Tulane september 2013 by Tulane University

TUlane THE MAGAZINE OF TULANE UNIVERSITY

DesegRegAtioN oF A UNiVeRsitY African Americans admitted to Tulane 50 years ago.

biotecH goes boom! Science meets entrepreneurship in New Orleans.

september 2013

When tulane stopped excluding black students

bReAKiNg tHe moLD Newcomb Potteryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s uncommon everyday objects on display.

paula burch-celentano

circles and squares Walkers unfurl umbrellas as a line of showers speeds across the area. The photo was taken from a fourth-floor balcony of the Merryl and Sam Israel Jr. Environmental Sciences Building on the Tulane uptown campus.

Doors to Campus On the cover: An illustration of Gibson Hall, the universityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s main administrative building. By Mark Andresen.

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mark andresen

P R E S I D E N T ’ S

L E T T E R

My Last Year as President by Scott S. Cowen As many of you may know, in May I announced that I would be retiring on July 1, 2014. It was a difficult decision but I’m certain the right one, not only for my family and me, but for Tulane as well. When I began my presidency in 1998, my intention was to serve a 10-year term. But fate will laugh at even the best-laid plans, and that original timetable was expanded with the arrival of Hurricane Katrina as we all subsequently engaged in reimagining and rebuilding Tulane and New Orleans. I’m happy to say that both the university and the city have not only bounced back but are in so many ways stronger than ever. And so it is time to step down and let someone else have a turn at leading this great university. You know, if you include my time as a dean at Case Western University before I came to Tulane, I’ve been a senior academic administrator for 30 years. These are pretty demanding jobs and I’m looking forward, frankly, to having a little more flexibility in my schedule, as well as getting more deeply involved in my community-engagement activities locally and nationally. As for Tulane, I’ve always been a believer that changes in leadership

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LOOKING FORWARD It’s not yet time to reminisce, as the coming months will be busy ones.

are healthy for institutions. They allow for new ways of thinking and create new opportunities. Tulane’s next president will begin his or her tenure with a full plate that includes the launching of a billion dollar–plus fundraising campaign and an equally ambitious strategic plan. I urge you to lend our next leader the same support and encouragement that you’ve given me during the last 16 years. Did I just write “16 years?” Time flies. I can say without hesitation these years have been the most remarkable of my life. The people that Margie and I have come to know and the experiences we have had here will remain in our hearts and minds forever. But it is not yet time to reminisce. There’s still work to do. A number of people have asked me what I intend to focus on in the remaining months of my presidency. I tell them that I will use my time to raise money for several key measures. First, I’d like to see us continue to strengthen our Tulane Empowers programs. We have received national and global recognition for them and they have become our signature initiatives since Katrina. Specifically, I’m talking about the Center for Public Service, the Center for Engaged Learning, the Cowen Institute for Public Education Initiatives and the programs in civic engagement and social entrepreneurism that are taking place within our schools and colleges. Secondly, I will be working on raising scholarships for our students. You probably have read (or know firsthand) about climbing college tuitions and soaring student debt, and I want to do what I can to make sure that Tulane stays affordable to the best and brightest students. To do this we will not only have to mitigate tuition increases but we also are going to have to increase the scholarship money we can extend to students. Finally, we still have to raise $20 million for Yulman Stadium, and I will be working toward that goal. I know that the return of Green Wave football to the Tulane uptown campus is something that many of you have wanted for years. The new stadium not only makes the games more accessible to our students, alumni and fans but also in a profound way puts us back in touch with part of our history. That history is something we all share in, whether we are alumni, students, faculty, staff —or president. It is a tradition that is larger than any of us but is perpetuated by all of us through what we do. It is a privilege and honor for me to be part of that tradition.

TUlane C O N T E N T S Table Runner A pine tree design embroidered in the pointillist style on linen is by an unknown Newcomb Pottery artist, circa 1905–10.

2 PRESIDENT’S LETTER Agenda for final year 6 NEWS Privacy issues • Presidential search committee • AmeriCorps/VISTA • Who dat? Nell Nolan • Way to breathe • New VP for medicine • American quadroon in history • BP funds oil spill research • Cows in Landscape • Carolyn Barber-Pierre

13 SPORTS Hall of Fame • Golf’s new coach

The Desegregation of a University In 1954, Tulane was poised to join the fedgling ranks of Southern private institutions to voluntarily admit African American students; it would take nearly a decade, however, for the campus to integrate. By Alicia Duplessis Jasmin

Biotech Goes Boom!

31 WHERE Y'AT! Class notes 35 FAREWELL Tribute: Lindy Claiborne Boggs

A bioinnovation center in downtown New Orleans is helping scientists move their research into the marketplace. By Carol J. Schlueter

30 TULANIANS Cassie Steck Worley • Class Reunions • Phoebe Washburn • Peter M. Wolf

Breaking the Mold The 130-object Newcomb Pottery Enterprise exhibit presents a legacy of artistic achievement and self-sufficiency. By Mary Ann Travis

38 TULANE EMPOWERS Stuart Klabin • Goldring Culinary Medicine Center • Civil War archives • DeBakey fund 40 NEW ORLEANS Local lingo

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upside down crawfish? Richard Stetzer (E ’65, G ’66) of Houston writes that the crawfish in the June issue on page 7 are upside down. He says, “The newsprint in the background is right side up, but the picture is upside down!” Readers, what do you think?

y e a h,

y o u

SIRIUSXM AND SCOTT GREENSTEIN I loved this article [“Gut Instinct,” June 2013]. Two years ago my new car came with SiriusXM. Within two months I was hooked and added the Internet option. No commercials! No annoying local DJs making stupid jokes and blabbing about the latest traffic accident/local politics/ possibility of “thunderstorm activity.” E Street Radio alone is worth the price of my subscription, not to mention the special live performances and interviews with musicians. Kim Fowley on Underground Garage rocks. I buy MP3s and entire albums due to the new music I hear on The Highway. I’d happily give up my cable TV as long as I have my satellite radio. Thanks, Scott! Anne Morton August, NC ’86 Needham, Mass. DEAR ROY Thank you for the lovely column [“An Independent Woman”] about your sister Sherrell in Tulane magazine [June 2013]. I was a grad student in Theatre while Sherrell was an undergrad at Newcomb. We were a very small band of friends, back then, and hung out a lot together. I had no idea of the career she enjoyed, and she had none of mine (which has been in the theatre), and through your words I learn that we were in NYC at the same time and didn’t know it. This quick note is to thank you, and to confirm that, to those of us who knew her outside of her family, she was all you describe. And also, she had a lovely sense of humor. Tom Markus, G ’58, ’62 Salt Lake City ENVIRONMENTAL LAW As a law school graduate with a focus on environmental law, when I saw in the News section [June 2013 issue] on page 6 an article on “BP on Trial,” I was surprised to see that your

w r i t e journalist, Ryan Rivet, had not uncovered for Tulane’s credit that the U.S. DOJ [Department of Justice] Environment Division lawyer responsible for that case was my good friend and fellow Tulane Law School graduate, Steve O’Rourke (L ’93). … Of all the information in that article, the most interesting perhaps to your alum readers may have been that it was none other than a Tulane Law graduate of the esteemed environmental program (one of the early grads) hard at work for several years prosecuting that case and enjoying his time in New Orleans and his alma mater. Steve Herman (L ’94) was also involved in the case. Don’t forget him either! The environmental program at TLS [Tulane Law School] can be proud of its hard work and successful graduates like them. Kelly Mofield, L ’94 Chappaqua, N.Y.

New Orleans but was born in Nebraska. … It is not that big of a deal. I am from New Orleans. My husband, whom I met in New Orleans, however, is from Nebraska and is a big supporter of the museum [National World War II Museum]. He thought that the article should have said he was a native Nebraskan who moved to NOLA later on. Peggy Hubsch Furrow, G ’79 Bowie, Texas FRAN LAWRENCE REMEMBERED A beautiful, moving memorial service was held this spring in the charming and historic Kirkpatrick Chapel on the Rutgers University campus to honor Rutgers’ past president Dr. Francis L. Lawrence (G ’62), who died on April 16, 2013, in Mount Laurel, N.J. Although the speakers praised Dr. Lawrence for his outstanding accomplishments at Rutgers, where he served

courage and much more. His colleagues pointed out the fine and uncommon habit Dr. Lawrence fostered of listening to all points of view with quiet respect, treating all input with dignity and then gaining full consensus before moving forward in his trademark straightforward manner; just as we knew him as a leader and mentor at Tulane, whether as Professor, as Dean of Newcomb, or as Provost. All the remembrances ended with words of heartfelt affection for Dr. Lawrence, his warm, approachable and genuinely caring nature; that he was just a wonderful guy. He always came across as just a regular person, no more or less important than anyone else. He never changed, not in the 45 years I’ve known him since my Junior Year Abroad time with him. As the ceremony ended, I smiled when the jazz band struck up a rousing New Orleans–style “When the Saints Go Marching In.” I will never forget Dr. Lawrence and I know he never forgot those of us at Tulane. Delia Potts Foley, NC ’68 White Plains, N.Y.

ipad and android versions of tulane magazine are available for free download. check it out!

YEAh, YOU NOT qUITE RIGhT I always turn … to the last page to read Angus Lind’s column. It is always so entertaining and informative. I did want to tell you, however, that Mr. Higgins [“The Man Who Won the War,” June 2013] was not from

S EP T EM B ER 2013 T ULANE MAGA ZINE

as president from 1990–2002, they could just as well have been talking about his 30 years at Tulane. And that’s how I took it, as I listened to these dignitaries lauding Dr. Lawrence for his dedication, energy, vision,

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

TUlane M

Editor Mary Ann Travis

crEativE dirEctor Melinda Whatley Viles FEaturEs Editor Nick Marinello “tulanians” Editor Fran Simon

courtesy university archives

contributors Keith Brannon Barri Bronston Linda P. Campbell Bradley Charlesworth Catherine Freshley, ’09 Alicia Duplessis Jasmin Angus Lind, A&S ’66 Kirby Messinger Arthur Nead Ryan Rivet, UC ’02 Mary Sparacello Mike Strecker sEnior univErsity PhotograPhEr Paula Burch-Celentano sEnior Production coordinator Sharon Freeman

imagery The image above is typical of so many yearbook photos taken a half century ago. It’s fuzzy and black-and-white. The photo is of the 1964 Tulane commencement ceremony held in the Central Building Gym. It’s hard to make out who’s who in the photo. But we know Gloria Banks (SW ’64) was there. She and Marilyn Piper (SW ’64) were the first African Americans to graduate from Tulane University. In an interview this year, Banks recalled her experiences at Tulane in 1963. “I felt like the instructors expected more of us than they did of other students,” she said. “We were in a fishbowl.” The university is commemorating the admittance of African Americans 50 years ago by organizing panel discussions and recording oral histories. There will be an exhibit in the Lavin-Bernick Center, a staged reading of court rulings and a documentary.

For “The Desegregation of a University,” on page 14, we searched for photographs of Pearlie Hardin Elloie (SW ’65) and Barbara Marie Guillory (G ’74) who lent their names to a lawsuit that resulted, in a circuitous way, in the desegregation of Tulane in 1963. We found portraits of them as young women, but no candid photos from their time as Tulane students. (Elloie was in the School of Social Work, and Guillory was a Graduate School student, studying sociology.) We couldn’t track down an archival photo of them together from 50 years ago. But we made an historic photo this August. Elloie and Guillory (now Thompson) sat together on a campus bench—a half century after they first arrived at Tulane—to be photographed by university photographer Paula Burch-Celentano. With and without clear images at hand, we are reminded how much times have changed.—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. sEPtEmbEr 2013/vol. 85, no. 1

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zimPle house A new residence hall at the corner of Broadway and Zimple streets will

open in 2014. The 80,000-square-foot structure will contain 144 rooms for 256 students and an apartment for a faculty-member-in-residence along with study lounges and a 35seat classroom. Its design “integrates the planning principles, architectural proportions and materials of the historic Newcomb Campus,” say university architects.

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illustration by melinda viles

Cowen to Retire in 2014

Privacy Policy Leaked top-secret documents showing widespread government collection of cell phone and email records got privacy advocates stirred up during the summer. But those concerns about official snooping contrast sharply with Americans’ tendency to share TMI—too much information—through social media. “I think we’re at a unique time because many people give up their privacy by posting intimate information on their Facebook pages and otherwise,” said Tulane Law School professor Amy Gajda, who studies and teaches about privacy and the media. Many still believe they should be able to reveal personal information to friends without them being fair game for the public, Gajda said, but courts tend to say that once you’ve posted your details, even to a few others, they’re no longer private. “Maybe courts are going to have to look again at that,” said Gajda, whose new book on the First Amendment in an age of overexposure is under contract with Harvard University Press. “Social networking is the way people communicate today,” she said, “and users have argued that they have a right to privacy in things meant for a small audience of friends because that is the way they find support and encouragement with life’s problems.” Gajda said that in a recent case, when a tweeter argued that he had privacy in his tweets, the court compared sharing information on Twitter to yelling it out an open window to people on the street below. People often give up personal details in exchange for benefits, real or perceived: For jobs, education or public assistance, for instance, or to sign up for Internet service, shop online or pay bills. Moreover, many people agree to online privacy policies without reading the fine print. But expect more pushback: Gajda said that at least one U.S. court has ruled that privacy policies aren’t binding contracts because they are too long and complicated, and because websites should recognize that no one reads them.—Linda P. Campbell

s e p t e m b e r 2013 TULANE MAGA ZINE

TMI Americans may be sharing too much information through social media, but they seem willing to risk overexposure of their private lives for the convenience and benefits of easy communication.

