.

TERI G. MARCONI (UC ’85) is sector vice president and general manager of the Naval and Marine Systems Division of Northrop Grumman. She joined the company in 1985. Marconi is a Baltimore native and for the past three years has served as chairperson of the Greater Baltimore March for Babies, a project of the March of Dimes.

MARY DEVEREUX (L ’86) has served as a district judge for the 22nd Judicial District Court for Louisiana since January 2009.

ANGEL G. GUZMAN-GARCIA (E ’86, G ’90) is a founding member of Honduras Global. The organization brings together Honduran men and women of excellence to promote innovation and technological development in Honduran business and science.

REGINA HURLEY (L ’86) has been selected by her peers for inclusion in Best Lawyers in America

AP PHOTO/RICHARD DREW

ERNST PEEBLES (A&S ’83) has joined The Water Institute of the Gulf as director of coastal systems ecology. The organization works to preserve and protect the Gulf Coast environment, while developing and sharing water management technology worldwide. Peebles has studied coastal ecology and estuaries in the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean for more than 30 years. For more information, visit www.thewaterinstitute.org.

BIG APPLE BITES When New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg proposed a ban this year on the sale of sugary drinks of 16 ounces or more in restaurants, movie theaters and delis, he had the backing of Tulane alumnus Thomas Farley (M ’81, PHTM ’91), New York City health commissioner.

Farley (shown above with New York deputy mayor Linda Gibbs at a press conference in May 2012 to discuss the effort to combat obesity) said, “We are working to shape a city that promotes health.”

The limits on large sodas are an expansion of other crusades by Farley and the city to encourage healthy behavior in New York’s 8 million residents. These efforts include the restriction on trans-fats in foods served by restaurants and the requirement that chain restaurants post calorie information on menu boards.

The push for healthy living appears to be working: People in New York live 80.6 years on average—two years longer than the national average. The suicide rate in New York is half the national rate. And the percentage of smokers in the population is at a low 14 percent.

Farley, a former professor and chair of community health science in the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, follows his own advice about healthy habits. He says, “Instead of running in City Park [in New Orleans], now I run everyday in Central Park [in New York].”

Farley loves the good food of New Orleans and does not link it to obesity.

“People in New Orleans are not getting obese on crawfish etouffée,” he says. “It’s chips and soft drinks, just like everywhere else in the U.S.”—F. S.

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BLACK-AND-WHITE RELATIONSHIPS In Some of My Best Friends Are Black: The Strange Story of Integration in America (Viking, 2012), Tanner Colby (TC ’97) explores the saga of school integration. He travels to his elementary school in Lafayette, La., and his high school in a suburb of Birmingham, Ala., among other places. Colby also is the author of The New York Times best-seller The Chris Farley Show: A Biography in Three Acts.

W H E R E

Y ’ A T !

2013 in the field of family law. Hurley practices in Boston at Verrill Dana, where she is chair of the Family Law Practice Group.

MICHAEL McREE (E ’86) was elected to the national board of directors of the Horseless Carriage Club of America. The HCCA has more than 4,000 members and is dedicated to preserving and touring in automobiles made no later than 1915. McRee has attended numerous tours, driving thousands of miles in his 1910 E-M-F touring car along with wife, Linda, son, Hunter, 15, and daughter, Erin, 12.

DENA L. OLIVIER (L ’86) was named to the 2012 New Orleans CityBusiness Women of the Year list. Olivier, a certified public accountant, is president of the Poydras Home and leads annual charitable campaigns for the Liskow & Lewis firm, the Academy of the Sacred Heart and Jesuit High School in New Orleans.

JENNIFER SICKLER (L ’88) joined the Houston office of Thompson & Knight as a partner in the intellectual property section. Sickler practices in all areas of intellectual property, both in the United States and abroad.

ERIC SEEGER (A&S ’89, B’91) is chief operating officer of Barley Snyder, a regional law firm with offices in central Pennsylvania, where he is responsible for firm strategy, growth and operations.

1990s MICHAEL D. RUBENSTEIN (B ’90, L ’93) was appointed to the board of trustees of Selwyn School, an independent college preparatory school in Denton, Texas, from which Rubenstein graduated. Rubenstein also serves on the board of the Tulane Alumni Association.

The New York chapter of the National Organization for Women honored MELINDA M. WHITE (B ’90), executive vice president of revenue development at Frontier Communications, as a Woman of Power and Influence. White leads wireless, video, online and new business strategy for Frontier’s operations in 27 states. She has been with the company since 2005.

JIMMY JOINSON (B ’91) and his wife, Sharon, announce the birth of their son, Jack Henry, on March 8, 2012. Jack joins his older sister, Emily.

Joinson is a tax director with CBIZ Goldstein Lewin in Boca Raton, Fla. PERRY LESLIE (A&S ’91, B ’94) was named office managing partner of the Baton Rouge, La., office of the accounting firm KPMG. After living in San Diego and New York, ASHLEY LIEBKE BOGGS (NC ’92) moved to Atlanta, where she fell in love with her husband, Tim. Boggs is strategic alliances marketing manager for UPS and her husband works in information technology. They are parents of Ava Hope, 3. Boggs writes that they are proud to be a fifth-generation Tulane family.

