TULANE TALK

November 7, 2003

Good Morning:

I gave the University Senate an update this week on the final initiative of our strategic plan. This initiative focuses on Resources and Leadership and includes areas such as libraries, computer technology and the management, finances and governance of the university. Please take a moment to review the summary of our accomplishments in this and all areas of our strategic plan at http://www.tulane.edu/%7Estrplan/accomplishments.shtml.

You wouldn’t know by the weather, but we will soon be entering the holiday season and several university groups are already in the giving spirit. Teams of faculty, students and staff under the direction of Paul Whelton, who served as the vice chair of this year’s American Heart Walk, recently raised nearly $24,000 for the American Heart Association. The association funds life-saving heart research, including the work of Tulane scientists.

Book Giving Trees have also popped up around campus. The Book Giving Tree, an effort by students at Tulane, Xavier and DeLaSalle High School, ensures that New Orleans children receive a most important gift this season. Our students tutor more than 1,000 New Orleans children from pre-school to high school. They see firsthand the need and desire for students to develop the reading skills that will serve and enrich them throughout their lives. They also see, sadly, that some of these children do not have a single book to call their own. You can fix this problem by taking a gift card from one of the Book Giving Trees located in the President’s Office, the lobby of the A.B. Freeman School of Business, the University Center cafeteria, Newcomb Hall, the Medical Arts Building on Prytania, the lobby of the Tidewater Building, the School of Medicine, the JBJ Building, the Primate Center and in the PJ’s on the uptown campus.

Each gift card has the first name of a student, his or her age and reading interest. Purchase and wrap an appropriate book for the child and return it by November 19 to one of these areas: Room 103 of the Central Building, the first floor lobby of the Tidewater Building or the Center for Bioenvironmental Research, Room 260 of the JBJ Building. An enthusiastic response to this program is one of the best gifts we can give to the New Orleans community.

Have a great weekend,