On May 31, 2013, Tulane University President Scott S. Cowen announced that he intends to retire as the university’s president on July 1, 2014. Cowen said that his decision to leave the post after 15 years was a difficult one because of his devotion to Tulane and New Orleans. He noted, in particular, the efforts to rebuild and reimagine the university and the city after Hurricane Katrina. “What we [the university community] have experienced together in the past … makes this decision particularly emotional and personal,” he said. (See “President’s Letter” on page 2.) But the future is bright, said Cowen. “Today, because of our collective efforts, Tulane is vibrant, distinctive and well-positioned to address the new opportunities and challenges that lie ahead. The next decade promises to be a transformative one for higher education and Tulane.” In response to Cowen’s announcement, the Tulane Board formed a presidential search committee led by co-chairs Rick Rees (A&S ’75, B ’75) and Andy Wisdom (L ’94). Rees is co-founder and managing member of LongueVue Capital, and Wisdom is principal investment management consultant for Crescent Capital Consulting. “The person who succeeds Scott Cowen is going to have to be a remarkable individual indeed,” said Rees and Wisdom in a joint statement. The search committee has retained the executive recruiting firm Russell Reynolds Associates to assist in finding a new leader for Tulane. The firm has offices in 26 countries, and its higher education practice focuses on recruiting presidents, provosts and deans at leading universities. “Russell Reynolds Associates gives us the worldwide reach we need to find a new, dynamic, bold and visionary leader for Tulane,” said Rees and Wisdom. The committee plans to announce the new president of Tulane by the end of 2013 or early in 2014.—Mike Strecker

In That Number VISTA VOLUNTEERS IN SERVICE ThE TULaNE amERICORpS S VISTa VIST (Volunteers In Service To America) program works to connect students and faculty members with nonprofit organizations throughout New Orleans and creates long-term partnerships between the university and the community. The VISTA members commit to 12 months of full-time volunteer service to help identify resources needed by their organizations and then develop solutions to meet those needs. The VISTA program is housed in and operates out of the Center for Public Service.

240,000

106

AmeriCorps VISTA members at TULaNE.

hOURS of service during the last 7.5 years.

7,500 7 TULaNE STUdENTS placed in community programs.

infographic by tracey bellina

TULaNE gRadUaTES have gone on to themselves become VISTAs.

Tulane students have completed their VISTA term as part of the TULaNE aCCELERaTEd phySICIaNS training program.

VISTa mEmbERS have continued working in community or nonprofit organizations.

44 17

community-partnered agENCIES served by VISTAs.

The number of VISTAs who have started or are leading their own NONpROfIT ORgaNIzaTION after completing service.

VISTAs have remained in NEw ORLEaNS after their terms have expired.

EVaCUTEER pUbLIC aRT installations have been created by VISTA alums at each evacuation pickup spot in New Orleans.

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photo courtesy university archives

Who Dat? Social Butterfly

For 34 years, NELL NOLAN (NC ’66, G ’70, G ’72) covered the New Orleans’ social scene for The Times-Picayune. And this summer she moved to The Advocate, now the only homedelivered daily newspaper in New Orleans. In the announcement of her departure, The Times-Picayune praised her writing: “With alliterative panache and journalistic precision, Nolan filled the newspaper’s pages for more than three decades with colorful accounts of New Orleans galas, fundraisers, debutante parties and Carnival balls and the boldface names in attendance.” Nolan said that she made the move because she believes in the mission of The Advocate and she’s pleased with its local

s e p t e m b e r 2013 TULANE MAGA ZINE

ownership. “It will be a fine newspaper for the area,” Nolan said. “I have many, many friends at The Advocate.” Nolan is a former professional model and the daughter of ULISSE M. NOLAN (A ’32), who served as Rex, King of Carnival, and sister of a Rex queen, Betty Nolan Walsh. Before joining The StatesItem (which became The Times-Picayune/States-Item and then The Times-Picayune) in July 1979, Nolan taught honors and advanced placement French and English, and theater history at the Academy of the Sacred Heart in New Orleans. She also taught for six years at Tulane University and six years at De La Salle High School. She

attended the University of Paris and holds master’s degrees in French and Italian literature from Tulane. She also has been an actress in many plays produced by community theaters, including Le Petit Theatre this summer. Nolan is married to ROBERT E. YOUNG (A&S ’56), a retired vice president with Merrill Lynch. The couple lives within walking distance of the Tulane uptown campus, which they visit often. “I see all of the plays at Tulane, and we attend many other events,” said Nolan, who when contacted in August was preparing the logistics to personally attend five social functions during the week to cover them for her new Advocate column. “When people go to social

events, they’re having a good time and presenting themselves well to their friends and organizations, while doing good things for this community. There’s also the society element, with so many private affairs and Carnival organizations. I am honored that they trust me to share that with the reading public. I was not ready to retire from social reporting.” Nolan (right) appears with KAREN OSER EDMUNDS (NC ’67) in the photo above from the 1965 yearbook. They were Jambalaya Beauty Finalists. Oser is a visual artist and married to Dr. J. Ollie Edmunds Jr., professor emeritus of orthopaedic surgery at Tulane School of Medicine. —FRAN SIMON

ATALA AND CHACTAS ON VIEW IN ARKANSAS The 2,269-pound sculpture by Randolph Rogers (1825–1892), part of the Tulane University permanent art collection, is on loan this fall to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Ark. The classical marble sculpture, featured in the “Gallery” in the winter 2013 Tulane magazine, depicts a man gently removing a thorn from a woman’s foot.

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jennifer zdon

ryan rivet

Sleep Easy

New Med School Dean

At two days old, Elise Glore of Norco, La., was diagnosed with a rare condition called Congenital Central Hypoventilation Syndrome (CCHS). When awake, Elise breathes like any other child, but when asleep her brain doesn’t send impulses through the nerves to her breathing muscles. Dr. Michael Kiernan, pediatric pulmonologist, associate chair of the Department of Pediatrics at Tulane Medical School and professor of clinical pediatrics, had only seen two other cases of CCHS in more than 30 years of practice. “Once the diagnosis was made, she had a tracheostomy performed, was put on a ventilator and started on a home ventilator system,” says Kiernan. Every night, Elise’s parents, Samantha and Matt Glore, hooked Elise up to her ventilator. Several years ago, the Glores approached Kiernan to ask if there was another option than the large, bulky ventilator machine run by electricity. They also hoped to avoid the risk of increased respiratory infections and chronic bronchitis. Kiernan consulted physicians across the country on alternative breathing modalities. He learned that, although rarely, physicians were inserting diaphragm pacemakers called Avery Breathing Pacemakers in children with CCHS. The device works by stimulating the nerves that move the diaphragm muscle, but the procedure had never been performed on the Gulf Coast. Kiernan found local surgeons Dr. Rodney B. Steiner, Tulane chief pediatric surgeon, and Dr. Vincent Adolph, of Ochsner Health System, who could perform the operation. And, on Dec. 26, 2012, at Tulane Medical Center, Elise’s diaphragm pacemakers were implanted. His young patient is a “trooper,” says Kiernan. Most patients find it hard to adjust to the pacemaker and start off gradually with just a few hours of use at a time. But Elise, 9, surprised everyone with her easy adaption to the device. She is now getting the rest she needs at night and has more energy throughout the day. “Nothing gets her down,” says her mother. “She’s not letting a moment pass her by—regardless of her medical condition.”—Kirby Messinger

Pacemaker for Breathing To breathe properly while she sleeps, 9-year-old Elise Glore (center, pictured with her younger sisters), uses a diaphragm pacemaker system that runs on a 9-volt battery. The operation to implant the pacemakers was performed at Tulane Medical Center.

Dr. Lee Hamm, who joined Tulane University’s faculty in 1992 as professor of medicine and physiology, was named senior vice president and dean of Tulane School of Medicine, effective July 1, 2013. Hamm, who holds the Harry B. Greenberg Chair of Medicine at Tulane, served as interim dean of the School of Medicine in 2007. He also is co-director of the Tulane Hypertension and Renal Center of Excellence. “I have worked closely with Lee for 15 years, and I am confident that his knowledge of Tulane and the landscape of medical education, research and clinical practice makes him an outstanding choice to lead the medical school,” Tulane President Scott Cowen said. “Lee has an outstanding national reputation as a medical researcher, educator and clinician.” Prior to joining Tulane, Hamm held faculty appointments at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, where he was associate professor of medicine and associate professor of cell biology and physiology. “I am honored and thrilled by the prospect of leading a school that is as nationally recognized and accomplished as Tulane School of Medicine,” Hamm said. “I look forward to working with a team that will enable Tulane to continue its leadership role in educating the next generation of doctors, conducting life-saving research and advancing medical breakthroughs while facing the challenges and opportunities brought about by the dramatic changes in health care, both locally and nationally.” Hamm succeeds medical school dean Dr. Benjamin Sachs, who resigned in May. —Keith Brannon

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engineering marvel The American Society of Civil Engineers has named the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, the world’s longest continuous bridge over water at nearly 24 miles, a National Civil Engineering Landmark. The Causeway, which opened to traffic in 1956, joins the likes of Grand Central Station, the U.S. Capitol and the Golden Gate Bridge in the designation. Underpinning the span’s construction is Tulane’s research of prestressed concrete, a technique that enhances the structural behavior of concrete beams.

Courtesy of the ColleCtions of louisiana state MuseuM

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A Better Oil Spill Dispersant

Free Women of Color The fable of the tragic mulatto is a familiar New Orleans story: A beautiful, young woman of color disdains marriage to a man of her own racial background. Her mother coerces her to form an illicit relationship with a wealthy white man who will support her in style. Such stories, embedded in narrative accounts by historians, novelists, playwrights and travel writers since the early 19th century, are perpetuating a myth, says Emily Clark, Clement Chambers Benenson Professor of American Colonial History and associate professor of history at Tulane University. The myth of the “lascivious, seductive quadroon” serves a purpose, presenting a stark contrast to the “respectability of white womanhood,” says Clark, author of The Strange History of the American Quadroon: Free Women of Color in the Revolutionary Atlantic World (University of North Carolina Press, 2013). The myth, says Clark, was one of the things that “allowed the whole system of racial and sexual hierarchy to exist in the antebellum United States.” The myth also supports the image of New Orleans as a “foreign space” of exotic temptations, which persists into the 21st century. But as Clark has discovered through painstaking research into the rich archives of early New Orleans, especially its matrimonial and baptismal records from the 1730s to 1830s, the facts do not bear out the myth. In reality, “by the 1820s, a free woman of color of New Orleans ancestry was as likely to marry as a white woman.” The complex stories of free women of color “should make us think about all kinds of other stories in American history that we’ve been comfortable with and haven’t asked questions about,” says Clark. “It’s a good lesson in why it pays to go back and look at the archives. Archives are more likely to tell us what people were actually doing. Narrative accounts only tell us what people say people were doing.”—Mary Ann Travis

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Sketch From Life The subjects of Three Ladies of Color are modestly dressed in contrast to most other literary portraits of women of color, in which they often are sensationally depicted. Edouard Marquis painted the women in 1867.

Two researchers from Tulane have won a threeyear, $1 million grant to design more effective and cost-efficient dispersants than those used in the cleanup of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010. Scott Grayson, associate professor of chemistry, and Wayne Reed, professor of physics, are seeking to develop dispersants that have minimal side effects if ingested by humans or marine life. Daniel Savin, assistant professor of polymer science at the University of Southern Mississippi, is joining them in the study. The study is part of the BP/Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative, a 10-year, $500 million independent research program established by agreement between BP and the Gulf of Mexico Alliance to study the effects of the Deepwater Horizon spill and its potential impact on environmental and public health. “We are looking into a way to make more effective and less environmentally disruptive dispersants,” Grayson said. Dispersants are considered the leading weapon in fighting oil spills, and while the one used after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, COREXIT 9500A, helped dissipate much of the oil, the public expressed concern about the potential negative impact if it entered the food chain. Earlier this year, the Government Accountability Project, an advocacy group, said cleanup workers, divers and others involved in the spill aftermath reported such health problems as heart palpitations, kidney and liver damage and migraines. Grayson and his team will work to develop a dispersant using substances approved by the Food and Drug Administration for human consumption. Although prototypes of similar dispersants have been produced, they are not as cost effective as what Grayson’s team plans to develop using materials such as silica and polythene glycol, common additives in food and medicine that can be obtained cheaply by the ton.—Barri Bronston

amistad research center

Gallery Edward Mitchell Bannister

During the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, a largely self-taught artist by the name of Edward Mitchell Bannister (1828–1901) submitted a painting to be judged along with the work of established artists in New England. With the judges, he left only a signature to link himself to the landscape painting Under the Oaks. Providing a biography or any further details might have interjected the fact that he was a Canadian-born black man. He, however, wished to be judged solely on his work. When the judging was completed, Under the Oaks was awarded a first-prize medal. Bannister became the first black artist to win a national art prize. It was not until Bannister arrived to claim his medal that the judges

and other competing artists realized he was a man of color. While the location of that painting is unknown today, 20 other works by Bannister, including Cows in Landscape (pictured above), are housed in the Amistad Research Center located in Tilton Memorial Hall on the uptown campus of Tulane University. (Cows in Landscape was shown in New Orleans in 2010 in a joint exhibition of the New Orleans Museum of Art and Amistad.) The Journey Like many artists, Bannister struggled as a young man to support himself financially. After he moved from Canada to Boston in 1848, he held several jobs while developing his artistic vision.

In one of those odd jobs, he worked as a barber. There he met Christiana Carteaux, a Boston hairdresser who would eventually provide the financial and emotional support Bannister needed to get his career as an artist off the ground. They married on June 10, 1857. Bannister once recalled, “I would have made out very poorly had it not been for her, and my greatest successes have come through her, either through her criticisms of my pictures, or the advice she would give me in the matter of placing them in public.” By the early 1860s, Bannister identified himself as a portrait artist, and the couple became active in their local art community. He began obtaining the

training that he formerly could not afford. First, he studied photography in New York and then took life-portrait classes with sculptor and anatomist William Rimmer at the Lowell Institute in Boston. In 1869, the couple moved to Providence, R.I., and Bannister’s art reflected the change in scenery. His work went from mostly portraits to landscapes. The Roger King Gallery of Fine Art in Newport, R.I., presented an exhibit of Bannister’s work in 2001 to mark the centennial of his death. The catalog stated that in Bannister’s bucolic landscapes, “man’s presence in nature is only subtly indicated—by a rail fence, an abandoned bridge, or a small farmhouse tucked unobtrusively in a corner of the canvas.” —AliciA Duplessis JAsmin

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paula burch-celentano

Interview Carolyn Barber-Pierre, Multicultural Student Affairs

Carolyn Barber-Pierre founded the Office for Multicultural Affairs in 1987. She currently is assistant vice president for student affairs and director for intercultural life. What is the main function of the Office of Multicultural Affairs? The Office of Multicultural Affairs opened as a place to help ethnic minorities transition to Tulane University by providing support, a listening ear and outreach for the growing population. Since that time, OMA has become a place for all students interested in the collective inclusiveness of the university. From an educational standpoint, why do you think diversity is so important? We learn from those whose experiences, beliefs and perspectives are different from our own, and these lessons can be taught best in a diverse intellectual and social environment. Diversity helps students by challenging stereotyped preconceptions; it encourages critical thinking; and it helps students learn to communicate effectively with people of varied backgrounds. How have you seen the student population at Tulane change since you’ve been here? During the 30 years I’ve been here, there have been numerous

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efforts to increase student diversity at Tulane. When I arrived at the university, our African American student enrollment was less than 4 percent, now it is more than double that at more than 8 percent. Over the years, the university made several efforts to improve those numbers, not just of African Americans, but of all underrepresented ethnicities as well. This year marks the 50th anniversary of Tulane’s integration. Why is it important to celebrate that anniversary? We celebrate this occasion as an effort to encourage our community—students, alumni, faculty and staff—to reflect upon this historic moment in our university’s history: honoring the first African Americans who blazed the trail for others to follow; celebrating our community today; and asking ourselves what we want Tulane and its commitment to diversity and inclusive excellence to look like in the next 50 years. What do you hope the Tulane population will look like in another 50 years? My hope is that the students, faculty and staff of Tulane will mirror proportionally our local, national and global communities. Tulane will be full of people from various ethnic, racial, economic and religious backgrounds including diverse gender and sexual identities.—RYAN RIVET

ORGANIZED BALLTulane students divided into two teams on New Year’s Day in 1890 to play the first organized game of football in the state of Louisiana. The Green Wave began playing an intercollegiate football schedule in 1893, making the 2013 season their 121st.