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MONIQUE HARRISON (NC ’92, SW ’93) is now living in Houston, where she is working at BBVA Compass as an operations manager in commercial banking.

ERIC M. STRAUSS (UC ’96) married Bridget Kelly on July 7, 2012, in Manhattan, N.Y. Strauss, who works for ABC as a news producer, met Kelly when the network interviewed her for “Primetime” about her brutal abduction, rape and shooting. Kelly is now a reading specialist at a public elementary school in Brooklyn and a trained volunteer advocate for the Sexual Assault and Violence Intervention program through the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. Strauss is now a producer for the ABC news program “20/20.”

COURTNEY A. BROWN (NC ’97) is CEO of Somebody’s Answer, her own publishing company.

She has published three books and has another on the way. When she isn’t writing, she teaches third grade and she was Elementary School Teacher of the Year last year for her district in Baker, La. Astraea Press published the first novel by JENNIFER COMEAUX (B ’97), Life on the Edge, in January 2012. Comeaux has signed a contract for a sequel to the contemporary romance, which is titled Edge of the Past and will be released in late 2012. Information on both books can be found at www.jennifercomeaux.blogspot.com.

NATASHA DEL TORO (NC ’97) hosts a national television program called “America ReFramed” on PBS World Channel. The show features documentaries about national issues and changing cultural identity, such as one about Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman to run for President; the mayoral race in Newark between Cory Booker and Sharpe James; women's rights and lesbian activist Charlotte Bunch; the human face of the illegal immigration debate; and the hard lives of Native American ironworkers. Del Toro presents the documentaries and interviews the filmmakers about the issues in the films. For more information, visit http:// worldcompass.org/shows/america-reframed.

(See “Demise of a Daily,” on page 14 of this issue of Tulane magazine for more about del Toro.)

KATHERINE ZIBILICH HOLCOMB (NC ’98, PHTM ’99, M ’04), a board-certified dermatologist, has joined the Lupo Center for Aesthetic and General Dermatology. Holcomb completed her service in the U.S. Navy in July 2012 at Camp Lejeune, where she cared for members of the Marine Corps. She received an honorable discharge as a lieutenant commander. Holcomb lives in New Orleans with her husband, Mark, and her toddlers, Paul and Christopher.

AARON S. ALLEN (TC ’99), co-founder and chair of the Ecocriticism Study Group of the American Musicological Society and the Ecomusicology Special Interest Group of the Society for Ethnomusicology, organized an conference at Tulane on Oct. 30–31, 2012. Profession-

als presented research related to environmental studies of music and sound, representing the dynamic relationships between culture, music and sound, and nature and environment. Allen is assistant professor in the School of Music, Theatre and Dance at the University of North Carolina–Greensboro.

ROBERT ALEXANDER (TC ’99, B ’05) received a doctoral degree from the University of Pennsylvania after conducting dissertation research on higher education leadership and governance. Alexander is associate provost for enrollment at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, Calif., where he oversees the offices of admission, financial aid and the university registrar.

GAUTAM NAYAK (M ’99) and KY TRAN (M ’99) founded the United States Medical Soccer Team in 2009. The World Medical Football Championships allow doctors from all over the world to come together to share medical knowledge, while also competing in soccer. In July, Nyak and Tran, along with CHUN CHEN (M ’99) and QUENTIN RAY (M ’99), participated in the 2012 World Medical Football Championships in Malmo, Sweden.

MARK OZERKIS (TC ’99) and ALEXANDRA CORNELL OZERKIS (NC ’99) welcomed Cooper Eli to their family on April 12, 2012. Cooper joins his brother, Davis, 5, and sister, Clara, 2. The family lives in Princeton, N.J. JANITA L. RELIFORD (L’99), an attorney with the Memphis District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, has received the Corps’ E. Manning Seltzer Award for her work in the labor relations arena.

2000s TOREN G. MUSHOVIC (TC ’00), an appellate defense counsel in the U.S. Navy JAG Corps in Washington D.C., has recently published an article in the New England Journal of International and Comparative Law. The article, “Rules for When There Are No Rules: Examining the Legality of Putting American Terrorists in the Crosshairs Abroad,” analyzes and makes recommendations regarding the legality of targeted killings of American terrorists abroad.

LOVE RUTLEDGE (NC ’00) married Joshua Drumwright of Richmond, Va., on Feb. 25, 2012, in Mobile, Ala. Rutledge works on the staff supporting the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Force Structure, Resources and Assessment Directorate in the Pentagon. The couple resides in Alexandria, Va. MARCUS BERG (B ’01, L ’05) married Anna Ware at the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum on Sept. 8, 2012. Members of the groom’s party included Tulane alumni JASON GRYNBAUM (TC ’00) and MICHAEL BERK (B ’03). Marcus Berg recently opened his own law firm, Moss Berg Injury Lawyers, in Las Vegas. Anna Berg owns a salon.

