Save Tulane Engineering

TchernaviaJ · Joined: 22 Dec 2005 Posts: 3 Location: Biloxi, MS

So as I'm checking my webmail, I see an email with the above subject line and the following message:

Good Morning:

The link below will bring you to a special holiday card that looks forward
to the New Year and a new season of hope and renewal for Tulane University.
I hope you enjoy it.

http://www.tulane.edu/HolidayCard2005.html

Happy Holidays,

Scott

Now as I recieved this email via the Gulf Coast alumni network, I'm sure not everyone on the board has seen this pile of crap.. I've always known that Cowen has been a PR whore but this little montage seriously made me sick. Don't position yourself and/or Tulane as a force in the rebuilding of New Orleans when you've shown complete disregard to those that are capable of leading the effort. Don't show me clips of what Tulane and the city of New orleans was some 100 years ago, when you are destroying the legacy that Tulane was built to leave and has left in this city.. And I'm sure he and his PR flack are patting themselves on the back for their little "Do you know what it means to rebuild New Orleans" catch phrase, but obviously its just that, a phrase, as they have ABSOLUTELY no idea what it means....

ET097 · Joined: 10 Dec 2005 Posts: 41

This morning I made the decision to not look at Cowens little card, because I knew it would only make me upset. Well that lasted for all of about an hour before my curiousity overrulled common sense. All it did was rub more salt into the wound he already created by killing engineering.

wwalkeri · Joined: 12 Dec 2005 Posts: 136

Disgusting. A total slap in the face to those who lost everything.

lob · Joined: 10 Dec 2005 Posts: 17 Location: New Orleans, LA

As I recall, Tulane engineers wear orange tassels at graduation.

In Tulane's "holiday message", a cluster of graduates wear orange tassels on their mortarboards

They're engineers.

Scott Cowen is right. To rebuild New Orleans, we need to focus on our priorities. Let's start with art direction in public relations. No competent art director would have let a photograph of engineers go out in that piece just as the administration plans to dismantle the school.

If it was an intentional nod at history, it comes across as an insult. I more strongly suspect it was a dumb oversight from the same folks who purport to "know what it means to rebuild New Orleans" without engineers.

The engineers will come from somewhere, just not Tulane. Future Tulane graduates can find other ways to help out. Let's just hope they're not producing the press releases.
_________________
W. Stuart Lob
BSME 1982, MSME 1984

kgalloway · Joined: 21 Dec 2005 Posts: 16

The Times-Picayune published my editorial on the subject!
http://www.nola.com/archives/t-p/index.ssf?/base/news-6/1135407551116580.xml&coll=1
I also emailed them the picture of the orange tassels.
_________________
Kyle J. Galloway
CVEN '09