S P O R T S

Women’s Hall of Fame Golf Team Class of 2013 Gets New Head Coach

Lorne Don takes over the reins of the Tulane women’s golf program as the fifth head coach in its 24-year history. Don has 14 years of experience as a coach and player. He comes to Tulane from Michigan State, where he spent the last 10 seasons as the assistant coach for the Spartans women’s golf team. The Green Wave program is coming off its best season in school history last year with a ninth-place finish at the NCAA Championships, a runner-up effort at the NCAA East Regional, a Conference USA title and a final national ranking of No. 13. During the past five seasons, the Green Wave has won three C-USA titles, made five regional appearances and advanced to the NCAA Championships three times. “I am excited about the opportunity to lead such an outstanding program and become a part of the Tulane family,” Don says. “Tulane had everything I was looking for in becoming a first-time head coach. My family and I are very excited about living in New Orleans and becoming part of the community.” —Ryan Rivet

Tulane will honor five members of the Green Wave family when it inducts the 2013 Hall of Fame class as a part of Homecoming week events in October. The class features four All-Americans, including record-setting closer Brandon Belanger, standout sprinter Lana Garner, basketball great Jerald Honeycutt and NFL receiver Roydell Williams, as well as former sports information director Bill Curl. The athletes combined to earn All-America honors five times, led the Green Wave to a total of seven postseason appearances and claimed a combined six C-USA tournament or individual titles. Along the way they rewrote the Green Wave record books. Honeycutt is Tulane basketball’s all-time leading scorer with 2,209 total points and still holds 10 school records. Williams set Tulane and Conference USA records for career touchdown catches with 35. Belanger ranks 10th in career appearances with 72, and fourth in saves with 27. Thirteen years after running in her final event, Garner remains the school record-holder in the outdoor 400-meter dash. For his part, Curl has been a sports publicity figure in New Orleans for the last half century after getting his start as the Tulane sports information director in 1966. Curl is the fourth recipient of the Billy Slatten Award, which was established in 2004 in honor of William A. “Billy” Slatten, a longtime supporter of Tulane Athletics and a member of the Tulane Board of Trustees and the Intercollegiate Athletics Committee. The class will be inducted on Thursday, Oct. 3, from 6–9 p.m. at the Lavin-Bernick Center on the uptown campus. The group will then be honored at halftime of the Green Wave’s homecoming game against North Texas at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome on Saturday, Oct. 5.—R.R.

Tulane Fame Jerald Honeycutt, the all-time leading scorer for Green Wave basketball, played for the team in the 1990s. He is being inducted into the Tulane Hall of Fame this fall.

ON tHE BALL Lorne Don is joining Tulane as the fifth head coach in the women’s golf team’s 24-year history.

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The

Desegregation of a

University I n 1 9 5 4 , T u l a n e wa s p o I s e d T o j o I n T h e f l e d g l I n g r a n k s o f s o u T h e r n p r I va T e I n s T I T u T I o n s T o vo lu n Ta r I ly a d m I T a f r I c a n a m e r I c a n s T u d e n T s ; IT would Take nearly a decade, however, for The c a m p u s T o I n Te gr aT e . by Alicia Duplessis Jasmin

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Outfielders stephen martin, second from left, poses with fellow 1966 green wave outfielders mike roos, jim crumley, steve costa and mike ward. martin was the first african american to play varsity sports in the ncaaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s southeastern conference.

Edwin Lombard (’13) enrolled at Tulane University last fall to fulfill the final credit hours necessary to obtain his bachelor’s degree. To his 20-year-old classmates, he was no different than other nontraditional students returning to college later in life. But in reality, Lombard was different. Lombard, 66, did his best to keep a low profile, but it was not long before his classmates discovered two things about him: He is a judge on the Louisiana 4th Circuit Court of Appeal and he was among the first African American undergraduate students admitted to a newly integrated Tulane University in the early 1960s. For Lombard, returning to campus some 45 years after his initial matriculation from 1964–1967 was an exercise in self-fulfillment. The decorated judge, whose career has taken him around the world, was admitted to law school in 1967, before the completion of a full bachelor’s degree was required in Louisiana. The jocular Lombard insists he holds “the record as being the guy who took the longest to graduate.” In May 2013, Lombard finally received his Tulane degree—the same year in which the university remembers the 50th anniversary of its desegregation in 1963. During an interview in his office in the heart of the French Quarter, Lombard reaches into the top drawer of his desk to share a little piece of the past that he keeps as a reminder that “nothing is impossible.” Out of the drawer comes his Tulane student ID card with a black-and-white headshot of his 18-year-old self. Beginning with a recollection of the gasps heard during his high school graduation when it was announced that he would be attending Tulane, Lombard begins to recount life on the Tulane campus at the height of the country’s civil rights movement. Like Water Lombard admits he was no bookworm back in 1964. But it wasn’t long before the freshman’s inner politician began to surface. In response to the complete lack of social organizations available to black students, Lombard created the African American Congress at Tulane. That organization is still active today. “We didn’t have anyone to tell us the best classes to take or which professors to avoid,” says Lombard. “I started the African American Congress to do what I knew the fraternities and other social organizations around campus were doing for the white students.” It’s not long before Lombard is reminiscing about his roommate in those days, Stephen Martin (A&S ’68, B ’73), who died earlier this year. Martin, who retired in 2012 as the chief financial officer for Tuskegee University, holds a particularly significant place in Tulane’s history.

Taking the field with the Green Wave baseball team in 1966, Martin was the first African American athlete to play varsity sports in the Southeastern Conference, with which Tulane was then aligned. In talking about Martin, the cadence and timbre of Lombard’s voice changes. He begins sharing a story that seems difficult for him to recount. Following an away game against Mississippi State University, Martin returned to their dorm room in Robert Sharp Hall wearing a disturbed look on his face. “He came in really somber and began telling me about how the crowd was chanting ‘give me an N, give me an I, give me a G-G-E-R.’ “It took a lot to bother this guy,” says Lombard. “But that night I could clearly see this really messed with him.” Harold Sylvester (A&S ’72), the Hollywood producer, director and actor who played for the Green Wave basketball team later in the ’60s, was Tulane’s first black scholarship athlete. He told The Times-Picayune following Martin’s passing in May 2013 that Martin was the type of person who handled negativity “like water on a duck’s back.” “He must have internalized it, but he was an absolute, total, complete gentleman,” said Sylvester. “He was a bright scholarly guy. But he went through a lot, no question about it.” educating ‘White young persons’ In the 1950s and ’60s, life in the Deep South was played out against the fallout from generations of racial inequality. As the American civil rights movement slowly began to gather momentum, some of the drama would take place in the boardrooms and on the campuses of the nation’s institutions of higher education. At Tulane, the first formal step toward desegregation occurred in April 1954 at a faculty meeting of the Graduate School. According to John P. Dyer in his history, Tulane: The Biography of a University, out of that meeting came a recommendation by the faculty “that steps be taken to clarify the policy of admission to the Graduate School in order that admission of Negroes may be facilitated.” The resolution was sent to the Tulane Board of Administrators for approval. That was nearly a month before the Supreme Court’s May 1954 landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, which provided that segregated public schools were inherently unequal and violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. If Tulane had a chance to get ahead of the curve regarding integration, the opportunity was squandered when the board ultimately failed to act on crafting a desegregation policy. “The division of opinion within the Board of Administrators was never fully revealed,” writes Dyer, “but it is known that some

Plaintiffs Barbara Guillory and Pearlie Elloie are the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against Tulane filed in the U.S. District Court, Eastern Division, in 1961.

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of the members were opposed to the integration of Tulane. …” Clarence Mohr and Joseph Gordon in their history of the university, Tulane: The Emergence of a Modern University (published in 2001, three decades after Dyer’s work), draw with a somewhat finer point: “No members of the Board expressed enthusiasm over the prospect of admitting black students, and it seems likely that most who supported the idea did so reluctantly.” Whatever personal views board members may have had toward admitting blacks to Tulane, two pragmatic concerns served to foster their inaction during the next several years. The first had to do with a limitation prescribed by the gifts of the university’s major benefactors Paul Tulane and Josephine Louise Newcomb, who expressed the desire that admission be limited to white students. (A letter written by Paul Tulane in 1882 directed that income from his donations be applied to “the promotion and encouragement of intellectual, moral and industrial education among the white young persons in the city of New Orleans, State of Louisiana.”) A second concern of the board was that the university might lose its status as a private institution if its admission policy was overturned on the basis of the 14th Amendment. Board members held no desire to answer to the state legislature as a public institution. The Tulane board ended the 1950s without moving toward desegregation, but things came to a head at the outset of the next decade. In 1960, Herbert Longenecker took over as the university’s president, inheriting a substantial budget deficit and facing pressure from national funding agencies that were disinclined to financially support segregated institutions. “Any doubt about the consequences of keeping Tulane white vanished on Feb. 15, 1961, when the Ford Foundation officially notified Longenecker that the university would not be included in the challenge grant program,” write Mohr and Gordon.

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“We didn’t have anyone to tell us the best classes to take or which professors to avoid,” says Edwin Lombard. “I started the African American Congress to do what I knew the fraternities and other social organizations around campus were doing for the white students.”

Now & Then

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Opposite page: From his desk in his downtown New Orleans office, Edwin Lombard recalls his days at Tulane. This page: In that desk, he still keeps his original student ID card.

Two months later, in April 1961, the board acted and formalized a desegregation policy and in a statement said that it had “voted that Tulane University would admit qualified students regardless of race or color if it were legally permissible.” For some time, a plan had been in the works to challenge the university’s admission policies. With the backing of Tulane political science professor Henry Mason and Dillard University political science professor John B. Furey, as well as the financial support of Rosa Freeman Keller, the wealthy, liberal daughter of Tulane board member Albert B. Freeman, two black women—Barbara Marie Guillory (G ’74) and Pearlie Hardin Elloie (SW ’65)—applied for admission to the university. In April 1961, Elloie received from the School of Social Work a rejection letter reflecting the board’s newly minted policy statement about the legality of admitting black students. In part, the letter stated, “pursuant to the policy recently enunciated by the Administrators of the Tulane Educational Fund, we would approve your admission except for the fact that we believe it is not legally permissible for us to do so.” Guillory received a similar response from the Graduate School. By June, Elloie and Guillory were represented by legal counsel and by the following September, a suit was filed against Tulane on the behalf of the women, beginning what would be 15 months of litigation. U.S. District Judge Skelly J. Wright, whose history of rulings included the order to admit black students to Louisiana State University, heard the case’s initial phase. Sensing the likelihood of a favorable ruling, counsel for Elloie and Guillory motioned for a summary judgment based on the submitted facts without a full trial. Wright complied and in March 1962 delivered an opinion that Tulane was indeed subject to the provisions of the 14th Amendment, questioning whether any school or college was “so private as to escape the reach of the 14th Amendment.” Shortly after the ruling, Wright accepted an appointment to the Circuit Court in Washington, D.C. Fearful that Wright’s ruling would expose Tulane to interference from the Louisiana legislature, the board asked Wright’s successor, Judge Frank Ellis, to vacate the summary

judgment. Ellis complied, granting the stay and ordering a new trial. “To many outside observers, the Board’s decision to seek a new trial in 1962 seemed inconsistent with the previously announced policy of admitting black students as soon as legally possible,” write Mohr and Gordon. The trial took place over four days in August 1962. “By this point,” write Mohr and Gordon, “the contest before Judge Ellis had less to do with black admission per se than Tulane’s desire to recover its legal standing as a private school.” In his summary statement, Tulane’s attorney said that the university’s objective was simply to be “recognized as a private institution” with the “freedom to determine our own salvation. …” On Dec. 5, 1962, Ellis rendered his opinion that Tulane was indeed a “private activity” and not subject to the prescriptions of the 14th Amendment. Furthermore, he stated that Tulane could voluntarily admit blacks because it would be unconstitutional to compel discrimination. Within a week of Ellis’ ruling, the board voted to implement the policy decision of April 1961, voting unanimously to integrate beginning with the acceptance of Guillory and Elloie. A total of 11 black students registered for the spring semester of 1963. A year later, 57 black students had been accepted to Tulane. An editor tAkes A stAnd In 1962, Dean Gottehrer (A&S ’63) served as editor of the Tulane Hullabaloo. Now 71, Gottehrer recalls writing as a student about the events surrounding desegregation 50 years ago. “Of course,” he says, “everyone was watching what happened over at the University of Mississippi,” where a riot erupted between segregationists and law enforcement as James Meredith, the first black student arrived on campus on Oct. 1, 1962. Two people were killed. While a growing number of Tulane students were active in protests in New Orleans, only a couple of sit-ins would take place on the Tulane campus. According to a Hullabaloo article published Oct. 12, 1962, 20 white

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Joined in History Pearlie Hardin Elloie (left) and Barbara Guillory Thompson visit the Tulane campus in summer 2013, 50 years after they entered the university. Inset: Elloie and Guillory as young women before they enrolled at Tulane.