Recognition Awards MARY LOUISE PHELPS (B ’01, B ’05, L ’05) has joined McCurley Orsinger McCurley Nelson & Downing as an associate in the family law firm’s Dallas office. Phelps’ practice includes a wide range of family law matters. Phelps is a former executive recruiter.

KIANA ANDREW (PHTM ’02), founder and first president of the Society of Young Black Public Health Professionals, recently completed her intern year in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of South Alabama. Andrew has plans to specialize in child/adolescent and forensic psychiatry.

BRETT IKEDA (E ’02) and VICTORIA GABROY IKEDA (NC ’02) welcomed twins Harris Tatsu and Cash Takeo on Aug. 23, 2012. They join big brother, Jameson.

PATRICK REILLY (B ’02) married Alisha Drew on June 23, 2012, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Members of the wedding party included BRYAN BREWER (TC ’00), JAMES SHEERIN (TC ’02), GORDON RANEY (B ’02) and JAMES SULLESTA (B ’03). The couple lives in Dallas, where Patrick Reilly is an audit manager and Alisha Reilly is a financial planner at Lane Gorman Trubitt.

JORDAN WEINREICH (TC ’02) and his wife, Kathryn, celebrated the birth of their son, Oliver Edward, on July 31, 2012, in New York.

LINDSAY BODACK (NC ’03) married Brendan Rogan on Sept. 2, 2012, in Long Island City (Queens), N.Y. The couple met at the University of Michigan School of Social Work. They now live and practice social work in New York.

TERESA G. CASTLE (NC ’03) opened her own practice, the Law Office of Teresa G. Castle, in Metairie, La. LINDSEY CHILDS (NC ’04) completed a secondyear infectious diseases pharmacy residency with the South Texas Veterans Healthcare System in June 2012. Childs has accepted a position as the hepatology/infectious diseases clinical pharmacy specialist at the Bay Pines Veterans Administration Healthcare System in Florida.

MANUEL FIGUEROA (E ’04) and DANNIELLE SOLOMON FIGUEROA (E ’05) welcomed Sofia Renee on May 29, 2012.

CHRIS PUCKETT (B ’04) and his family own the four Yogurtland franchises in Louisiana. The Times-Picayune named the uptown New Orleans location the best frozen yogurt establishment in the city. Yogurtland has its own dairy and proprietary blends.

JONATHAN WHITE (TC ’05) is a staff attorney for the Congress of the Federated States of Micronesia. He staffs the Ways and Means Committee and manages all legislation relating to the nation’s ongoing tax reform initiative.

TONYA THURMAN (PHTM ’06) is a research associate professor in the Tulane University

The Emeritus Club of the Tulane Alumni Association presented Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Awards to Ruthie Frierson and Anne Milling at a Homecoming brunch in the Bea Field Alumni House on Nov. 1, 2012. The Emeritus Club comprises alumni who have celebrated 50 or more years since graduation.

RUTHIE JONES FRIERSON (NC ’62) is founder and chair of Citizens for 1 Greater New Orleans, a grassroots movement that led the post-Katrina reform of the Orleans Parish Assessors and the levee boards of Southeast Louisiana. Frierson received The Times-Picayune Loving Cup in 2006 and the Alliance for Good Government Civic Award. She is a Fleur-de-Lis Ambassador for New Orleans, a founding member of the New Orleans Crime Coalition, a member of the board of Crimestoppers NOLA and a member of Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s Task Force on Levees and Coastal Restoration. She is a past president of the Junior League of New Orleans, and has served on the boards of Isidore Newman School, Louis S. McGehee School, Rhodes College in Memphis, Tenn., and Marvelwood School in Cornwall, Conn.

ANNE McDONALD MILLING (NC ’62) founded Women of the Storm in January 2006, which brought to Washington, D.C., a collective voice for many issues facing New Orleans and the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina. Milling has served as president of the Junior League of New Orleans, the Sewerage and Water Board of the City of New Orleans and the Bureau of Governmental Research. In 1987, Milling served on the executive committee for Pope John Paul II’s visit to New Orleans. Milling is a member of the Tulane School of Medicine board and has served on the President’s Council at Tulane. She is a board member of the Council for a Better Louisiana and is working on the capital campaign for Second Harvest Food Bank. Milling received honorary degrees from Holy Cross College in 2001 and Loyola University in 2007.

School of Social Work. She works full-time in Durban, South Africa, where she explores effective strategies for the care and support of children affected by HIV/AIDS. ELI ROTH (’07) and SOPHIE HEALY (’08) were married in Austin, Texas, on April 7, 2012. Sophie Roth is the office manager of the international center at the University of Dallas, where she is completing her MBA. Eli Roth graduated from Southern Methodist University’s Dedman School of Law and is an attorney in the law office of Dan E. Martens. The couple resides in Dallas.

MARK SYLAJ (’07) writes to say he has completed his third graduate degree and is starting a doctorate in education, focusing on leadership and administration, in New York.

CHRISTINA TEGBE (’07) received a master of business administration and a master of healthcare administration from the University of Houston.

