TULANE TALK

October 3, 2008

Good Morning:

There is a lot of excitement as we enter this Homecoming weekend. Our Green Wave football team is on a roll and playing its best ball in years, the weather is picture perfect and, most notably, we have just exceeded by $30 million the goal of “Promise and Distinction: The Campaign for Tulane,” our ambitious (some called it crazy) effort to raise $700 million by the end of 2008.

The success of the campaign puts our endowment, an investment fund from which the university derives income for our programs and operations, at the $1.1 billion mark at the end of the campaign. Only 76 universities in the country have endowments that large.

The Lavin-Bernick Center for University Life; the Center for Public Service; the new Greer Field at Turchin Stadium; the new addition to the A.B. Freeman School of Business; support for medical scholarships and the Department of Neurology; the James R. Doty Distinguished Endowed Chair in the School of Medicine; the Cowen Institute for Public Education Initiatives; the Wall Fund projects, the establishment of neighborhood health clinics and the donation of the Murphy Building for our School of Medicine are some of the many wonderful results of Promise and Distinction.

There is much more to come as we continue to elevate our standing among the most distinguished and influential universities in the nation. I look forward to sharing with you the impact of Promise and Distinction and hearing your ideas regarding our future plans at a Town Hall meeting in the LBC’s Kendall Cram Room at 10:30 a.m. today.

We plan to celebrate Promise and Distinction’s success throughout the weekend beginning tonight with Wave ’08, an all-alumni reunion at 6 p.m. in the LBC’s Qatar Ballroom and Kendall Cram Room. At 7 p.m. tonight there will be a pep rally and fireworks display on the LBC Quad followed by a concert by New Orleans’ legendary Funky Meters. The pep rally, fireworks display and concert are free and open to everyone.

Tomorrow at 2 p.m., of course, is our Homecoming game against Army with plenty of tailgating and good times in and around City Park’s Tad Gormley Stadium. For a full list of all our Homecoming activities, please visit: http://tulane.edu/homecoming/schedule.cfm

I hope to see you at the Town Hall meeting or one of this weekend’s many celebrations.

Have a great Homecoming weekend,