TULANE TALK

August 31, 2007

Good Morning:

It feels great to have all of our students back and our campuses buzzing again with activity and life. There’s quite a lot to look forward to as the new semester gets underway. For example:

Robert Redford’s Sundance Channel will film a documentary series on the School of Architecture’s URBANbuild, an innovative program in which Tulane students design and build houses in low-income neighborhoods. The series’ creators are two veteran filmmakers whose credits include feature films, work on “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” and other shows for MTV, FX, Bravo, Logo, Lifetime, MSNBC, Discovery, TLC and more.

Bill Delano, a host of the Travel Channel’s “Not Your Average Travel Guide,” will chronicle Tulane students from the School of Social Work as they travel to India to work and study. The footage will be developed into a pilot episode for a television series on the transformative power of travel.

The Department of English will host readings by two internationally acclaimed authors. Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Louise Gluck will speak on March 31 at 7 p.m. and Salman Rushdie, author of international bestsellers such as “The Satanic Verses,” which prompted Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini to call for his death, will speak on April 7 at 7 p.m. in Dixon Hall.

“Project Freshman,” a hit web-based reality series produced by RED, the teen division of AOL, is seeking Tulane students to participate in its upcoming season. The series provides first-year students with video cameras to record the changes, challenges and triumphs of their freshman year.

I view all of these activities as excellent opportunities for creating national awareness of Tulane’s vibrant scholarly life, our innovative approach to learning and our continued attraction as a forum for the exchange of great ideas.

Have a great Labor Day weekend,