Tegbe is a consultant at Cumberland Consulting Group, one of the nation’s leading IT and project management firms.

CYNTHIA SCOTT (’08) completed an installation at the New Orleans Contemporary Arts Center this spring. The installation was in tandem with her solo show, “Sculptures I Wish I Had Made,” at Staple Goods gallery, also in New Orleans. Scott currently has an installation at the Acadiana

Center for the Arts in Lafayette, La., on display through January.

2010s COURTNI BLACKSTONE (’11), a Tulane AmeriCorp VISTA member with evacuteer.org, helped coordinate New Orleans’ efforts to implement the City Assisted Evacuation Plan for Hurricane Isaac. Blackstone, along with other Tulane VISTA members, worked in four-hour shifts, 24 hours a day for five days.

ALICE EGAN (’11) received a scholarship for a year of study at the Free University of Brussels in Belgium in cooperation with the Council for French in Louisiana and the Francophone government of Belgium.

MIKE MAINGUY (’12), a Tulane cross country and track and field student-athlete, was one of 12 Conference USA student-athletes to receive the Jim Castañeda Postgraduate Scholarship Award.

The Brookline, Mass., native also was selected to the Conference USA All-Academic Team six times—three for each sport. Mainguy is an aspiring physician.

FLYNN ZAIGER (B ’12) is a media marketing specialist for Falck Alford Productions, a leading provider of digital training media. Construction, oil and gas, and other large industrial sectors across the globe use the company’s safety videos and training kits.

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HONORED ATHLETE David Berger (A&S ’66), an Olympic weightlifter murdered at the 1972 Munich Olympics, will be inducted posthumously into the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame and Museum at the Suffolk Y Jewish Community Center in Commack, N.Y., on April 21, 2013.

F A R E W E L L Elizabeth Johnston Wright (NC ’30) of St. Petersburg, Fla., on July 23, 2012.

Clark Bane Hutchinson (SW ’48) of Wilmington,

Don A. Oschwald (A ’56) of Los Alamos, N.M., on

Charles R. Walters Sr. (A&S ’33, M ’36) of Covington,

Edward C. Moore (E ’48) of Seattle on Aug. 22, 2012.

Robert Paul Yost (M ’56) of Apache Junction, Ariz., on Aug. 10, 2012.

Rene A. Torrado (M ’38) of Bay Harbor Islands, Fla.,

Aug. 27, 2012.

Eleanor Carrere Dodenhoff (NC ’39) of New

1, 2012.

Joe C. Piranio (M ’42) of Celina, Texas, on

Ga., on Aug. 8, 2012.

La., on Aug. 1, 2012. on July 28, 2012.

Orleans on Aug. 27, 2012.

July 21, 2012.

John J. Sheppard Jr. (E ’42) of Clinton, Wash., on

Aug. 1, 2012.

Audrey Duffy Woolen (NC ’42) of Gretna, La., on

Aug. 9, 2012.

Malcolm S. Peters (A&S ’43) of Central, S.C., on July 18, 2012.

Del., on Aug. 20, 2012.

G. K. Pratt Munson (E ’48) of New Iberia, La., on Nicholas A. Saigh Jr. (E ’48) of Dallas on Aug. Benjamin Bashinski Jr. (A&S ’49, M ’52) of Macon, Earl A. Breaux (B ’49) of Raceland, La., on Aug.

6, 2012.

Lloyd B. De Luca (A&S ’49, G ’54) of New Orleans

on July 20, 2012.

Katherine Lyons Honour (SW ’49) of Johnson City, Tenn., on July 29, 2012.

Donald B. Pfefferle (A ’49) of New Orleans on July

W.F. Calongne Jr. (A ’44, ’47) of Ocean Springs,

17, 2012.

Robert E. Davis (A&S ’44, M ’46) of Palm Beach

July 23, 2012.

Miss., on Aug. 4, 2012.

Gardens, Fla., on Aug. 7, 2012.

Walter C. Payne Jr. (A&S ’44, M ’46) of Frisco City, Ala., on July 22, 2012.

Donald M. Bradburn (A&S ’45, M ’48) of New Orleans on July 4, 2012.

Emile M. Baumhauer Jr. (M ’50) of Lillian, Ala., on Gordon B. Kelly Sr. (M ’51) of Fort Worth, Texas, on June 29, 2012.

D. Ryan Sartor Jr. (A&S ’52, L ’55) of Monroe, La., on

July 17, 2012.

Carolyn Abaunza Murrell (NC ’53) of White Castle,

Miriam Viosca Henry (NC ’45) of Charlottesville,

La., on Aug. 12, 2012.

Peggy Joyner Satterlee (NC ’45) of Diamondhead,

July 8, 2012.

Va., on Aug. 21, 2012.

Miss., on Aug. 25, 2012.

Lenore Caldwell Woodcock (NC ’45) of Washington,

D.C., on Aug. 5, 2012.

Otto H. Olivera (G ’53) of New Orleans on John H. Parker Jr. (M ’53) of Perry, Fla., on July

Edmund M. Molnar (M ’57) of Columbus, Ga., on Feb. 27, 2012.