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As for her time on campus, Barbara Guillory Thompson says her experience was pleasant. As long as she felt comfortable with herself—and she did— “if someone else had a problem, it was theirs,” she says. … “I was there for one reason and I was going to accomplish my goal.” students and seven black persons “entered quietly, bought coffee, and seated themselves at tables in the coffee shop” of the University Center cafeteria. While there, they made “no effort to cause a disturbance of any kind.” At some point during the sit-in, which lasted less than an hour, tension escalated as three students paraded through the cafeteria carrying small burning crosses. Their action encouraged other prosegregationist to begin shouting racial slurs. Sit-in participants left the cafeteria peacefully. According to the article, one Tulane graduate student who agreed to comment said that he felt solidarity with the sit-in participants, but “thought it would have been a better idea to wait” until after Judge Ellis ruled on the case. As editor, Gottehrer ardently supported and wrote about desegregation—a stance that was not entirely popular within and around the Tulane community. Following the Hullabaloo’s coverage of on-campus sit-ins, the Louisiana branch of the National States Rights Party placed leaflets on cars along Broadway that criticized the student paper for “promoting” the protests. The text of the leaflet, which also was distributed at a White Citizens’ Council meeting, included a reference to the Hullabaloo article and described the accompanying photograph as showing “negroes taking over the cafeteria while the manager looks calmly on.” Gottehrer responded in a pithy editorial saying “the letter speaks for itself reflecting the ignorance of its writers.” Gottehrer says he was fully aware of possibility for reprisals. The Hullabaloo’s adviser at that time, Hodding Carter Jr., a Pulitzer prize– winning journalist renowned for his civil rights advocacy, once had crosses burned on the front lawn of his home in Greenville, Miss. Gottehrer says he knew that things could get ugly. “A leaflet on cars was enough to give me pause and to make me wonder if there would be anything worse, but this was before the Internet so they didn’t know where I lived and they couldn’t find out,” says Gottehrer. “For a moment I wondered if my physical safety was at risk, but it was a fleeting thought.”

Why commute? Barbara Guillory (now Thomspon) and Pearlie Elloie, the plaintiffs on the lawsuit to desegregate Tulane, were hand-picked to represent all African Americans who hoped to benefit from the kind of education that their forebears had been denied through segregation. In Pamela Taylor’s Silk Stockings and Ballot Boxes, John Furey says he identified the women “with the same care with which the Brooklyn Dodgers selected Jackie Robinson for big league baseball.” Thompson, who had already obtained a bachelor’s degree from Dillard University and a master’s degree from Louisiana State University, sought admission to Tulane’s PhD program in sociology while Elloie, who also had earned a bachelor’s degree from Dillard, wished to pursue a master’s degree in social work. In their minds, they were simply two highly qualified women with an interest in furthering their education. Having their role serve a larger purpose was lagniappe. Today, both women agree it was a win-win situation. “One of my college professors came to me and Barbara and talked about this group of good people who wanted to force Tulane to open its doors,” says Elloie. “I said fine because it met their needs and it met mine. I just happened to be there at the right time.” As for her time on campus, Thompson says her experience was pleasant. As long as she felt comfortable with herself—and she did— “if someone else had a problem, it was theirs,” she says. “The faculty was great, and for the most part, the students were great as well,” says Thompson, who adds that her experience at Dillard and LSU had thoroughly prepared her for her time at Tulane. “There will always be that one person who has a problem with you. But I was there for one reason and I was going to accomplish my goal.” Today, Thompson resides in McComb, Miss., and is a retired chair of the Division of Social Sciences at Dillard, where she served in several other capacities during her 42 years with the university. Elloie resides in New Orleans and serves as director of the Office for Children, Youth and Families at Total Community Action. She has been with the same organization since graduating from Tulane in 1965. “I didn’t do this because I wanted the university to open its doors to African Americans or because I was compelled to make the wrong right,” says Elloie. “I was married and had a young child. So why should I have to commute to Baton Rouge with Tulane right here in the city?” Confident that her decision to participate in the lawsuit was the correct thing to do, Elloie says she still could not bring herself to tell her parents, who lived in Houston, the truth about what she was a part of. Since neither of the women was required to make court appearances, it wasn’t until the first day of school that their families were able to register the reality of what had transpired. “I downplayed the whole Tulane thing to my mother and father because I felt like my mother would have been fearful for my safety,” says Elloie. “Fortunately, Tulane turned out to be a great experience. And it opened doors for so many others to experience it as well.”

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Biotech goes

Boom! A bioinnovAtion center in d owntown new orleAns is helping scientists move their reseArch into the mArketpl Ace .

by Carol J. Schlueter

Wow Factor A stunning wall of glass art greets visitors at the new orleans bioinnovation center.

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Looking Up Aaron Miscenich, president of NOBIC, is at the center of the burgeoning technology sector.

If art really does imitate life, then the rainbow of art glass at the New Orleans BioInnovation Center has a story to tell. It occupies a wall in the center’s lobby, sparkling with sunlight, creating paths of color, suggesting the myriad scientific endeavors that are under way in the downtown building. Aaron Miscenich sees it another way. “If you look at all the pieces that go into innovation, it’s like a mosaic,” says Miscenich (B ’91), NOBIC’s president. For biotechnology research to move from the lab and into the marketplace, a community needs to come together with product development, experienced management, venture capital and federal, state and local support. “Navigating all of this is the tricky part, and that’s where NOBIC comes in. We fit in the middle. We help the researchers and the team to understand what they have, what the environment is like, but also what’s missing, and how they bring in those missing pieces.” The stunning glass artwork has a back story. It was created by Tulane art alumnus and New Orleanian Mitchell Gaudet (G ’90), just one example of the many strands of Tulane involvement that are driving a burgeoning biotechnology economy in the Crescent City. Biotech? Here in New Orleans? Talk to Miscenich, to entrepreneurs, business leaders and researchers. They say, “There’s a lot of great momentum here in the biotech space.” Or, “We have great hopes that it will be a game-changer for the city.” And, “I’m not just hopeful, I’m convinced it’s already happening, and getting bigger and stronger.”

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On the GO “I’m in a cab, can we talk now?” It was entrepreneur Arman Sadeghpour (TC ’96, SSE ’07), calling while on the go in the Northeast. The holder of four Tulane degrees including a PhD in science and engineering, he talked excitedly about the newest idea for the technology behind Theodent, a toothpaste with a patented cavity-fighting chocolate extract, which he discovered as part of his doctoral research. Sadeghpour was heading to meet with researchers for a leading consumer-products manufacturer to discuss a new application for Theodent’s main ingredient. Details are confidential at this stage. Theodent was one of the first occupants of NOBIC, moving in shortly after the center opened in 2011 across Canal Street from Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. In January 2012, the toothpaste was the first of the biotech center’s products to reach the marketplace. It’s now sold in 200 Whole Foods Markets nationwide. Another early denizen of NOBIC was NuMe Health LLC, which transformed research from a Tulane lab into a company that makes a cobiotic product designed to alter bacterial populations in the gastrointestinal tract to prevent and manage diabetes. Like Theodent, NuMe is poised for success. “We’ve already raised substantial money, and have two clinical trials going on,” says John Elstrott, NuMe’s chair and co-founder. An entrepreneurial dynamo and dedicated New Orleanian, Elstrott, who recently stepped down from his 32-year career at the A. B. Freeman School of Business at Tulane, is an investor and driving force behind a dozen or more startups.

Reflecting on the city’s growing technology sector, Elstrott says, “Before, there was no culture for entrepreneurship in the life sciences community. But some of the best research was coming out of that area, so we needed to create an ecosystem to be more supportive, to make business out of those ideas. NOBIC brings it all together.” The 65,000-square-foot center, built with $47 million in state support as one of three biotechnology incubators in Louisiana (others are in Baton Rouge and Shreveport), is the result of action by the Louisiana legislature in 2002 to jumpstart a knowledge-based economy. The focus of the organization is on technologies coming out of local universities—Tulane, Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, Xavier University and the University of New Orleans. As a wet lab business incubator, NOBIC is focused on fostering the development of life science–related startup businesses by providing services, networking and space to work. Tenants pay rent, as the center has a goal of being self-supporting. So far it has helped start about 60 different companies using more than 120 different technologies to develop medical devices, therapeutics and healthcare software, and helped them raise $2.3 million in small business grants and more than $14 million in equity-based financing. “It’s all about jobs,” Miscenich points out. “You can have very high-quality jobs coming out of this.” Already in its young history, NOBIC tenants and clients have created more than 125 full-time jobs in New Orleans. It’s also about creating a network that supports entrepreneurs. NOBIC has drawn the backing of the city’s business community— accounting, law and venture capital firms who provide free counseling for the startup businesses—and the universities themselves. With a variety of state and federal funding sources, the center hired a commercialization manager who oversees a team of fellows

and interns, mainly MBA and law graduates who work closely with scientists and technology transfer offices at the universities. Patents and sPin offs It can take millions of dollars and years of work to bring a scientific invention from a university laboratory into the commercial marketplace, says John Christie (B ’03), Tulane’s executive director of technology transfer and intellectual property development. “We’re looking for things that make the world a better place,” he says, such as medicines, therapies, medical devices and environmental technologies. Any discoveries made by Tulane faculty members belong to the university, under agreements signed by all employees. If a scientist’s work has promise, he or she applies for a patent, with help from Christie’s office. Ultimately, the faculty member will assign the patent to Tulane. Next, a search begins to find an outside company to pay for licensing rights to the patent. Any money realized is shared by the university and the original researcher. Another option is to spin off a company to commercialize the product, which is when Christie calls in NOBIC “to help [researchers] on the next leg of their journey. It has helped us grow startup businesses out of Tulane at a much higher rate than we would have without their presence.” “That’s the wonderful thing about Tulane, they are willing to take risks,” says Vijay John, a professor in chemical and biomolecular engineering who has two patents issued and five others pending with Christie’s office. The spinoff company NanoFex, headquartered at NOBIC, is pursuing John’s idea for an environmental mediation technology to clean up contaminated groundwater. Elstrott recommended a topflight executive to manage NanoFex

Technology Transfer Research by faculty members such as Vijay John (left) can find realworld application with help from John Christie’s Office of Technology Transfer and Intellectual Property Development.

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while John remains as the company’s scientific adviser. That works well for the scientist. “To me, seeing the technology that came out of our efforts and came out of Tulane, seeing it realized in the marketplace is reward enough.” He adds, with a smile, “Engineers want to do things that are going to be used.” While NanoFex raises capital to move to large-scale manufacturing and testing of its initial product, John continues working on other applications for what he calls this “platform technology.” And NOBIC’s role has been crucial for NanoFex, helping the company enter and win two entrepreneurial contests with cash awards that helped it get started. Fill in the gap Brandon Iglesias (B ’11) already had chemical engineering and oil company experience when he entered the MBA program at the Freeman School of Business. He thought he was heading to a new career in crude oil commodity trading, but a bright idea changed his path. “I started thinking about it in the last year or so at Tulane,” he says. With consumption of crude oil—a finite resource—growing exponentially, “it has to be a serious concern to anyone who looks at it. And that means an opportunity for innovative technologies to fill in the gap.” By the time he graduated with both an MBA and master’s in finance, he had developed an idea to safely and cost-effectively produce synthetic crude oil by converting biomass and microalgae in energy-efficient underground geothermal reactors. He worked with Tulane to file his initial patent. Now his company, ReactWell, is at work at NOBIC, where he is taking advantage of access to wet lab space and core laboratory equipment to move his invention forward. “New Orleans is a good environment to get a company going,” Iglesias says.

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It could take up to 10 years and a significant investment to bring his synthetic crude oil product to market, supplying the refineries with a feedstock to diversify their crude oil portfolio, but Iglesias is on his way. Judges at the 2012 Domain Companies New Orleans Entrepreneur Challenge liked his idea so much they awarded ReactWell $20,000 in seed capital. double duty The 1,500-acre New Orleans BioDistrict stretches around NOBIC to the nearby Tulane School of Medicine, Tulane Medical Center and the new Louisiana Cancer Research Center. Researchers from Tulane, LSU, Xavier and Ochsner Health System moved into the Cancer Research Center’s $102 million facility earlier this year. Its executive director just happens to be Aaron Miscenich, doing double duty in the research ecosystem. The BioDistrict stretches up to Mid City, a few blocks from NOBIC, and encompasses the massive site of the nation’s largest hospital construction projects, $2 billion worth. The University Medical Center teaching hospital and the Veterans Affairs complex will open in 2015. The addition of the huge hospital complex, says Elstrott, “is only going to add to the party. It’s going to be big.”

Room With a View A glass-walled corner at NOBIC presents a view of Canal Street. In the distance at right, cranes signal work on the huge new hospital complex.

State of the Art NOBIC offers 66,000 square feet of state-ofthe-art wet lab, office and conference space.

StudentS Who Innovate Meet Ben Cappiello (’10) and William Kethman (’08, M ’12), who both invented promising medical devices while undergraduates in the Tulane biomedical engineering program. They graduated, started their own companies at the New Orleans BioInnovation Center and are ramping up for success. “We are getting an increasing amount of neat projects out of students right now, more every year,” says John Christie, executive director of technology transfer and business development at Tulane. “That’s a trend we’re excited about.” Cappiello, who developed a safer and easier-to-use inserter for the IUD birth control device, started his company, Bioceptive, shortly after he graduated. “We just finished the device, that’s our big news,” he said excitedly. “We’ve gotten through our biggest hurdles with research and development and we’re moving to final ben cappIello testing.” Bioceptive, which recently closed on $1.1 million in funding led by the private investment group New World Angels, plans to seek approval from regulatory agencies early next year. Kethman, who is doing his surgical residency in California, came up with the idea of SafeSnip with a team of biomedical engineering students. It’s a disposable obstetric device that cuts and clamps an umbilical cord and also shields infants, mothers and birthing personnel from infection. He patented the device with Tulane’s help, and his company NOvate Medical Technologies was among the first to lodge at NOBIC. NOvate is now pursuing U.S. regulatory clearance for SafeSnip. “I started this company because I wanted to make a difference and save lives,” says Kethman. “SafeSnip is anticipated to immediately improve the quality of health care for millions of expectant mothers and newborns in underserved regions of the world.” And the ideas keep coming. Kethman has a new company called GetHealthy that WIllIam kethman works with physicians to incentivize their patients’ better health. He co-founded GetHealthy with Tulane entrepreneurial guru John Elstrott.

