New Tulane Honors URL!

I have decided to go ahead and create a new website/address for our Honors site. The links still don't work quite right (I will fix them during the baby's nap) but all the info is there.
The links should all be working now! Please let me know if they do not.

Also, you may now email me at the slightly less egotistical address of cbrady@tulanehonors.org.

Tulane v. SLU @ LSU

This is not sponsored by the University (Tulane), but my family and I will try and be there! :-)

So from David Murphy, you are invited:

There will be a student run tailgate party starting at 8:30am on Saturday across the street from the stadium on Nicholson drive. We will have food, refreshments, and fun. For info, they can contact:
David Murphy at 225-802-4477 or
Lauren Roberts at 225-933-2116

LAS Spring Schedule

From the LAS Dean's website:

Spring Academic Plans:

Plans are currently been established for Tulane's spring reopening. This will include an almost normal spring semester folllowed by a compressed nine week semester. The purpose is to allow students that sat out for the fall, or who took part time course load the opportunity to catch up. A more detailed documemt will be posted on the Tulane website www.tulane.edu

Pre-Med Advising

Kathleen Maier, our pre-med advisor, is now available online at kmmaier@cox.net but she does not have regular access to a computer until this weekend.

Support & Solidarity from our Colleagues in NL

A wonderful email I received from the NL:

Dear Honors-colleagues, dear professor Brady,

With horror we have witnessed from a distance the disaster that has struck New Orleans and the N.O. area. More so, since we have been guests at the NCHC conference 2004 in New Orleans and have visited your programs and colleges in connection with our attendance of the conference. We have admired your programs and offices, being all -differences notwithstandig- such stimulating and challenging environments within your universities. Especially the fact that you all seemed to have succeeded in creating a honours community has inspired us much.

Knowing some of you and your work, it is very sad for us to realise how your work and your environment might suffer from the present catastrophy.

First of all, we would like to express our deepest sympathies with you and your staff and students! We do seriously hope that you will not have to mourn over lost lives. Without these, however, we realise that for many of you, your students and your universities it will take much time, effort and resources before you can take up your normal lives again - if that is possible at all.

If there is anything that we can do for you or your program or students, please let us know. Although we are long-distance colleagues and our universities and programs may differ a lot, perhaps we can be of any use. At least we will do our best to see whether we can meet some need that you may have, or try to find someone or some institute that may better be able to meet this need.

Do not hesitate to put forward a request in these times.

Meanwhile, we would like to express again our sympathy and to wish you strength and luck in these hard times!

Kind regards,

Maaike van Leijen (Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies, UvA)
Marca Wolfensberger (Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies, UvA & Dept. of Geography, Utrecht University)
Jan Bergstra (Dept. of Informatics, UvA)
Machiel Keestra (Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies, UvA)
Albert Pilot (Interdepartmental Institute for Teacher's Education, Utrecht University)
Gerard van Wissen (Dept. of Law, UvA)
Andre Schram (Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies, UvA)

Honoursprograms of the University of Amsterdam and Utrecht University, the Netherlands.

Tulane Honors Program Website

I have mirrored our website on my server. I will update it later, but what is important for the moment is that the proper forms for Honors Theses are there. Obviously the deadlines will be altered.


UPDATE: Please see the new URL http://www.tulanehonors.org/

CIS - Study Abroad

Dr. Mary Clark, the Director of our Center for International Studies, is currently visiting at LSU. If you have any questions regarding Junior Year Abroad feel free to email her at marygaz1@yahoo.com.

Central PA help?

If there is someone with a trailer hitch from central PA coming down to the NO area and you are willing to pick up a small pop-up camper trailer to bring please let me know. This camper is being donated for a person left homeless by the storm, but we need to get it down here. Email me if you can help. Thanks!

Student's Mobilizing

Message from Kevin Lander
From: Kevin Lander
To: Dr. Chris Brady
Subject: Hurricane Relief
Message: I have set up a Non profit relief fund through Cactus with 3 of my fellow students. Check out the website: www.nolahurricanefund.org.

I think it shows student initiative and commitment to the city. We would appreciate your endorsement of the site (possibly with a quote) as well as linking it from your blog.

We have also been working with Hamilton Simons-Jones, just so you know.

THanks and stay safe,

Kevin

Kevin - Happy to!

Where are you?!

I would like to know where you all are and what you are doing. So please email me at cmm @drsbrady.com with your current contact information (especially email address) and let me know where you are now and what you are doing this semester and plan to do next semester.

Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions you may have!

Tuition FAQ

Be sure to read this FAQ about tuition for this fall!

