TULANE TALK

March 5, 2010

Good Morning,

March is shaping up to be an exciting month at Tulane, one jam-packed with community events and appearances by some of the nation’s most thought-provoking speakers. Below are just a few of the highlights.

Today at 2 p.m., the lobby of Tulane Medical Center will be filled with young patients cheering on more than 100 Tulane medical students and volunteers as they shave their heads in support of children battling cancer. The event is part of St. Baldrick’s Day fund-raising activities taking place worldwide. I am so proud of our medical students who have raised more than $120,000 since 2008 for childhood cancer research.

On March 8 at 7 p.m., Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Rita Dove, the country’s first African-American poet laureate, will read and sign copies of her works at McAlister Auditorium.

On March 9 at 5:30 p.m., Blake Mycoskie, founder of TOMS Shoes, which gives a free pair of shoes to a needy child for every pair it sells, will speak in the Kendall Cram Lecture Hall of the Lavin-Bernick Center for University Life.

On March 15 at 7:30 p.m., acclaimed short story writer Amy Hempel, whose Collected Stories, was named one of the best books of 2006 by The New York Times, Newsweek, The Boston Globe and The San Francisco Chronicle, will read from her works in the Kendall Cram Lecture Hall of the Lavin-Bernick Center for University Life. Hempel’s appearance marks the 25th anniversary of the Zale-Kimmerling Writer-in-Residence program.

On March 16 at 7 p.m., best-selling author and NOVA host Brian Greene will speak in Tulane’s Dixon Hall. A renowned physicist, Greene’s book, The Elegant Universe, popularized the string theory, which holds that all matter is generated by the vibrations of microscopic loops of energy.

These events, which are free and open to the public, would be considered a whole semester’s worth of community and intellectual engagement at many universities but are part of just one special March at Tulane.

Have a great weekend,