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Breaking

the Mold THE 130- OBJECT NEWCOMB POTTEry ENTErPrISE ExHIBIT PrE SENT S A LEGACy OF ArTISTIC ACHIEvEMENT AND SELF-SUFFICIENCy. by Mary Ann Travis The prickly pear cactus fruit and flower—down to the spines—on a plate designed by Harriet “Hattie” Coulter Joor reflect her science background and attention to anatomically correct detail. Joor graduated with a bachelor of science from Newcomb College in 1895. She is among the prolific and adventurous artists who trained and worked in the Newcomb Pottery enterprise from 1895 to 1940. “The women had innate artistic talent,” says Sally Main, senior curator at the Newcomb Art Gallery and curator of the traveling exhibit “Women, Art and Social Change: The Newcomb Pottery Enterprise.” The show is accompanied by a 300-page book with essays contributed by Main and five other essayists. “The art school’s programs allowed them to develop that talent and put it into practical application,” says Main. In an era full of restrictions on women, the Newcomb Pottery undertaking allowed the artists to break the mold and forge financial independence in a socially acceptable way. Main’s curatorial framework for the exhibition reexamines the women’s lives so that the “voices of these women can be heard.” They—and their art—“were much more than moonlight and moss,” says Main, referring to imagery often associated with the pottery. Joor, for example, left New Orleans for Chicago in 1906 to teach at the University of Chicago. While there she started her own art pottery business. And, adventurous soul that she was, she lived for a time in a grass sod house on a South Dakota prairie, to soak up the ambience as inspiration for her artistic work. Other Newcomb Pottery artists became art educators, administrators and business owners. The multitalented women were a “remarkable group,” says Main. “They knew there was a world out there.

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And their art education allowed them to go out into it.” Newcomb Pottery presented “opportunity, a way to earn a living. There were a variety of crafts taught at the art school that accommodated individual artist’s talents. It’s not just about the pots,” says Main. The exhibit includes more than 130 objects, including pieces of the famed Newcomb pottery along with textiles, metalwork, jewelry, bookbinding and works on paper that were part of the enterprise. In line with the British Arts and Crafts movement, Newcomb Pottery objects are “beautiful, utilitarian, unique and handmade,” says Main. The decoration also had to be indigenous to the South. While Newcomb Pottery pieces are well known, the other objects illustrate the artists’ diversity and imagination, producing multiple items from a single design source, says Main. “These women were never dull.” Tulane is partnering with the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service on the exhibit, which will be displayed at the Handcrafted Newcomb Art Gallery from Oct. 3, 2013, to for Everyday Use March 9, 2014. The opening coincides with This page: Newcomb Tulane Homecoming weekend, Oct. 4–5. decorators are The Henry Luce Foundation, the National depicted in a 1902 Endowment for the Arts, Art Works and supwoodcut by artist porters of the Newcomb Art Gallery provided Mary Francis Balsen. funds for the show. Opposite page: The The exhibition will continue on an eight-city cactus design on this tour through 2016. First stop after New Orleans plate, circa 1903, is by Harriet Coulter Joor. is the Georgia Museum of Art in Athens, Ga.

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Artists at Work Harriet Joor (far left) and other artists in the Pottery Decorating Room in the Crafts Building on Camp Street, circa 1902–05.

Lamp’s Glow The “Cat’s Claw” design of the ceramic base of this lamp, circa 1901, is by Esther Huger Elliott. The magnolia design of the brass lamp shade is attributed to Elizabeth Goelet Rogers Palfrey.

Moonstone and Silver The design of this necklace is attributed to Mary Williams Butler, circa 1929.

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Sorcery-inspired The design of this bookplate, circa 1905â&#x20AC;&#x201C;10, is by Anne MacKinne Robertson. She created the bookplate for Beatrice and Alexander Ficklin, children of Newcomb Collegeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first history and political science professor, John Rose Ficklen.

Harriet Joor, Redux The daffodil design of this vase, circa 1902, is by Harriet Coulter Joor, exemplifying again her attention to botanical accuracy. Look closely at the photo at the top of the opposite page and find Joor working on this piece.

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FL FLooD STorY James A. Cobb Jr. (A&S ’74, L ’78) is the author of Flood of Lies: The St. Rita’s Nursing Home Tragedy (Pelican, 2013). The book is about Cobb’s successful legal defense of the owners of a nursing home in St. Bernard Parish, La., where 35 residents drowned in the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina.

T U L A N I A N S

CHERYL GERBER

Reunion Fun

Community Theater

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Resurrecting Le Petit

Cassie Steck Worley poses on St. Peter Street in New Orleans in front of Le Petit Theater, where she is now executive director.

GeT-ToGeTher Alumni find old friends at Homecoming. This year’s celebration is Oct. 4–5. SALLY ASHER

Director, producer and actress Cassie Steck Worley (NC ’85) is executive director of Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carré in the French Quarter. It’s a role she’s well prepared to play. The 365-seat theater, which originally opened in 1916 and has been at its current location on St. Peter Street since 1922, has undergone a transformation in the past few years. Worley has been involved every step of the way. She served as chair of the Le Petit board for three years before she took the professional management position of executive director. Through an agreement to sell 60 percent of its building to the Dickie Brennan Restaurant Group, the theater underwent a $1.5 million renovation in 2012–13. The Brennans built the Tableau restaurant in their newly purchased space. Saving the theater, which had been in dire financial straits, required the efforts of many dedicated theater devotees, says Worley. “The theater’s extremely dedicated all-volunteer board of governors, including Bryan Batt (A&S ’85), my good friend and fellow theater major from Tulane, turned out to be tremendous assets as we all worked together to save the theater,” she says. Worley has performed as an actress in New Orleans for decades, including in 22 Tulane Summer Lyric Theatre shows. For 16 summers, she ran the Little Lyric Theatre children’s program at Tulane. She loves teaching and plans to launch a program at Le Petit for children who do not have arts programs in their schools. Le Petit will stage six plays in the restored theater during the 2013–14 season. —Fran Simon

Tulane University alumni from around the globe will gather in New Orleans on Oct. 4–5 to celebrate Reunion Weekend 2013. “Reunion Weekend 2013 will be the best reunion weekend our alumni have ever experienced,” says James Stofan, vice president for alumni relations. “There will be more parties, more classmates and more opportunities to enjoy the city of New Orleans with old friends.” Among the events will be a town hall meeting with President Scott Cowen, class welcome receptions, a Homecoming carnival, fireworks and the Wave ’13 all-alumni party featuring blues legend Deacon John. The Green Wave football team plays the University of North Texas in what will be the last Homecoming game ever at the MercedesBenz Superdome. (Next year, the new Yulman Stadium on the Tulane campus will be the site of football games.) There also will be private parties with classmates. Many class members are marking their special anniversary by making a gift to support Tulane. “I’ve had a blast reaching out to my classmates and encouraging everyone to get together in New Orleans to enjoy the Reunion Weekend festivities,” says Tobias Smith, 1998 class chair. “We start off talking about the reunion and before long we are reminiscing about dorm life, meals in Bruff and sipping PJ’s coffee with our favorite professors.” —Bradley Charlesworth

Dispatch Phoebe Washburn W H E R E

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1950s DAVID RUST (E ’49) has published Gritty Grace, a book of reminiscences—including stories about World War II and Tulane—and personal testimony of Christian faith. Rust and his wife, Eugenia, live in retirement in Woodville, Texas. He is a volunteer chaplain at the local state prison. ROBERT V. M. HARRISON (A ’59, B ’84) received an honorary doctor of science degree from Mississippi State University this spring for his more than 40 years of leadership in architecture. Harrison helped establish the university’s school of architecture—the only one in the state of Mississippi—and continues to serve the school in many capacities. 1960s VICTOR LAW (E ’60, ’62, ’63) completed his 50th year of teaching at Tulane University this spring and published Numerical Methods for Chemical Engineers. The book is based on notes and handouts that Law developed for his students in the absence of an adequate textbook.

LAURA WALLER (NC ’66) sold her financial planning practice to her son and partner, JON WAX (B ’94), at the end of 2011. She is now working full-time in her “encore” career as an artist. In May, Waller’s painting Owls Head was awarded Best of Show at the 27th annual Florida Alliance for the Arts juried exhibition. WALTER E. BLESSEY JR. (E ’67, L ’70) was named Ernst & Young’s 2013 Entrepreneur of the Year in the distribution and manufacturing division. He is chair and CEO of Blessey Marine Services. DONALD R. ABAUNZA (L ’69) was honored with the Louisiana State Bar Association’s President’s Award this spring for his many contributions to the LSBA. Abaunza is a shareholder at Liskow & Lewis, a law firm serving a variety of clients from offices in Louisiana and Houston. RICHARD ELLIOTT (A&S ’69) has been elected to the board of directors of the State Bar of Texas for three years. He is an attorney with offices in Dallas and Fredericksburg, Texas. EUGENE RAY (G ’69) has been blogging at www. eugenerayarchitect.blogspot.com. He is a professor emeritus at San Diego State University. 1970s DONALD K. HANKS (G ’70) was recently honored with the establishment of the Donald K. Hanks Endowed Scholarship Fund in Philosophy at the University of New Orleans, where he is professor emeritus. The $2 million gift was donated by the late Carl E. Muckley. Hanks is currently a member of the philosophy faculty at Western Nevada College in Carson City, Nev.

PHOTO frOm PHOebe wasHburn

GARY GAFFNEY (A&S ’66) was designated professor emeritus of the Art Academy of Cincinnati, a private, four-year college.

ART SYSTEMS Though her work may feature recycled materials, garbage and even plants, installation artist Phoebe Washburn (NC ’96) wouldn’t exactly call her work a political statement about the environment. “My art is more playful than political,” says Washburn. “I’m trying to find ways to map out space, to show systems. And in finding ways to have all that, I began using recycled materials and finding new purposes for things.” The Brooklyn, N.Y.–based Washburn has made quite the splash around the world with her work, which has been displayed from Los Angeles to Denmark. The prestigious Whitney Museum 2008 Biennial in New York recognized her work, and her reputation continues to grow. Washburn’s work is visually striking and complex. Consider her piece Nunderwater Nort Lab, a 2011 creation that took up the main space at Zach Feuer, the New York gallery that represents her. The piece was centered around a massive cylindrical structure constructed out of reused two-by-fours. Audio was pumped in, while objects such as growing green plants under lights and used Gatorade pouches were posed. Her 2013 installation, Pressure Drop for Richard Stands (a history of one thing to another in lemon-aideness) at Kunsthallen Brandts in Odense, Denmark, was a large interactive system set into motion by museum visitors’ “thirst.” Washburn’s pieces are labor intensive. Before she works, she will visit a potential site, draw sketches, and then craft a proposal for a piece. Washburn notes that most of the final construction of her installations takes place inside the venue. “I build parts and components ahead of time in my studio but ultimately most of the construction is done on-site. It all comes together at the very end,” she says. “The process is exciting. But it can also be stressful.” Right now, Washburn is taking time off from creating new pieces. She’s busy with her baby daughter, Irie, born in April. Washburn’s husband and Irie’s father is A.J. Bocchino (TC ’96).—ANDREW CLARK

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BOLLYWOOD A former dermatologist, Amar Sidhu (M ’99, PHTM ’99) founded Ancient Arrow Films in 2008, producing and starring in Aakhari Decision, a Bollywood action film. He used the profits to finance his next film, The Black Russian, about the opium trade in the Indian states bordering Pakistan. Sidhu’s upcoming film is Winter’s Dream, a 22nd-century postapocalyptic story.

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RANDOLPH M. HOWES (M ’71, G ’71) was the first international recipient of the Dr. Charles Farr Award for Excellence in Oxidation Medicine at the 2013 educational summit of the American College for Advancement in Medicine. Because of his innovative theories, which expose common antioxidant myths, Howes is becoming a sought-after speaker in the area of free radicals, antioxidants and overall health.

MELANIE YOUNG (NC ’81) announces publication of Getting Things Off My Chest: A Survivor’s Guide To Staying Fearless and Fabulous in the Face of Breast Cancer (Cedar Fort). The book empowers women to take charge of their health management, ask the right questions, make informed decisions and look and feel their best during and after treatment. Learn more at www. gettingthingsoffmychest.com.

Middle Man: A Lieutenant Rollie Waters Novel by DAVID RICH (A&S ’73) was published in August by Dutton. Rich, a screenwriter, wrote Renegades starring Kiefer Sutherland and Lou Diamond Philips. He has sold screenplays to major studios and production companies in the U.S. and Europe. Rich lives in Connecticut.

ALFRED (AL) SIMONS (E ’82) joined Thermoflex Corp. as vice president of operations. Simons and his wife, Edie, live in Highland Park, Ill.

MICHAEL A. DICARLO (A&S ’75) retired this June as dean of library services and Thomas Jackson Magee Ross Endowed Professor at Louisiana Tech University. WARREN B. SMITH (SW ’75) published Watering the Greyhound Garden: Stories From the Streets of San Francisco, which recounts his job as a Travelers Aid social worker at the Greyhound bus terminal in San Francisco. DAVID W. SINGER (A&S ’76) was reelected as vice chair of the Nova Southeastern University law board of governors for a two-year term. Singer is the managing partner of David W. Singer & Associates, one of South Florida’s largest personal injury and wrongful death law firms. He also is the immediate past chairman of the American Cancer Society board of directors. JOE TRAHAN (A&S ’76) was named outstanding faculty adviser for 2013 at Georgia State University. JAY HOLLINGSWORTH (E ’77) is chief technology officer of Energistics, the upstream oil and gas open standards consortium. Hollingsworth has more than 20 years of experience in the field and is a recognized authority on the design and deployment of master data management solutions for petrotechnical and mapping data. PATRICIA FARRIS (G ’78, M ’82), a New Orleans dermatologist, co-wrote The Sugar Detox: Lose Weight, Feel Great, and Look Years Younger. Farris is a clinical associate professor at Tulane University School of Medicine. HONEE A. HESS (G ’78) received the Irene Buck Service to Arts Education Award from Arts/ Learning of Cambridge, Mass., in May. Hess is executive director of the Worcester Center for Crafts, a nonprofit arts organization affiliated with Worcester State University. 1980s The REV. JOHN DENNING (A&S ’81) is the 10th president of Stonehill College, a Catholic, liberal arts college in Easton, Mass. He is a current trustee of King’s College in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., another Congregation of Holy Cross institution.