Joseph A. Tedesco (M ’57) of Spokane, Wash., on July 7, 2012.

Phyllis L. Ward (NC ’57) of Saint Rose, La., on June 6, 2012.

Herbert Knust (G ’58) of Schwangau, Germany, on Aug. 22, 2012.

Dorothy A. Granberry Langmore (NC ’58) of San

Antonio on July 3, 2012.

Walter G. Frey (E ’59) of Metairie, La., on Aug.

23, 2012.

Julian S. Hillery (B ’59) of New Orleans on Aug. 29, 2012.

Evan P. Howell (A&S ’59, M ’62) of Baton Rouge, La., on June 28, 2012.

William G. Murtagh Jr. (B ’59) of Jasper, Ga., on

Aug. 22, 2012.

Melba Smith Baldwin (PHTM ’60) of Wimberley, Texas, on July 3, 2012.

Elsie Bird Halford (A&S ’54) of Metairie, La., on

John M. Page Jr. (L ’60) of New Orleans on July

Doris Gomes Gulotta (NC ’46) of New Orleans on

Aug. 1, 2012.

Gene C. Hassinger (NC ’46, M ’50) of New Orleans

Jay Handelman (A&S ’57) of New Orleans on Aug.

12, 2012.

J. Baine Fox (B ’60) of Metairie, La., on Aug. 4, 2012.

Aug. 7, 2012.

July 30, 2012.

Granville M. Baker (A&S ’57) of Willits, Calif., on

Aug. 10, 2012.

22, 2012.

Benjamin L. Abberger Jr. (M ’46) of Orlando, Fla.,

on July 29, 2012.

March 29, 2012.

Tyson Hopkins (UC ’54) of Warr Acres, Okla., on Frances Harmon Champagne (NC ’55) of Alexandria,

10, 2012.

James W. Smither III (B ’60) of Atlanta on Aug.

1, 2012.

Lynne Chapman Rencher (NC ’61) of Mobile, Ala.,

La., on June 3, 2012.

on July 1, 2012.

Ann Cushing Gantz (NC ’55) of Dallas on Aug.

Mary Igert Shoup (NC ’62) of Bowie, Md., on Jan.

John A. Sanchez Jr. (A&S ’55, L ’57) of Ponchatoula,

Kenneth W. Smith (A&S ’62, L ’65) of Fairfax, Va.,

Francisco B. Bogran (B ’47) of Covington, La., on

Donald D. Secunda (A&S ’55) of Phoenix on April

Mary Zengel Pelias (NC ’63, G ’65, ’70) of New Orleans on June 29, 2012.

Alex T. Gillespie (A&S ’47, M ’48) of Little Rock, Ark.,

Peter A. Conravey Jr. (B ’56) of Madisonville, La., on July 7, 2012.

28, 2012.

Robert A. Warriner II (A&S ’47) of Poplarville, Miss.,

Clyde O. Hagood Jr. (M ’56) of San Antonio on Aug.

Edgar C. Fox Jr. (PHTM ’64) of West Columbia,

Mary L. Dillman Eldredge (SW ’48) of Fair Oaks,

John L. Walsh (A&S ’56) of Greenlawn, N.Y., on

W. Tyson Bennett (M ’65) of Charlotte, N.C., on

on Aug. 10, 2012.

Walter W. Simpson Jr. (E ’46) of Sandia Park, N.M., on Aug. 15, 2012.

Walter H. Abel (E ’47) of Arvada, Colo., on May 14, 2012.

July 15, 2012.

on Aug. 11, 2012. on Jan. 13, 2012.

Calif., on Aug. 16, 2012.

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22, 2012.

La., on Aug. 6, 2012.

4, 2012.

30, 2012.

July 31, 2012.

28, 2012.

on July 3, 2012.

Ming M. Wong (G ’63) of Davis, Calif., on June

S.C., on Aug. 6, 2012.

Aug. 27, 2012.

Tribute Leland Bennett Jean Gamble Laing (NC ’65) of Gretna, La., on July

24, 2012.

Suzanne Payzant Ryan (NC ’65) of Lake Forest, Calif., on July 23, 2012.

Harriett Bebout (G ’66) of Stoughton, Wis., on March 17, 2012.

Michael M. Reddan (A ’66) of Lorton, Va., on July 8, 2012.

Richard G. Steiner (L ’66) of Gretna, La., on June

27, 2012.

Phil Bartlett (M ’67) of Belvedere Tiburon, Calif., on June 13, 2012.

Roger A. Fischer (G ’67) of Duluth, Minn., on Aug. Howard D. Alexander (SW ’68) of Lake Charles, La., on July 4, 2012.

Ross R. Olander (E ’68) of Waltham, Mass., on July 18, 2012.

Michael J. Brennan (E ’69, B ’70) of Perkasie, Pa.,

PAULA BURCH-CELENTANO

14, 2012.

on April 8, 2012.

Modestus J. Cushman Jr. (UC ’69) of Garden City,

Idaho, on July 28, 2012.

