Tulane will offer two academic semesters for undergraduate students between January and June 2006 to help address the educational disruption to its students during the Hurricane Katrina disaster.

The first will be our regular spring term. As of now, we are planning for classes to begin on Tuesday, January 17, 2006 and run for 15 weeks through early May. Freshmen will also be provided with an orientation period during the weekend prior to the beginning of classes (Jan. 12-15).

After an exam period and a short break, the regular spring term will be followed by a 7-week “Lagniappe Semester” running from May 15 through the end of June, 2006. As described more fully in the FAQs, for students who paid their full-time tuition (adjusted for financial aid) to Tulane for both the Fall ‘05 and Spring ‘06 semesters, there will be no additional tuition charge for courses taken in the Lagniappe Semester. For all other students tuition will be charged on a discounted basis as described in the FAQs.

Students may register for the regular spring semester on either a full or part-time basis, and then may register for up to three additional courses (9 to 10 credit hours) in the Lagniappe Semester; or, with the approval of their advisor, may take a maximum of four courses (but in no case more than 13 credit hours in total). Of course, the Lagniappe Semester is optional so that each student can decide what is in his or her best educational interest.

We believe this approach to Spring ‘06 will give students who opted not to attend a host institution this fall the opportunity to catch up on their progress to degree and graduate with their class. Students who have earned credits on a part-time basis during Fall ‘05 and enroll for both the regular spring semester and the Lagniappe term will be able to stay on track toward their intended date of graduation or even accelerate their progress to degree completion. Finally, other students, regardless of whether they earned credit in Fall ’05 or not, may choose to enroll in both semesters but take fewer courses in each term in order to have more focused study time or simply to allow sufficient time to deal with other issues that were created by the disruption caused by Hurricane Katrina.

We are planning for students to be able to register for the regular spring term in November. Information about courses to be offered in the Lagniappe Semester will be made available in advance of the spring registration deadline, so that students will have sufficient time to confer with their academic advisors before registering.

We know that there will be many questions relating to the impact of having two academic terms between January and June on matters such as tuition, financial aid, commencement, summer employment and internships, etc. We have attempted to anticipate the most common questions in the FAQs that follow. We will also provide more information on these issues and others as soon as it is available and, of course, each school will be issuing more specific information as it relates to that school’s undergraduate programs. However, we felt it was important to let you know now how we intend to handle the spring terms so that we can hear back from you on your concerns and so that you can begin to formulate your plans accordingly.

The Graduate School, the MEng program in the School of Engineering and the masters programs in the School of Architecture will follow the same schedule for the regular spring term as described above relating to undergraduate programs. The School of Architecture Lagniappe Semester will run one week longer for those enrolled in studio courses.

Professional schools, however, may follow different schedules than what is described above. Students in those schools should click the appropriate link below for further information.

School of Business (MBA)

School of Law

School of Medicine

School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine

School of Social Work

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