Alumni, Students, and Faculty, after much searching the complete list of Tulane’s Board of Adminstrators contact information is here.

Please send letters and emails to these Board members ASAP and tell them why engineering is important to New Orleans, Tulane, and to you personally. Remember that the Board meets March 16th and 17th so we have until then to make an impression. Thanks for everyone’s continued support!

Read President Cowen’s Response to the AAUP

You will notice in the letter that President Cowen claims(pg. 3) that only 166 clinical and tenure track faculty were let go. This is seemingly inaccurate information. On Tulane’s own website, http://renewal.tulane.edu

Tulane openly admits that:
“The financial recovery aspects of the renewal plan address the budget shortfall the university anticipates in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and will result in the phased elimination of approximately 50 faculty positions in discontinued undergraduate and professional degree programs. Another 180 faculty positions will be eliminated at the medical school as a result of the decreased population and changing health care needs of New Orleans.”

Recall: 50 (tenure track) + 180 (tenure track and clinical) = 230 (clinical and tenure track).

That’s a difference of 64 faculty members. Where did they go?

Now, one of three things just happened: Tulane has misled the AAUP, or things aren’t as bad as President Cowen wants us to believe, or things have happened since December 8th that show that things aren’t as bad as previously thought. We’re hoping, for the sake of New Orleans and Tulane, that it’s the third.

The applicable quote from the AAUP Letter is:

“The decision at Tulane to eliminate more than 200 full-time faculty positions, by far the largest number of mass terminations of faculty appointments ever, is of course a key concern for the AAUP under our longstanding responsibilities. ”

That’s definitely not limited to only medical school and clinical staff like Tulane’s letter suggestsRead the AAUP Letter to President Cowen

It has been a long time, too long in fact, since we have updated you all on our progress. There are two reasons for this: (1) School has started and our time is now torn between performing well academically and working towards our effort. (2) We have been unable to disclose information we have received in confidence. Rest assured that we are still working hard to do all that we can to Save Tulane Engineering.

Now, the good news: The American Associate of University Professors (AAUP) has responded to the numerous faculty complaints regarding how the administration formed the ‘Renewal Plan’ in the form of a letter to the administration. We have obtained a copy of this letter, which we present to you now. We hope that the AAUP will exert as much pressure as possible on the administration. The appeals process at the university level is slow at best. We hope that the AAUP’s influence can speed this process along as quickly as possible.

In the future we are going to be focusing our efforts on a select group of people. These are the people who have the most influence over the current administration, the Board of Administrators.

At the town hall meeting with Dr. Cowen, he was careful to stress that the decision to cut engineering was “purely financial.” If that is true then we will hold him to that. He refused to provide a number that would be a fundraising goal, saying that we would just be trying to plug the hole for the next few years, not generating a real long term solution. Note that while an endowment generates a set amount of money each year, the idea of lifetime pledges would generate the same type of renewable money and would require comparatively less money. Tulane was just promised more money by the government, along with not having to pay back unused financial aid packages from this past semester. Read about it here.

Yesterday marked the first day of classes. It was also the Town Hall meeting with Dr. Cowen for the engineering students. We tip our hats to Dr. Cowen for using the time mostly as a question and answer session. However, the continued lack of transparency from the administration to the students, faculty, and alumni is disturbing. We would like to take this chance to thank all of the students who came to both the town hall meeting and the rally. We realize that missing class, especially on the first day, can be a difficult choice. We will be posting some photos of the rally soon. The next Support Engineering Rally will be scheduled on a weekend so that the Alumni can join in. Also, it will be much more organized, with pre-made signs, and perhaps food. Thank you for your continued support and please continue to wear the t-shirts around campus. For anyone who has not picked up your t-shirt, do not worry. We will schedule more times where we can get them to you ASAP. Also, if need be we can try to accommodate people who are not on campus often by providing an alternative off campus (but in Uptown) pickup point. If you feel you would need this pick up option please email staff@SaveTulaneEngineering.org and we can try to make those arrangements.

We are also considering furnishing signs to put up in student’s dorm room windows around campus, especially those that are along McAlister. These signs would have tasteful text on them, perhaps even something as simple as Support Engineering or the like. Please feel free to leave your suggestions for signs on the forum. If you are interested in having a sign in your window, please contact us at staff@SaveTulaneEngineering.org Thank you for your continued support. We realize that we are fighting an uphill battle, however keep in mind, that as a student, an alumnus, or a faculty member, Tulane is our home, our alma mater, our passion. Anything worth having is worth fighting for!

The shirts are in! Finally we can start to hand these things out. Save Tulane Engineering apologizes for the long delay. We will have some team members stationed at the PJ’s under Stern on the following dates and times to hand out the shirts. Please bring your Tulane ID, or some other equivalent form of identification.

Saturday: 12-4pm
Sunday: 12-4pm
Monday: 12-4pm

We have ordered a second batch (different style, produced locally) that should be available by that Saturday. We will be selling them for 5 bucks each. Show your support for Tulane Engineering and pick up a shirt.