Vestal W. Parrish Jr. (PHTM ’69) of Macon, Ga., on July 5, 2012.

Donald Clark Paup (G ’69, ’70) of Vienna, Va., on Aug. 7, 2012.

Kalman J. Shwarts (A&S ’69, G ’74, M ’74) of Corsicana, Texas, on Aug. 3, 2012.

Eugene D. Wolfson (A&S ’69) of Portland, Ore., on May 5, 2012.

Duane L. Wetzler (G ’70) of La Mirada, Calif., on May 25, 2012.

Cindy F. Wile (NC ’71) of Chicago on July 20, 2012.

LIFE LESSONS In a 2008 Hullabaloo article, Tulane student Chris Koski wrote, “Leland Bennett is an institution. He’s the only University administrator I’ve ever loved.” That is a sentiment shared by many former Tulane students.

In his more than 40-year career at Tulane, Leland Bennett, who died in New Orleans on Sept. 1, 2012, advised student organizations, managed the UC (now LBC), supervised student employees, conducted the Summer Lyric Theatre orchestra and, where I knew him best, directed the music group, the Tulanians.

While he was not a member of the faculty, Leland’s genius was that he was a teacher. He taught us patience, perseverance, loyalty and commitment. Today I understand that Leland was not just giving us tips on how to manage programs or entertain, he was also providing great life lessons.

Leland was always exactly the person each of us needed. He had a knack, an intuition, for knowing what motivated each of us; for recognizing our capabilities and, most importantly, understanding our shortcomings. We didn’t know it at the time but Leland’s guidance was also making us better employees, better spouses, better parents, better friends, better people. I’m not certain where he obtained that magic but I was blessed to be one of its many recipients.—Christian A. Steed (A&S ’74) Steed is former director of Tulane Alumni Affairs and currently managing attorney of The O’Quinn Law Firm in Houston.

Gary Dwayne Johnson (B ’72) of Dothan, Ala., on

July 28, 2012.

Robert A. Warriner III (A&S ’72) of Spring, Texas,

April 18, 2012.

Janice Butler Donahue (M ’78) of New Orleans on

Juan C. Dudley (L ’85) of Panama City, Panama, on Aug. 24, 2012.

Carolyn Wood (SW ’72) of Ashburn, Ga., on Aug.

Peter A. LaCour (A&S ’78) of Pass Christian, Miss., on Aug. 16, 2012.

Julien Doucet (G ’90, ’92) of Alexandria, La., on

on Aug. 2, 2012.

28, 2012.

John C. Robert (UC ’74) of La Place, La., on Aug.

Michael P. Lundquist (B ’78) of Marshalls Creek, Pa.,

Jan. 8, 2012.

Carl Edward Kemmerly III (B ’90) of Metairie,

on June 24, 2012.

La., on Aug. 23, 2012.

on June 13, 2012.

Marleen S. Marmillion (UC ’75) of New Orleans

Richard G. Bates Jr. (A&S ’82, L ’85) of Brentwood, Calif., on May 27, 2012.

Jacquelyn S. Briggs Kent (G ’90, ’97) of Lansing,

John C. Kent (G ’76) of Lake Stevens, Wash., on

Andre P. Lacoste (G ’82) of Santa Fe, N.M., on

Shannon L. Stewart (NC ’98) of New Orleans on

Bryan G. Alexander (UC ’78) of Gretna, La., on

Lane B. Griggs (M ’84) of Chattanooga, Tenn.,

Corwith Davis III (L ’06, B ’10) of Alexandria, La.,

16, 2012.

Aug. 9, 2012.

July 16, 2012.

July 9, 2012.

on July 7, 2012.

Mich., on Aug. 31, 2012.

Aug. 7, 2012.

on Aug. 6, 2012.

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support for programs for student-athletes The Helluva Hullabaloo Auction this fall raised more than $750,000. The funds were raised both at the live auction during Homecoming on campus and online through Charitybuzz.com.

Among the auction’s coveted items were sports memorabilia, vacation packages and trips to championship sports events.

T U L A N E

E M P O W E R S

Alan Lawrence (A&S ’87) has found an academic project to support—and a way to honor a fraternity brother, James E. “Jamie” Hailer (A&S ’89), who died last year.

The project is a two-year colloquium that convened for the first time in Senegal in June 2012. Lawrence contributed $25,000 to underwrite the gathering of scholars who are exploring the linked histories of two port cities, 5,000 miles apart: Saint-Louis, Senegal, and New Orleans.

Emily Clark, Tulane associate professor of history and conference co-organizer, says Lawrence’s gift made it possible for Tulane to play a major role in the three-day conference.

Six delegates from Tulane traveled to Senegal, including Clark; geographer Richard Campanella; Sylvia Frey, professor emerita of history; Rosalind Hinton, senior program manager of the New Orleans Center for the Gulf South; Vera Gutman, doctoral candidate in history; and Bruce Raeburn, Hogan Jazz Archive director.

With the success of the Senegal conference a reality, Lawrence has made an additional gift of $50,000 to support the second part of the colloquium, which will take place in New Orleans to coincide with Jazz Fest in April 2013.