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SAM SINGER (A&S ’82) is president of Singer Associates, a public relations and public affairs agency in San Francisco. The agency was named “Public Affairs Agency of the Year” by The Holmes Report, an international public relations and marketing trade publication. The 12-person agency beat out international agencies to win the honor. SCOTT M. RATCHICK (B ’83), of the Atlanta firm Chamberlain Hrdlicka, was named in the 2013 Georgia Super Lawyers and Rising Stars. He specializes in business and securities litigation. LISA D. T. RICE (NC ’83) is finishing her second year as senior director of political affairs at the National Retail Federation. Rice follows the Tulane track and field team to competitions to watch son Thomas Lynch (class of 2015) throw discus for the Green Wave. Early this spring season, he broke a school record that was set in 1939; Rice was in Palo Alto, Calif., weeks later to watch him then break his own school record. The U.S. Senate confirmed U.S. Magistrate Judge LUIS FELIPE RESTREPO (L ’86) to U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in June. Restrepo became magistrate in 2006 after working in private practice with a focus on criminal defense and civil rights. Restrepo is a native of Colombia and became a U.S. citizen in 1993. The attorney general of the District of Columbia appointed PHILLIP HUSBAND (L ’87) as the general counsel for the District of Columbia Department of Health in June. Husband and his wife, Carol, reside in southwest Washington. WILLIAM H. PRYOR JR. (L ’87), a judge on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as a member of the U.S. Sentencing Commission. After law school, Judge Pryor served as a law clerk to the late Judge JOHN MINOR WISDOM (L ’29) on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. MYRA A. KLEINPETER (PHTM ’89, M ’89) was recognized in July as an Unsung Hero in the Church, Civic, Corporate and Medical Community by the Clout Religious and Educational Association of Louisiana. Among other appointments, Kleinpeter is an associate professor of clinical medicine at Tulane University School of Medicine.

1990s CATHERINE CARLTON (NC ’90) was appointed by Gov. Edmund Brown to the California Board of Guide Dogs for the Blind, part of the consumer affairs department. Carlton has been a member of the Menlo Park, Calif., city council since 2012. MICHAEL D. RUBENSTEIN (B ’90, L ’93) was appointed by the president of the American Bar Association as a member of the association’s Death Penalty Representation Project. Rubenstein is a shareholder in the Houston office of Liskow & Lewis. For a decade, he served as counsel to an inmate on Louisiana’s death row, resulting in the death sentence being vacated and a life sentence being imposed in its place. MARGARET C. BELL (L ’91) was featured in the 2013 San Diego Super Lawyers. She is a founding member of Andrews, Lagasse, Branch & Bell and specializes in all aspects of employment law. Her clients include public and privately held companies, as well as public institutions and nonprofit organizations. ROB BINDEMAN (A&S ’91) and his wife, Betsy, announce the birth of Sasha Day on June 6, 2013. Sasha joins sister, Jacqueline, 3. Bindeman is president of Landmark Realty, based in Bethesda, Md. JENNY THOMAS (NC ’91) has joined the Association of Performing Arts Presenters as its director of marketing and communications. APAP is the national service, advocacy and professional organization for presenters of the performing arts. The French Ministry of Education awarded TOM WELCH (A&S ’91) a diplôme approfondi de langue française, certifying a high level of proficiency in French. Welch lives in Atlanta, where he is the assistant treasurer at Crawford & Co. KIMALA PRICE (NC ’92) was granted tenure and promoted to associate professor of women’s studies at San Diego State University. When it was founded in 1970, the department was the first of its kind in the United States. Price holds a PhD in political science and a graduate certificate in women’s studies from the University of Michigan. She has published extensively on reproductive politics and justice. CARL DIMANNO (B ’93) and ERIN DIMANNO (B ’98), along with business partners, opened their dream venture—868 Estate Vineyards and Grandale Restaurant—in the Washington, D.C., metro area (Purcelleville, Va.). 868 Estate Vineyards and winemaker Carl DiManno have been honored with several medals for their handcrafted wines. Erin DiManno is a human resource transition manager working in the merger, acquisition and divestiture spaces with IBM Corp. KENT A. LAMBERT (L ’93) has been named chair of Baker Donelson’s business litigation group. Lambert is a shareholder in the firm’s New Orleans office and oversees nearly 100 business

Dispatch Peter M. Wolf litigators across the firm’s 18 branches. He is also chair of its e-discovery and information management group. RAE ANN PARKER (SW ’93) announces the publication of her debut middle-grade novel, The Devil's Backbone. The book is about a boy who travels on the Natchez Trace Parkway where he meets a 200-year-old ghost carrying Meriwether Lewis’s last letter—a piece of evidence that may solve the mystery of Lewis’ death. Parker lives in Nashville, Tenn. DOUG BUROS (E ’94) and his wife, Dana Forfylow, welcomed their first child, Liesel Hannah, on Feb. 24, 2013. MOTEZ BISHARA (B ’95) announces the publication of Beating the NBA: Tales From a Frugal Fan, about the quest to buy the best NBA tickets at the lowest possible prices. When Bishara is not attending music or sporting events, he is in London managing an institutional multibilliondollar stock portfolio and freelancing as a journalist. This is his first book.

COURTNEY A. BROWN (NC ’97) has published her fourth book, inspired by her son’s experiences with bullying. BJ and the Bully, a fictional narrative that addresses the seriousness of bullying, is a therapeutic activity book with coloring sheets and discussion questions about bullying. AMBER WILLIAMS COUNTIS (NC ’97) is international vice president of Alpha Omicron Pi. She is employed as director of prospect research at Norwich University in Vermont. CHRISTIE J. FOSTER (L ’97) has been named chief of the Domestic Violence/Child Abuse Division of the Office of the Commonwealth’s Attorney in Jefferson County, Ky. She has served as a prosecutor since 2001. HIRSH KATZEN (B ’97, L ’97) has been promoting, playing guitar and singing in COOT. The New Orleans band released its first CD in 2012, but has been playing original New Orleans– inspired rock ’n’ roll music for almost 20 years. Performance highlights include the Voodoo Experience Music Festival 2010 and the 2011 Young Leadership Council Wednesdays at the Square concert series with Kermit Ruffins. DAVID C. RIEVESCHL (B ’97, L ’97) has been named a shareholder at Baker Donelson. Rieveschl concentrates his practice in the areas of corporate, mergers and acquisitions, and securities law in the firm’s New Orleans office. He also is a board member for the Louisiana

PAULA BURCH-CELENTANO

TERRY A. RHOTON JR. (B ’95) is vice president and commercial banker of Investar Bank, serving lending, treasury management and deposit needs of businesses in the New Orleans area. Rhoton has supported the community as vice chair of the Jefferson Council on Aging and president of the Credit Association of Greater New Orleans. He lives in Kenner, La.

NATIVE SON Peter M. Wolf (G ’63) is a nationally recognized land-planning, urban policy and asset management authority. He’s the author of well-regarded books on those subjects, including Land Use and Abuse in America (2010). But his latest book— My New Orleans, Gone Away (Delphinium Books, 2013)—is closer to his heart. My New Orleans, Gone Away is Wolf’s memoir of growing up in New Orleans. A member of the sixth generation of his family to live in the city, he led a privileged life, but as a Jew he was excluded from certain Carnival krewes and the higher echelons of social circles. Still, he writes fondly of the charms of New Orleans. And he did reach an exclusive status: a personal dining account at the famed, old-line restaurant Galatoire’s in the French Quarter. “To this day, I love going to Galatoire’s and signing my bill,” writes Wolf in the book. Wolf went to Yale University for his undergraduate degree. He then returned to New Orleans to work in his father’s cotton brokerage firm. While exploring the city as a young man, he began to study at the Tulane School of Architecture. He discovered that the 19th-century French architect Jean-Baptiste-Hyacinthe Laclotte had designed the Napoleon House and other significant buildings in New Orleans. Wolf delved into architectural history and received a master of arts in architecture from Tulane. At the urging of his architecture school mentors, he applied to the Institute of Fine Arts doctoral program at New York University, where he later earned a PhD. “No one in my family has ever left New Orleans. … If I leave, it will probably be forever,” he wistfully muses in the book as he makes his decision to go to New York. While he hasn’t lived in New Orleans since, he returns often. He and his family donated funds for a pavilion at Audubon Park, which was dedicated on March 25, 2006, just a few months after Katrina devastated the city.—FrAN SIMON

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Tulane Alumni Association W H E R E

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Chapter of the Association for Corporate Growth and the Tulane Association of Business Alumni. DAVID M. SANDER (G ’97) lives with his wife, MAGGIE PARSONS-SANDER (M ’92), and son, Charles, in Rancho Cordova, Calif., where he is a city councilman and mayor. He has been elected to the National Academy of Public Administration. ALEX HERNANDEZ (TC ’98, B ’03) married Megan Crowley on Feb. 23, 2013. GREG RIVALDI (TC ’98), a major in the U.S. Marine Corps and Alex Hernandez’s roommate during his first year at Tulane, presided at the wedding in Miami Beach, Fla. Alex Hernandez’s company, Hernandez Consulting, is a government contractor specializing in project management, design and construction. The company was named to the Inc.500 list in 2012 as the second fastest-growing company in Louisiana. Megan Hernandez is a vice president for Norwegian Cruise Lines. TIMOTHY J. SMITH (A&S ’98) has been elected treasurer of the Society for Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology of the American Anthropological Association.

Your TAA now offers a number of new programs built specifically to enhance the lifelong Tulane experience for alumni. For more information please contact the Office of Alumni Relations: 504.865.5901 or alumni@tulane.edu. Or find us online at http://tulane.edu/alumni.

Learn & TraveL Tulane University offers many opportunities for education beyond graduation: Enjoy lectures by Tulane faculty and scholars, host a networking dinner for Tulane students, visit campus on Wednesday mornings for breakfast with students and take an educational trip with fellow alumni around the world.

SUMOR SHEPPARD (NC ’99) received a PhD in Hispanic linguistics and literature in 2012. Sheppard lives in Katy, Texas. 2000s The American Society of Civil Engineers’ New Orleans branch named CULLEN J. LEDET III (E ’00, G ’08) Outstanding Young Civil Engineer. Ledet works at Modjeski and Masters. He was honored for his assistance on the design of the main river piers on the Huey P. Long Bridge widening project in Jefferson Parish, La. DEREK D. BARDELL (G ’01, ’02) was elected chairman of the Delgado Community College Care and Development of Young Children board of advisers. PEGGY L. CRANE (L ’01) joined the national law firm of Hinshaw & Culbertson in the firm’s environmental practice as partner in the Peoria, Ill., office. Crane represents companies on issues related to environmental law. ANGELIQUE RICHARDSON (B ’01) was promoted from controller to chief financial officer of Enmon Enterprises, a franchising company that operates across the Gulf Coast. Richardson was recognized by New Orleans City Business as a “Top 50 Money Maker in the Greater New Orleans Area.” She and her husband, WIL RICHARDSON (B ’00), live in Ponchatoula, La., with their daughter, Anna, 8, and son, Walker, 1. ANNE KELLIGREW ST.CLAIR (B ’01) is a senior vice president and private banker for Wells Fargo Private Bank in Summit, N.J. She was previously with Bank of America for 15 years. ELLEN BLUE (G ’02) was promoted to full professor at Phillips Theological Seminary in Tulsa,

S EP T EM B ER 2013 T ULANE MAGA ZINE

aLUMnI Career ServICeS Alumni Career Services provides Tulane alumni with the resources needed for professional success. We can help you: Build a professional resume, create an effective online presence, prepare for an interview and market your skills and abilities.

myTulanenetwork Join the new Tulane Alumni Online Community! Sign in with your LinkedIn account and network with fellow alumni, reconnect with classmates and friends, start a group, a blog, or post your favorite pictures and find out about great Tulane events in your area. Office of Alumni Relations • Bea Field Alumni House 6319 Willow Street • New Orleans, LA 70118

WELL PRESERVED Marty McNerney (B ’07) launched and operates a pickling business, Baba’s Pickles, in Washington, D.C. He and his mother started the company using a pickle recipe that has been in his family since 1950 when Baba, his grandmother, came up with it and began making pickles.

F A R E W E L L Okla. Blue is the Mouzon Biggs Jr. Professor of the History of Christianity and United Methodist Studies. She won the 2013 Women in United Methodist History Writing Award for an essay on activist African American women in the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans.

SHYLIE ARMON (NC ’06) married Jesse Bannon in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., on April 28, 2013. JESSICA LIGATOR (A ’02) and TYLER CURL (A ’05) attended the wedding. Armon is an associate attorney at Wicker, Smith, O’Hara, McCoy & Ford in Jacksonville, Fla.

Mignon Wright Jumel (NC ’35) of New Orleans on

JOEL ROBERTS (E ’02) and LOREY FLICK (E ’03) were married in New Orleans on March 23, 2013. The wedding party included BRYAN BAILEY (B ’02), JOSHUA DOLIN (B ’02), WALKER SPRINKLE (B ’02), AMANDA WALKER (B ’03) and JENNIFER SWEENIE (B ’04). More than 40 Tulane alumni attended.

CHRISTOPHER EVERETT (’07) and his wife, Ashley, welcomed their first child, Aria Orleans, on Nov. 18, 2012. She will be making her first visit to New Orleans in October 2013.

on May 11, 2013.

SHAUN SANGHANI (TC ’02, B ’03) is co-writing and producing the independent feature film The Aftermath, starring Sam Trammell of “True Blood.” The film began production this summer in Alexandria, La. ERIN BONNEY (E ’03) married Tim Carfang in Beaver, Pa., on May 18, 2013. She works for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as the resident inspector at the Beaver Valley Power Station in Shippingport, Pa. Tim Carfang is an audit supervisor at HJ Heinz in Pittsburgh, Pa. KENNETH COPELAND (TC ’03) married HELEN KENWORTHY (’08) on May 11, 2013, in Aberdeen, N.C. The couple honeymooned in Thailand and Myanmar. They live in Manhattan, where Ken Copeland is a principal at Flank, a real estate developer, and Helen Copeland works in advertising sales for Ovation television network. ALEX J. TOLSTON (TC ’03) was named the general counsel and corporate secretary of Hemisphere Media Group, the only publicly traded pure-play U.S. media company targeting the Hispanic TV/cable networks business. SARAH VALENZIANO (NC ’03) was promoted to partner at Lindquist & Vennum. Valenziano joined the firm in 2007 and is a member of the firm’s corporate finance and mergers and acquisitions group. Valenziano counsels a variety of clients, including private equity funds, their portfolio companies and strategic parties across a range of industries.

