Tulane University: General Information
2008-2009 Academic Year
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the alumni magazine, were published. The Alumni Association was founded with
800 members, and significant contributions to the University financed new
buildings, library holdings, and research facilities. The Middle American
Research Institute, founded in 1924, became a pioneer in Central American
archaeology and anthropology, excavating and restoring the Mayan village of
Dzibilchaltun in the Yucatan.
Since then, research in many disciplines has flowered through the establishment
of research centers, including: the Murphy Institute of Political Economy, the
Newcomb College Center for Research on Women, the Roger Thayer Stone
Center for Latin American Studies, the Center for Bioenvironmental Research, the
Tulane Museum of Natural History, and the Amistad Research Center, curator of
one of the largest collections in the world of primary source material on American
ethnic groups, especially African-Americans.
As early as the 1890s, Tulane offered free lectures and classes to the New Orleans
community. This commitment to community service was reaffirmed in 1942 with
the founding of University College, now the School of Continuing Studies, which
offers adult education and sponsors the annual Summer School.
After World War II, Tulane's Graduate School and the professional programs
continued to grow. The university was elected to the Association of American
Universities, a select group of over 60 universities with "pre-eminent programs of
graduate and professional education and scholarly research." The Tulane Medical
Center, now the Health Sciences Center, was established in 1969 to include the
School of Medicine, the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, and the
Tulane University Medical Center Hospital and Clinic. The Health Sciences
Center also administers the Tulane National Primate Research Center in
Covington, Louisiana; the F. Edward Hebert Riverside Research Center in Belle
Chasse, Louisiana; and the International Collaboration in Infectious Diseases
Research (ICIDR) Program in Cali, Colombia.
By their very nature, universities are organic, constantly changing in reaction to
their people, their immediate environment, and the educational climate in general.
Most change occurs slowly, over time; unless, of course, something happens--a
hurricane, for example--to speed the process.
In the fall of 2005, following the nation's worst national disaster--Hurricane
Katrina and the subsequent flooding--Tulane University was confronted with
unprecedented challenges and, if those challenges could be mastered, tremendous
opportunities. The administration and the Board of Tulane University were faced
redefining and renewing the university for the future. University President Scott
Cowen called the resulting plan "the most significant reinvention of a university
in the United States in over a century."