“The first half of the conference was so impressive, it was hard to say no,” he says.

A New York attorney, Lawrence is a member of the dean’s advisory board for the Tulane School of Liberal Arts.

He gave the gift in memory of Hailer because “the conference would have been of interest to him,” says Lawrence. “It was an opportunity to do something in memory of him, to help his wife and children remember who Jamie was.”

The French Embassy in Senegal, the Historic New Orleans Collection and Radio France International also have pledged support for the 2013 conference.

Lawrence is making plans to attend.

—Kimberly Krupa

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FAL L 2 0 1 2 TUL ANE MAGA ZINE

Women in Science “As a faculty member and an alum, I wanted to find the right things to support,” says Barbara Beckman, professor of pharmacology. She has created a professorship in the Department of Pharmacology to encourage diversity and propel the careers of women scientists.

Beckman, a 1968 graduate of Newcomb College, also is associate dean of admission in the Tulane School of Medicine. She began her professional career at the university with a postdoctoral fellowship in pharmacology. That beginning evolved into her tenure-track position and significant work in cancer-related research.

In looking back on her career at Tulane and the evolution of the school and her department, Beckman considered how she wanted to give back. “Over the years, I’ve been closely associated with many projects throughout the school and as an insider I’ve been able to study where I wanted to give,” she says.

She has gifted $100,000 to create the Dr. Barbara S. Beckman Professorship in Pharmacology, a position that focuses on diversity and gives specific consideration to women scientists.

Beckman hopes the professorship will encourage more women to take leadership roles within the basic sciences.

“Diversity among the faculty is critical in thinking about the problems that we have left to solve in medicine. A key to solving these incredibly complex problems is the diversity of different views and disciplines,” says Beckman.

Beckman says she feels that there is a renaissance within the medical school inspired by the post-Katrina disposition toward service and the influx of new talent among the faculty.

“I feel blessed and want to pay it forward. I believe in this city and this university and want to be part of building the future,” says Beckman.

—Kirby Messinger

Beckman Professorship Barbara Beckman, a Newcomb College graduate and Tulane Medical School pharmacology faculty member, has established a professorship in her name to encourage more women to take leadership roles within the basic sciences.

senegal/louisiana colloquium Musicians from Louisiana and the West African nation of Senegal perform at the international colloquium in Saint-Louis, Senegal, in June.

paula burch-celentano

emily clark

Shared Past

The Ledger $55m $50m $40m $30m

Football Coming Home

$20m $10m

Overheard

“Tulane football has a storied history and belongs on this campus. We are glad to help bring it back home.”

—Richard Yulman Yulman spoke on Nov. 1 at the announcement in the Wilson Center of the naming of the new on-campus Tulane football stadium. The stadium will be named Yulman Stadium in recognition of Richard and Janet Yulman’s gift.

paula burch-celentano

THE GOAL LINE As of Nov. 1, 2012, $45 million has been raised toward the $55 million goal for building the new Yulman Stadium. Fundraising continues for the on-campus stadium that will usher in a new era for Green Wave football.

Thanks largely to the generosity of three families, the new $55 million Tulane on-campus football stadium will be built in time for the 2014 football season.

The stadium will be named Yulman Stadium to recognize the $15 million gift of Janet and Richard Yulman. Richard Yulman is the retired chairman and owner of the mattress manufacturing company Serta International. He also is a member of the Board of Tulane, the university’s main governing body.

The Yulmans and their daughter, Katy, who graduated from Tulane in 2005, formed a special bond with Tulane and President Scott Cowen after Hurricane Katrina as they offered to help the university recover from the storm. Katy Yulman assisted Cowen and senior Tulane staff members during their displacement to Houston in fall 2005, making longtime friends and lasting memories. “These are the stories that sometimes determine why great gifts are given to a university,” said Yulman.

Other major donors also are making the dream of a new stadium a reality. The new football field will be named Benson Field after New Orleans Saints and Hornets owner Tom Benson and his wife Gayle, whose charitable foundation donated $7.5 million to the stadium project.

Jill and Avie Glazer have been actively involved in every recent major campaign undertaken by the university, especially the Helluva Hullabaloo Auction that benefits programs for student-athletes.

Within the new stadium, the Jill H. and Avram A. Glazer Family Club will be club space for premium ticket holders. Jill Henkin Glazer is a 1985 graduate of Newcomb College and a member of the Tulane Board. Avie Glazer is a member of the university’s President’s Council.

They are the parents of two current Tulane students.

“The new stadium will revitalize our football program and be an asset for our entire community,” President Cowen said at a press conference on Nov. 1, announcing the naming gifts.

To date, the university has raised $45 million of the $55 million needed to construct the stadium, which will have 25,000 seats and a total capacity of 30,000.—Mike Strecker

Stadium Names At the announcement of the naming of Yulman Stadium, Benson Field and the Glazer Family Club, donors (second from left to right) Richard Yulman, Janet Yulman, Gayle Benson, Tom Benson, Jill Glazer and Avie Glazer are thanked

by President Scott Cowen (far left) and athletics director Rick Dickson (far right).