JOHN GAGNON (G ’07, L ’07) received a university distinguished fellowship from Michigan State University to pursue a PhD in rhetoric. His research interest is in the rhetoric of persecution within intrastate violent group conflicts. He was previously with the U.S. Department of of Homeland Security for five years. ASHLEY JACOBSON (’08) received the 2013 Zelma Patchin-Oklahoma State/Washington State Fellowship from the Mortar Board National Foundation. In the fall, she will attend the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University to pursue an MBA in global marketing. KENNETH C. (KC) KUNZE (PHTM ’08) joined Tyler & Co. in Atlanta as vice president. He has three decades of experience and brings a physician leader’s perspective to healthcare executive recruitment. Kunze is a gastroenterologist. LINDSAY CONDIT (NC ’09) returned from 18 months living in London, where she attended University College London and earned a master’s degree in translation theory and practice. While there, she met and became engaged to Neil Marshall. She has started her own business, Lingua Germanica Translations. 2010s NICOLE ELIZABETH WILLIAMS (’10) has been accepted to a postgraduate program in political communications at the University of Glasgow in the United Kingdom for 2014–2015. CRYSTY SKEVINGTON (SW ’12) is a grants associate for the Red Cross’ Hurricane Sandy Relief Long-Term Recovery Program.

June 16, 2013.

John M. Gabriel (A ’37) of Lake Charles, La., on June 15, 2013.

Emanuel Feldman (M ’38) of Queens Village, N.Y., Owen H. Foss (E ’40) of Soso, Miss., on May 12, 2012. Walter C. McCoy (M ’40) of Mountain Brook, Ala., on March 31, 2013.

Robert R. Prechter Sr. (E ’40) of Atlanta on May 4, 2013.

Mary Venturella Graffagnini (NC ’41) of Thibodaux, La., on May 24, 2013.

Thais Wild Smith (NC ’42) of Mount Pleasant, S.C., on June 17, 2013.

William Charles Warner (M ’42) of Memphis, Tenn.,

on April 27, 2013.

Violet Heil Ellison (NC ’43) of Oak Ridge, Tenn., on May 23, 2013.

Gloria Gaunt Wilbert (NC ’43) of Covington, La.,

on June 14, 2013.

John A. Fitzgerald (E ’44) of Slidell, La., on April 4, 2013.

Charles S. Lane Jr. (M ’44) of Russellville, Ark., on March 13, 2013.

John B. Parmley (A&S ’44, M ’46) of Covington, La., on April 14, 2013. Shirley Dunlap Casserleigh (NC ’45) of Slidell, La., on April 18, 2013.

Doris Karter Cerise (NC ’46) of New Orleans on April 1, 2013.

Vyvian Harper Frazier (NC ’46) of Diamondhead, Miss., on April 24, 2013. Courtney Proffitt Hays (NC ’46) of Mobile, Ala.,

on April 13, 2013.

ROBERT F. TOM (L ’04) has been named a shareholder at Baker Donelson. Tom represents clients in all aspects of litigation involving commercial, real estate and mortgage disputes in the firm’s Memphis, Tenn., office. Tom is serving as a 2013 Leadership Council on Legal Diversity Fellow.

CHRISTIAN TRUMAN (’12), a Teach For America Corps member, successfully implemented a middle school debate program at his school in Hazlehurst, Miss., where he teaches sixth-grade social studies. He brought his students to New Orleans to compete in the 2013 Tulane Debate Education Society’s spring debate tournament.

CHARLES “CHUCK” HAASE III (UC ’05) earned his MD from Louisiana State University School of Medicine in May. He was a police officer for 25 years before returning to school to earn his undergraduate degree at age 43. His wife, TANYA R. HAASE (UC ’04, ’13), received a master of professional studies in homeland security from Tulane School of Continuing Studies in May. The Haase family, including sons Chaase, 9, and Jackson, 7, moved to Prairieville, La.

EDWIN A. LOMBARD (’13) received a bachelor of arts in May—almost half a century after he first enrolled. (See “The Desegregation of a University” on page 14 for more about Lombard.) He is married to GELONE LOMBARD (NC ’71).

on April 12, 2013.

MELANIE WAITZER (’13) joins the Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans as the development and Next Gen associate, working on the annual campaign and other programming.

on April 16, 2013.

Francis C. McMains (M ’46) of Baton Rouge, La., on May 5, 2013.

Thomas E. Watts Jr. (B ’46) of Camden, Ark., on

May 8, 2013.

Warren B. Henry (M ’47) of Chattanooga, Tenn., Allen B. Koltun (B ’43, ’47) of New Orleans on March 20, 2013.

William A. Kimble (E ’45) of Pass Christian, Miss., Louis G. Burkes (B ’48) of Covington, La., on April

2, 2013.

T U L A N E MAGA Z I NE S E P T E M B E R 20 1 3

DOCUMENTARIAN Filmmaker Les Blank (A&S ’58, G ’60) died March 31, 2013, in Berkeley, Calif. In his 50-year career, he made 42 films, mostly exploring the music and food of ethnic communities. Blank is best known for his 1981 documentary Burden of Dreams about director Werner Herzog’s struggle to film FitzCarraldo in the Amazon.

F A R E W E L L John S. Coleman Jr. (A&S ’48) of Lafayette, La., on Nov. 20, 2012.

William G. Winkler (A&S ’54) of Stone Mountain, Ga., on March 17, 2013.

Lady H. Hardy (NC ’62) of New Orleans on April

Raymond K. Goode (E ’48) of Metairie, La., on March

Constance Brown Benton (NC ’55) of New Orleans

Francis L. Lawrence (G ’62) of Mount Laurel, N.J.

Richard S. Hoot (A&S ’48) of Swarthmore, Pa., on Feb.

John H. Brandt (PHTM ’55) of Alamosa, Colo., on

Harry J. Schmidt Jr. (M ’62) of Biloxi, Miss., on April

Adrian C. Benjamin Jr. (L ’49) of New Orleans on

Gordon G. Chalfant Jr. (E ’55) of North Augusta,

J. Joseph Champeaux (A ’63) of Lake Charles, La.,

L.J. Develle Jr. (A&S ’49) of Metairie, La., on April

Don M. Mayer (E ’55) of Houston of Jan. 11, 2012.

31, 2013.

16, 2013.

June 10, 2013. 28, 2013.

Dorothy Samuelson Fisher (NC ’49) of Metairie, La., on May 9, 2013.

Suzanne Alcus Mann (NC ’49) of Baton Rouge, La., on April 29, 2013.

Eugene C. Wilson (E ’49) of Houston on March

24, 2013.

Leroy Schneider (A&S ’50) of Wilmington, N.C., on

July 1, 2012.

John F. Shriner (M ’50) of Montrose, Ala., on May 20, 2013.

Robert I. Sonfield (A&S ’50) of Hilton Head Island, S.C., on May 7, 2013.

Stuart W. Wooddy (A&S ’50) of New Roads, La., on

April 6, 2013.

Peter S. Bertucci (A&S ’51, M ’55) of Mobile, Ala., on

Jan. 7, 2013.

William R. Brockway (A ’51) of Baton Rouge, La., on April 8, 2013.

Eldon C. Heck (A&S ’52) of Ponchatoula, La., on May

25, 2013.

James W. Johnson (B ’52, ’53) of Rossville, Ga., on

April 12, 2013.

on April 10, 2013.

May 18, 2013.

S.C., on April 25, 2013.

Richard P. Parkinson (M ’55) of Indio, Calif., on April 14, 2013.

Clement R. Rondeau (A&S ’55) of Ironwood, Mich.,

on June 15, 2013.

Charles C. Kimura (M ’56) of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on April 6, 2013.

Elena M. Perez (UC ’56) of Newark, N.J., on April 25, 2013.

Robert D. Montgomery (A&S ’57, L ’62) of McKenzie,

Tenn., on June 13, 2013.

Robert P. Botts (PHTM ’58) of Corvallis, Ore., on May 6, 2013.

James A. Fenimore (M ’58) of Alto, N.M., on May 14, 2013.

Ruth Harper Watson (NC ’58) of Monroe, La., on April 5, 2013.

Betty Anderson Buck (SW ’59) of Grand Junction,

Colo., on June 6, 2013.

Gerald C. Gex (L ’59) of Bay Saint Louis, Miss., on

June 8, 2013.

Stanley R. Nelson (M ’59) of Fairway, Kan., on

May 29, 2013.

Gilbert C. Morrison (A&S ’52, M ’57) of Mission Viejo,

Oren R. Smith Jr. (M ’59) of Fort Worth, Texas, on

Calif., on March 14, 2013.

April 13, 2013.

Stanley W. Muller (A ’52) of Cincinnati on March

Benjamin G. Crocker (B ’60) of Arlington, Texas,

7, 2013.

on March 12, 2013.

George D. Allard (M ’53) of Flora, Miss., on April

Ralph E. Franck (UC ’60) of Metairie, La., on May

25, 2013.

Maurice L. Burk (L ’53) of Kenner, La., on June 10, 2013.

Albert Caproni Jr. (B ’53, G ’55) of Columbus, Ga.,

8, 2013.

Jean Atkinson Wren (NC ’60) of Texarkana, Ark.

on Jan. 4, 2013.

Jon A. Ziegler (B ’60) of Punta Gorda, Fla., on April

3, 2013.

on April 16, 2013. 22, 2013.

on March 31, 2013.

Peter F. Crane (L ’63) of Northants, England, on Feb.

22, 2013.

Leroy W. Koschel (E ’63) of Pine Bluff, Ark., on May

26, 2013.

Bruce L. Mealins (B ’63) of Alabaster, Ala., on May 9, 2013.

Peter M. Viguerie (A&S ’63, UC ’71) of New Orleans on April 9, 2013.

Raymond A. Denoux Jr. (UC ’64) of Metairie, La., on April 4, 2013.

Donald Ken Eppling (E ’64, UC ’67) of Metairie, La.,

on April 28, 2013.

James Earle A. Canfield (G ’65) of New Orleans on March 28, 2012.

Robert I. Knopf (A&S ’65) of Saint Louis on May

16, 2013.

Elizabeth Willis Conner (NC ’66) of Athens, Ga., on Feb. 12, 2013.

James R. Fonte Jr. (UC ’67) of Metairie, La., on

May 5, 2013.

Henry E. Hammack (G ’67) of Fort Worth, Texas, on May 19, 2013.

William Andruchow Jr. (G ’68) of Saugus, Mass., on June 12, 2013.

Ira J. Marcus (A&S ’68, L ’71) of Chicago on April 17, 2013.

Stephen A. Martin Sr. (A&S ’68, B ’73) of Peachtree City, Ga., on May 14, 2013.

Ronald J. Hingle (PHTM ’70) of Metairie, La., on

April 2, 2013.

Donald G. Horton (L ’70) of Coushatta, La., on

June 4, 2013.

Carlos M. Royo (E ’70, ’71) of Amarillo, Texas, on

on April 27, 2013.

18, 2013.

April 25, 2013.

John B. Austin Sr. (A&S ’54) of Basalt, Colo., on May

Stanley P. Babin (L ’61) of Duson, La., on Jan.

Orlando E. Saa (G ’70, ’73) of Lyndhurst, N.J., on

Joyce Cooper Gallant (NC ’54) of Germantown,

Edward J. Pierson (A&S ’61) of Metairie, La., on May

13, 2013.

Tenn., on May 27, 2013.

Joseph P. Monroe Jr. (B ’54) of Metairie, La., on April 19, 2013.

S EP T EM B ER 2013 T ULANE MAGA ZINE

15, 2012.

15, 2013.

Fernando J. deCastro (M ’62) of Desloge, Mo., on

May 9, 2012.

May 11, 2013.

Joan Arbour Grant (NC ’71) of Charleston, S.C., on

April 16, 2013.

E. Gale Adams Alexander (NC ’72) of Baton Rouge,

La., on June 8, 2013.

Tribute Lindy Boggs = Dr. Edward E. Madden Jr. (PHTM ’72) of Metairie, La., on April 23, 2013.

Joseph P. Molinario (UC ’72) of Terrytown, La., on May 19, 2013.

Earl Bertrand (UC ’73) of Rayne, La., on Feb. 27, 2012.

Samuel H. Boyd (G ’74) of New Orleans on June 13, 2013.

Emanuel G. DeFraites Jr. (M ’74) of Paris, France, on May 27, 2013.

Bobby L. Hughes (G ’74) of Deland, Fla., on May 10, 2013.

Carolyn Querbes Nelson (NC ’74) of Shreveport, La., on May 1, 2013.

Louis R. Martin Jr. (UC ’75) of Gretna, La., on May 9, 2013.

30, 2012.

Philip H. Henderson III (M ’76) of Longview, Wash.,

on June 7, 2013.

Salvador R. Leslie Jr. (UC ’76) of New Orleans on June 7, 2013.

Charles D. Kerr II (E ’78) of Navasota, Texas, on May 21, 2013.

Earl Washington Jr. (M ’78) of Breaux Bridge, La., on April 6, 2013.

Linda Marie Harris (M ’79) of Shreveport, La., on June 10, 2013.

Gage Ochsner Jr. (M ’79) of Savannah, Ga., on April

26, 2013.

Timothy L. Hanson (A&S ’80) of Duncan, Okla., on

June 18, 2013.

Clarence J. Ardeneaux (UC ’81) of Marrero, La., on

May 2, 2013.

Pamela Santangelo McAlpin (SW ’81) of Austin,

Texas, on May 3, 2013.

JERRY WARD, TULANE ARCHIVES

Stephen C. Becker (A&S ’76) of Milwaukee on Dec.

