TULANE TALK

December 5, 2003

Good Morning:

As they have done for the past 17 years, staff members from the Office of Student Affairs and Sodexho prepared a free Thanksgiving feast for nearly 300 of our international students and others who found themselves far from home last week. This was a wonderful labor of love and an effort that made me proud to be part of such a caring community. I want to personally thank all those staff who made the dinner possible.

Yvette Jones, Senior Vice President for External Affairs, provided the University Senate an update this week on the Wall Fund, an $18 million gift we received in 1999 from the estate of Lallage Feazel Wall. Approximately $6 million of this gift was set aside to fund initiatives related to our strategic plan. So far $5.2 million dollars of that amount has been dedicated to 19 projects ranging from creating a pool of matching funds for research across the university to providing support for the Deep South Regional Humanities Center.

I’d say the Wall Fund Committee chose well in selecting projects for funding. The nearly $6 million we have allocated for different projects has generated approximately $25 million in additional funding from outside sources. Please visit http://www.tulane.edu/%7Estrplan/wallfund.shtml to see a description of all the projects supported by Wall Funds. Money from the fifth and final round of Wall funding will be awarded this spring.

We made front-page news this week with the groundbreaking for a major cancer research center. The center, which will be built on Tulane Avenue, is an effort of the Louisiana Cancer Research Consortium, a partnership between Tulane University Health Sciences Center and LSU. The consortium plans to create a center for research and treatment that we expect will eventually be recognized as a Designated Cancer Center by the National Cancer Institute. No such center exists in Louisiana. The center, which will be completed in 2006, promises to revolutionize cancer treatment in our state. It will also help diversify our state’s economy by creating well-paying jobs and providing career opportunities for our graduates.

All of these efforts make me realize that, although Thanksgiving is over, we still have much for which to be grateful.

Have a great weekend,