As you know, President Cowen will be attempting to provide us with answers to the reasoning behind his and the Board’s decision. We are asking you, and everyone you know, to come show your support with us in front of Gibson Hall from 12 – 2pm on Tuesday January 17th. We need to show the city, and the nation, that we disagree with this decision. The press will be there to take some nice photos. So, be sure to wear your Tulane Engineering shirts!

It has been a very busy weekend. A few interviews here and there, and lots of thoughtful planning on what our next move will be. President Cowen will be meeting with parents and freshman on the 12th of January at 4pm. We are asking all who are in town to attend. We don’t want to disrupt the proceedings. Just watch and listen. Take in the manner in which President Cowen answers questions and the explanation he and the board gives for their actions. This will help in the development of a counter movement.
We are asking for everyone to post at least one question on our forums that you would like President Cowen to answer during his ‘Town Hall Meeting’ with the Engineering student body on the 17th of January. These questions should be short and to the point. We want him to be able to answer them on the spot, possibly a little squirming. Tulane’s administration has a lot to answer for. This will be our first opportunity to get them. We need your help. Support Tulane Engineering.

P.S. In theory, the first batch of T-shirts should arrive this afternoon. If they do, we’ll post times and locations on where you can pick them up.

The article in the NY Times about Tulane’s Renewal Plan has been moved to either Sunday or Monday’s paper. We are sorry for the late notice, however we just found out today. Also, our first organizational meeting will be tomorrow Sunday January 8th at 1pm in Audubon Park, across from Gibson Hall. We hope to see anyone already in NOLA at the meeting. Thank you for your continued support.

The ‘broad and sweeping changes’ brought forth by the administration have been met with disbelief and disappointment from faculty, students and alumni. Save Tulane Engineering has been working hard since the announcement and it is starting to pay off.

First, the good news: Save Tulane Engineering has had interviews with major news organizations like the New York Times, CNN and a steady stream of requests from others. These news organizations have traditionally taken the PR talking points directly from Tulane. Now they are beginning to see that Tulane’s PR department has been less than honest with them in the recent past. Thankfully, The New York Times will feature an article (This Saturday in the National Section) about Tulane and the elimination of its School of Engineering. This comes at a time when New Orleans needs Tulane’s Engineering talent most. Save Tulane Engineering members provided information the New York Times that, we feel, will help produce a well-rounded article.

Second, the sad news: The administration has been less than forthcoming in the recent week. Requests for board minutes, meetings, financial numbers, and explanations for why specific programs were cut have been met with deafening silence. They do not take our cause seriously. It has become increasingly clear that the goals of Tulane’s administration are out of sync with the goals of New Orleans. President Cowen has called for a ‘Town Hall Meeting’ on the 17th of January for all engineering students. This will be Cowen’s only opportunity to convince engineering students of the validity of the atrocious decision his administration has made. Save Tulane Engineering is determined not to let Cowen dictate the future of our institution. It is our institution too.

Save Tulane Engineering will be holding an organizational meeting Sunday January 8th 2006 in Audubon Park at 1pm, directly across from Gibson Hall. If you are in town we hope you will attend.

The Save Tulane Engineering Team has been back in New Orleans since late last week. In that time we have met with the majority of the Deans of Engineering, various faculty members, and alumni. The purpose of these meetings was to better understand the events of the past month. It is clear that the top levels of the administration made the decision with an apparent disregard for the academic integrity of Tulane University. This was not, and is not the best decision for the future of Tulane. New Orleans is now the world’s largest engineering laboratory. Tulane has every opportunity to be at the forefront of the rebuilding process at its most basic levels. Instead they have chosen to alienate themselves from the city we all know and love.
The departments that were cut: Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering were the programs that had the most to gain from this missed opportunity. Each of these programs could have grown through grants, government involvement and increased interest from other higher education institutions.
None of the department chairs were consulted in the decision. Nicholas J. Altiero, Dean of the School of Engineering, was consulted in the weeks prior to the decision and developed an alternative plan. This plan suggested cuts both in Engineering and in the Sciences and called for the elimination of the required number of faculty members, but not departments as a whole. However, his plan was disregarded as a viable option. One explanation for the lack of consideration is that the removal of tenured faculty would require the elimination of their department or program.
One note of interest is the timing of the announcement. By giving the faculty exactly 18 months in which to find alternate employment, the university has absolved itself of its obligation to provide severance packages. In the opinion of many faculty members, the remaining engineering programs, Biomedical and Chemical, are significantly weakened without the ‘core’ engineering programs. How can Tulane ignore Computer Science in the 21st century? How can you not have a Civil Engineering program in today’s New Orleans? These are questions that the administration has not answered. Obviously, one cannot conclude that Tulane is stronger without these programs.
The continued lack of transparency only results in a growing distrust in the administration. The manner in which this decision was made has opened Pandora’s box. Faculty, students and alumni in every department are now keenly aware of the disregard exhibited for tenure at Tulane University. This distrust will serve to hinder the recruitment of world-class faculty in the future. Save Tulane Engineering hopes the administration will realize their mistake and work with faculty, alumni and the student body to secure a real future for engineering at Tulane.