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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

mike meadows

N E W

A Balmy Nod to Fall

by Angus Lind Following are some thoughts after spending many enjoyable hours over the summer reading professor Lawrence Powell’s excellent and entertaining The Accidental City: Improvising New Orleans.

Published by Harvard University Press, the book’s been called “the definitive history” of this city’s first century. National accolades have been heaped on the Tulane history scholar’s effort, which ultimately clues us in on why we are what we are today. We find out that by the 1730s, the band of renegades, convicts, drifters, con artists and smugglers deported here had provided not the utopia envisioned back in France but, rather, backward if not degenerate society.

The 18th century was hardly the era of 24/7 news and analysis, so misinformation and propaganda guided many poor souls across the waters to New Orleans, where the local governing authorities and other schemers somehow overcame themselves and manipulated the king’s rules to provide for the populace’s meager survival. Even if the heart of the economy was smuggling and gambling, the city somehow also fostered a scientific, literary and celebratory community.

This is all gross oversimplification and merely snippets and interpretations of Powell’s scholarly and exhaustive research. For instance, let’s fast forward to the 1790s, to a revelation near and dear to my heart: “New Orleans in 1791 had twice as many tavern keepers as it did merchants. On a per capita basis, the ratio of bars to people was off the charts.” A planter who traveled Louisiana and Florida, writes Powell, conducted a personal survey that concluded, “the city abounds with tippling houses.”

It wasn’t much, but it was something to hang its hat on: New Orleans is the name, booze is the game. “If there was a wetter town anywhere in the Western Hemisphere, it had yet to be found,” concludes the author.

And he wasn’t talking about the weather, although he could have been. Somehow, however, the peculiarities of the city’s climate and environs never were quite adequately communicated to prospective settlers.

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FAL L 2 0 1 2 TUL ANE MAGA ZINE

FALLING LEAVEs

Autumn in New Orleans has many delights but trees changing colors are not typically among them.

Earlier in the city’s history, among promises of “gold in the streets” to allure unsuspecting investors here, there was an even more ridiculous boast: “A climate so balmy it vanquished old age.”

You read that correctly. That’s “balmy,” as in pleasant or mild. Surrounded by water and marsh, we have a city six feet below sea level built on a mosquito-ridden, snake-infested, flood-prone swamp beset by thunderstorms, hurricanes, excessive heat and relentless humidity. This is what defines balmy and pleasant and mild? Well, there were all those bars to dull the senses.

All of which is a long-winded segue into a few additional thoughts on what is undoubtedly the most delightful season of the year in New Orleans—fall—the only season that could possibly qualify as balmy.

I recently read a travel promotion that described the onset of fall: foliage turning bright with oranges, reds, purples and yellows before falling to the ground, fresh cool autumn air whistling through canyons, geese in flight, slopes ablaze with color and mountain tops dusted with snow. A trained observer of many things including falling leaves, I immediately realized this was no promotional brochure for New Orleans. There is undoubtedly a technical, complex scientific answer to the phenomenon of colorful fall foliage, so obviously I know nothing about it.

So I turned to Chris Franklin, WVUE-TV Fox 8 meteorologist, for assistance.

“During the process of preparing for winter, most plants begin removing the chemicals that give their leaves the green color. This lack of chlorophyll allows other colors to break through,” said Franklin.

“But who needs to prepare for winter in New Orleans? So our foliage remains green until the rare occasion when the cold strikes.”

(Our three days of winter.)

Autumn comes slowly in the Crescent City.

Grass stubbornly remains green. It is warm, not hot. “The average high in New Orleans during December, January and February (our winter), Franklin points out, is in the low 60s.

“Umm, not exactly brutal.”

A dusting of snow, he said, “sends us into chaos.” So what do trees and plants here do when it does get cold?

“Freak out and drop all their leaves,” Franklin said.

“That’s just my opinion,” he adds, “I’m not a botanist.”

All Tulane S

A LEGAL SECRETARY IN THE OFFICE OF DEVELOPMENT, Susan Camus (’07) took advantage of Tulane University’s employee tuition waiver to earn her college degree.

“I put the ring on the day they gave it to me,” she says, “and haven’t taken it off since. Not for anything.”

Susan established a gift annuity at Tulane to honor her late mother and to “return the favor” for a scholarship she received in 2005. The annuity pays her fixed payments for life with the remaining assets eventually supporting the Louis E. Barrilleaux Scholarships for students of the School of Continuing Studies.

“I’m so grateful for the opportunity to study here and to earn what I’ve needed to have my little happy home. It’s all Tulane.”

Read more about Susan’s gift and ways you can support the university you love at www.giftplanning.tulane.edu.

Susan’s gift will eventually support scholarships for students in the School of Continuing Studies.

Your Gift. Your Way. Office of Gift Planning • 504-865-5794 • toll free 800-999-0181 Bequests • Gift Annuities • Charitable Trusts • Retirement Plan Gifts • Securities Gifts • Real Estate Gifts • Insurance Gifts

TUlane M A G A Z I N E

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

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