POWER AND INTEGRITY In her 97 years, Lindy Claiborne Boggs (NC ’35) served her country as a teacher, Congressional wife, campaign manager, close friend of several presidents, promoter of civil rights when that meant having crosses burnt on your lawn, Congresswoman, the first woman to chair a Democratic National Convention, and Ambassador to the Vatican. She died on July 27, 2013, in Chevy Chase, Md. Lindy met her husband, Hale Boggs (A&S ’35, L ’37), at Tulane when they were both editors of The Hullabaloo in the 1930s. Between the two of them, they spent 50 years in Congress. Hale rose to Majority Leader of the House before disappearing in a plane over Alaska in 1972. Lindy then ran for his seat to continue his work, but soon created her own agenda representing women across the country. Lindy fought for economic equality for women in ways that changed the world. She made sure for the first time that women could qualify for a mortgage, credit card or business loan. As a member of the Appropriations Committee, she provided the first federal funding to combat domestic violence. She grilled generals during committee hearings about the treatment of women in the military. Lindy taught me three secrets to life. First was her oft-recited lesson that you can get anything you want done as long as you’re willing to give someone else the credit. But there were two other principles it took me years to figure out. People trust you if you have the discipline not to talk about them behind their back. She never said a negative word, even about people who had provoked her, and as a result, no one ever doubted what she said to their face. And finally, the key to happiness is to find something amazing and interesting in every human being you meet. It was her inexhaustible source of stamina. Lindy was my mentor, my adopted grandmother, my friend. It was selfish to want to keep her away from Hale any longer, but we were not ready to let her go. —TANIA TETLOW (NC ’92). Tetlow is the Felder-Fayard Early Career Associate Professor of Law and director of the Domestic Violence Clinic at Tulane Law School. She wrote “Lindy and Me” in the fall 2012 Tulane magazine.

Anne C. Lauderdale (E ’83) of Metairie, La., on May

26, 2013.

Charles B. Miller III (PHTM ’83) of Hampton, Va., on June 15, 2013.

Bryan N. Gill (G ’84) of New Hartford, Conn., on

Cecile W. Lee (M ’93) of Pleasanton, Calif., on March

Adrienne Brooks Hrenko (L ’04) of Dayton, Ohio,

28, 2013.

on March 12, 2013.

Matthew W. Majewski (TC ’95) of Miami on Dec.

Jonathan G. Meyers (B ’07) of Port Chester, N.Y., on

May 17, 2013.

20, 2012.

Frank L. Roberts Jr. (UC ’84) of Texarkana, Texas,

Ann K. Laugherty (NC ’96) of Columbus, Ohio, on March 29, 2013.

7, 2013.

Wade A. Contney (A&S ’86) of Bristol, R.I., on

Cheryl E. Mills (G ’97) of New Orleans on April

Lillian L. Frisch (PHTM ’10) of Atlanta on April

on Dec. 24, 2012. March 8, 2013.

Brian L. Blanchard (UC ’92) of Marrero, La., on May 27, 2013.

9, 2013.

Amanda H. Knab (NC ’03) of Richmond, Va., on

March 28, 2013.

March 17, 2013.

David C. Mire (PHTM ’08) of Metairie, La., on June

2, 2012.

Gardner Marks (B ’13) of Chappaqua, N.Y., on April

22, 2013.

T U L A N E MAGA Z I NE S E P T E M B E R 20 1 3

103% of Goal

T U L A N E

eMpowerS Campaign gifts to Tulane Empowers help connect Tulane students with community outreach projects that make a difference in people’s lives. As of June 30, 2013, the campaign had raised $103 million, surpassing its $100 million goal.

E M P O W E R S

ryan rivet

Way of Life

Attending Tulane was a life-changing experience for Stuart Klabin (A&S ’53), inspiring him to establish an endowment that has enriched the lives of undergraduates for the past decade. The Stuart and Barbara S. Klabin Endowed Fund is used at the discretion of the Newcomb-Tulane College dean. The fund has provided resources for undergraduate programs since its creation in 2002. Klabin’s generosity, for example, has sent a student to Australia and two students to a leadership institute in California. Klabin’s giving is motivated by the way James MacLaren, dean of Newcomb-Tulane College, and Tulane President Scott Cowen have been leading undergraduate education. Klabin is proudest of the public service requirement for all undergraduates. “That sets Tulane apart from every other school,” he says. A proponent of the transformative power of service and philanthropy, Klabin is celebrating his 60th college reunion this year. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Barbara. His ties to Tulane remain an important part of his life as he serves on the Newcomb-Tulane College Dean’s Advisory Council and has hosted parties in California for incoming first-year students and their parents. For Klabin, Tulane was “about much more than what I learned in books. Tulane taught me a way of life.”—Mary Sparacello

S EP T EM B ER 2 0 1 3 TULANE MAGA ZINE

Medicine’s Teaching Kitchen Construction is set to begin this fall on the new home for the Goldring Center for Culinary Medicine at Tulane University, the nation’s first teaching kitchen affiliated with a medical school. The 4,600-square-foot center is being built in the ReFresh Project, a redevelopment of the former Schwegmann Bros. grocery store on Broad and Bienville streets that also will include a Whole Foods Market. The Goldring Center for Culinary Medicine is a first-of-its-kind center dedicated to comprehensively integrating nutrition and dietary intervention strategies into a medical curriculum. Its teaching kitchen will include professional ovens and cooking stations for medical students, physicians-in-training, chefs, doctors and community members to learn the tenets of healthful cooking and the significant role that food plays in preventing and managing obesity and associated diseases. The goal is to connect the preclinical physiology of medical school with evidence-based information about how food choices play a role in disease management or progression, explains the center’s executive director Dr. Timothy Harlan. “Through hands-on cooking classes, medical students will learn strategies to help guide their patients to healthful food choices that taste great and help them feel better.” The center, slated to open in January 2014, will be available to the public throughout the year, offering free demonstrations and cooking classes taught by staff and medical students as well as continuing medical education programs for physicians. It also will conduct nutrition research. The project is part of Tulane’s groundbreaking culinary medicine program and collaboration with Johnson & Wales University College of Culinary Arts, the first joint training program of a medical school and a major culinary institute.—Keith Brannon

Cooking for Wellness Chef Leah Sarris, director of the Goldring Center for Culinary Medicine, helps Josiah Prosper, 5, grate Parmesan cheese while his sister, Reina, looks on. The cheese was for a frittata Sarris prepared during a cooking demonstration at the Old Algiers Farmers Market.

power of Service Stuart Klabin has established an endowed fund to provide resources for innovative programs for undergraduates.

helluva hullabalOO The 12th annual Helluva Hullabaloo Auction—the largest fundraiser benefitting Tulane student-athletes—takes place on Oct. 4, 2013. It will be held in the Lavin-Bernick Center. Visit TulaneHullabalooAuction.com for tickets and more information.

T U L A N E

The Louisiana Historical Association made the formal donation of a significant collection of Civil War–related documents to the Louisiana Research Collection at Tulane University this spring. Among the collection are the papers of Jefferson Davis, photographs and soldiers’ diaries. The collection had been on loan to Tulane since 1954. Comprising more than 400 linear feet, the collection is an extraordinarily rich group of documents. It also includes the papers of Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston, Civil War muster rolls, pension records and records of Civil War heritage organizations including the Washington Artillery, Army of Northern Virginia, Army of Tennessee, United Confederate Veterans, United Sons of Confederate Veterans and the United Daughters of the Confederacy. The collection has been used by thousands of researchers and is the most frequently consulted collection in the Louisiana Research Collection’s vast archival holdings. “Writers researching almost every aspect of the Civil War within the last 30 years have consulted this collection,” says Leon C. Miller, head of the Louisiana Research Collection. “And photographs and passages from soldiers’ letters and diaries in the collection were used by Ken Burns for his documentary series on the Civil War.” “The Louisiana Research Collection has proven itself to be a trusted and highly professional archival repository,” said Janet Allured, immediate past president of the Louisiana Historical Association. “We are pleased to take this next step and now permanently donate our collection to LaRC so that we can be assured it will be preserved and made available to researchers from around the world.” “These are international cultural treasures,” says Miller. “We accept them to make them available for people to use, and we have an ethical obligation to make them available to everyone on an equal basis and to ensure that visiting researchers feel welcome and comfortable.”—Arthur Nead

Rural Outreach

paula bruch-celentano

Civil War Archives

E M P O W E R S

A new fund will allow more third-year medical students to experience the benefits and rewards of practicing rural medicine. The Ernest G. DeBakey Rural Education Fund was established to expand clerkship opportunities outside the New Orleans area at new rural placement sites in Louisiana, southern Mississippi and Alabama. Lack of funding has made expansion into new rural areas and partnering with new physicians a challenge because of the cost of student housing and travel. The Ernest G. DeBakey Rural Education Fund will provide funding for these expenses, allowing more students to develop strong relationships with practicing physicians and new communities. “We have wonderful physicians throughout the Gulf South who are eager and willing to act as preceptors to our students. We are thrilled that the Ernest G. DeBakey Charitable Foundation has given us the opportunity to expand to these different areas,” says Dr. Edwin Dennard, chair of the Department of Family and Community Medicine at Tulane School of Medicine. The Ernest G. DeBakey Charitable Foundation is named in memory of the late Dr. Ernest G. DeBakey (PHAR ’30, M ’39). Ernest DeBakey and his siblings, the late Dr. Michael DeBakey (A&S ’30, M ’32, G ’35), Lois E. DeBakey (NC ’40, G’ 59, ’63) and Selma M. DeBakey (NC ’37), have strong ties to the university. Marsha DeBakey, president of the Ernest G. DeBakey Charitable Foundation, says her husband, Ernest, had a special place in his heart for both rural medicine and the Tulane School of Medicine. In addition to the fund for rural medicine, the foundation provides full scholarship support for a medical student during his or her four years in medical school at Tulane. “It is a rewarding feeling to send someone out in the world with a marvelous education. Imagine the number of people they help during their lifetime,” says Marsha DeBakey.—Kirby Messinger

Inconsolable France Fung (M ’10) (right) tries to soothe a young patient while the child’s mother looks on. A medical student at the time the photo was taken in 2008, Fung held a clerkship under perceptor Dr. Jim Larrison (center) at the Larrison Family Health Center in rural Pierre Part, La.

T UL A N E MAGA Z I N E S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3

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

O R L E A N S

mark andresen

N E W

Lovable Lingo by Angus Lind If you hang out in the many diverse areas of this wonderfully wacky city— including Tulane’s campus—chances are 100 percent you’re going to hear the city’s name pronounced in any number of ways. Like most Orleanians, I’ve heard them all and I’ve been asked a thousand times about the “correct” pronunciation. I usually begin by explaining that there is no correct way, but then I move on to how we don’t pronounce it. It’s not N’Awlins and it’s not New Or-lee-uns. And it’s definitely not New Or-LEANS—no matter what you hear on national TV or watch on the big screen from Hollywood. And no, we don’t call each other “cher,” like Dennis Quaid’s character did in The Big Easy when he was referring to other New Orleans policemen. We do not have a syrupy Southern drawl. Depending on what section of Bienville’s humid, mosquito-infested settlement you grew up in, some of the more common pronunciations you will hear are New AW-lins, New AWL-yuns and New AWL-yens. (As a side note, New Orleans is not the only city that has pronunciation idiosyncrasies. Another river city, Louisville, home of the Kentucky Derby, has a similar issue. The town’s name can be acceptably pronounced as Looavull. Or Luhvul. Or Looaville. You’re definitely not a native if you say Lewisville or Looeyville.) The way we talk in this quirky city can be confusing, amusing and often inexplicable. If you’re looking for standard (boring) American English, you’re in the wrong place. For instance, if you ask where a certain person lives, you might get this answer: “He stays behind that shopping center off Robert E. Lee by West End.” Say what? Is he some homeless dude huddled behind a dumpster and living out of a grocery shopping cart? Nope. “Stays behind” roughly translates to “he lives in a house on a street in the area adjacent to the rear of the shopping center.”

S EP T EM B ER 2 0 1 3 TULANE MAGA ZINE

dawlin’ Sittin’ on da stoop, eating an erster po’boy dressed with my-nayz after makin’ groceries is a way to pass a good time in New Orleans.

A median anywhere else is a “neutral ground” here. A trolley is a “streetcar.” A carousel elsewhere is in New Orleans still referred to as “flying horses.” Sadly, you don’t hear “banquette” as much as you did once, yet I don’t think “sidewalk” was in my grandmother’s vocabulary. She said “bankit.” Then there’s lagniappe, ersters, swimps, sittin’ on da stoop, go to da batroom, terlet and erl, foist and thoid. I got da arthur-itis. I get my vejatebbles at Dorignac’s. No, that loveable lingo is not as prevalent as it once was, but it still exists. You live your whole life here and it all seems so normal: Sugah, dawlin’ honey, hawt, hey babe, chirren. Jesus Gawd! You some lazy. The cultcha shock slaps visitors silly the first time they come here. Local actor and comedian Ricky Graham, a Ninth Ward native, explains the dialect this way: “New Awlins people just get a word and make it sound more betterer.” They have a penchant for turning plurals into double plurals, he says, “like locustses and swimpses.” They also like to swap syllables around, “like Viet-ma-nese.” Double negatives? Absolutely. There ain’t no one who embraces this dialect more than six-time Grammy winner Dr. John, a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame who has an honorary degree in fine arts from Tulane. (TU President Scott Cowen amusingly referred to him as “Dr. Dr. John.”) After viewing his city underwater postKatrina, the gravel-voiced Dr. John said, “I’ve been traumaticalized.” His quote found its way onto a wooden sign in Ye Old College Inn restaurant, and when the good doctor came in with a party of six, he saw it and said, “I needs to use dat more often.” As many have noted, New Orleans speech is not unlike the Brooklynese dialect. Our version of the King’s English, however, is called “Yat,” derived from “Where y’at?”—a local greeting meaning “How’s it going?” Local comedian Chris Champagne last year published The Yat Dictionary, a hilarious look at how we butcher the language. In the foreword, he tells of a friend who spent a lifetime successfully writing about our local culture but was turned down by a New York publisher because her New Orleanian characters spoke too similarly to New Yorkers, and readers would find that unbelievable. Well, believe it. We is what we is. Yeahyourite!

homecoming/Re homecoming/R e U nion 2013 october 4–5 Helluva Hullabaloo premier auction and party supporting tulane empoWers and tulane student-atHletes Friday, october 4 6–8:30 P.M. Lavin-Bernick Center, First Floor

reunion class receptions Friday, october 4 5:30–7 P.M. McAlister Place

Wave ’13 all-alumni reunion party Friday, october 4

Homecoming game nortH texas vs tulane saturday, october 5 Mercedes-Benz Superdome Kickoff at 2:30 P.M. Tailgating begins at 11 A.M.

7–9 P.M. Lavin-Bernick Center, Second Floor Great food, music, fireworks and pep rally Concert on the Quad featuring Deacon John Celebrating reunions of the Classes of ’63, ’68, ’73, ’78, ’83, ’88, ’93, ’98, ’03, ’08, ’13

reunion class parties saturday, october 5 6 P.M.

Updates and more events: http://tulane.edu/homecoming

TUlane M A G A Z I N E

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Wish You Were Here On the quad.