No Additional Tuition Will Be Charged

President Cowen has issued another statement and has made it explicit that no student will pay more than the usual tuition for Fall 05. The relevant section (but read it all):

It has recently come to my attention that some of our students have been asked to pay tuition at their host institution. Let me be clear: No Tulane student will ultimately have to pay more than they would have if they were at Tulane for the fall semester. Therefore I have instructed university financial staff to make sure this issue is resolved in a fair and equitable manner as soon as possible once we have access to our student billing records and the manpower to review and resolve each situation. Just be patient because it will take several weeks before we are able to address these issues. In the meantime, any student who had to pay two tuition bills should contact twicepay@tulane.edu immediately and identify yourself as an affected student, giving us as much information as you can about your circumstances.

Tulane University

A temporary slimmed down site is up at http://www.tulane.edu/ that will have daily posts from Dr. Cowen and other Administrators. Be sure to check daily and visit the specific sections listed in the bar on the left.

Senior Honors Theses

I know that many of you who are seniors are very worried about graduating with University Honors. I want to assure you that we are going to do everything we can to make this as seamless and easy as possible. Let me go through the requirements. I have mirrored the Honors web-page with graduation requirements here.

GPA - For University Honors students must have a 3.600 (magna cum laude) or 3.800 (summa cum laude) cumulative GPA. For departmental honors students must have a cumulative GPA of 3.400 with a 3.500 in their major.

The GPA standards will remain.

Honors Courses - For University Honors students must have completed two 300-level or above Honors courses. Participation in a Junior Year Abroad program fulfills this requirement.

We will try and make sure students fulfill this requirement as much as possible, but we will be flexible. Do not worry about this requirement now, but make an appointment as soon as you return to campus in January.

Thesis - Students must complete a honors research project or its equivalent in their major, as determined by their department. This is usually completed throughout a student's senior year, but obviously the normal schedule will be untenable now. A one-semester thesis, however, is not uncommon. Below are suggestions for how to approach your thesis this year.

Start your research now. Where possible find a faculty member at your current institution that is willing to consult with you and aid your research.

Contact me with your topic, major, and (if you have one) your Tulane thesis advisor. I will work to get you in contact with your TU thesis advisor (or find you one).

As soon as possible I will update the thesis forms and schedule for a one-semester thesis. When you register for spring classes you will register for 500H in your major department, complete your thesis, and defend it during the exam period in the spring.

Challenges - The sciences will be the most difficult to manage since lab work is usually required. We will simply have to wait until I can make contact with the various departments to determine their expectations. Contacting faculty may also prove difficult under the circumstances.

Guidelines for accepting Tulane Students

Within Dr. Cowen's announcement is a link to a statement from the leaders of nine higher education associations outlining the guidelines they are recommending for acceptance of students from the effected region. This will not answer all your questions, but it will address many. Perhaps the most common concerns area addressed in this section:

Admit students only on a visiting or provisional basis, so that they remain students of their home institution;

Do not charge tuition if the student has already paid tuition to the home institution; and if the student has not paid the home institution, charge the home institution's rate of tuition and remit that amount to the home institution;

Certainly other fees, including room and board, would be charged by the host institution as appropriate.

Be sure to read the whole statement here.

No School this Fall at Tulane

From President Cowen. Please see the link above for the full statement.

Since my relocation to Houston, I have had more access to information about the situation in New Orleans. I was hopeful that recovery would soon progress. However, given the ongoing situation in the city, I am forced to make an extremely difficult decision – Tulane University cannot hold a fall semester on its campus.

UPDATE: Several folks, including the comment below, are asking about how scholarship, credits, etc. will transfer. I have sent messages to the senior administrators asking for specific answers. For Senior students who are wanting to write an Honors thesis please contact me directly at cmm @drsbrady.com and I will discuss it with you. This will not be a problem for you!

The Weekender Blog

One of our Honors students has blogged his evacuation and reaction.

New Orleans / 2005 Hurricane Katrina

These are some amazing before/after satellite images. It seems that whether we are looking at close up pictures of the anguish on people's faces or images from space the devastation is immense.

Latest News

From President Cowen. Be sure to check the site regularly.

Current Status

September 1, 4 p.m.

Dear Friends of Tulane,

After five days on campus, our emergency team has just arrived in Houston from New Orleans, where we will be joined by the rest of our senior leadership team from locations around the country. We will be working out of Houston effective immediately. Now that we have access to electricity and Internet connectivity, we will be corresponding regularly via this website: http://emergency.tulane.edu

Our immediate priorities are:

1. Attend to the needs of our faculty and staff who remain on campus. They are safe but living conditions are not good. We evacuated the entire uptown campus safely. As of today, only a core team of public safety and facilities personnel remain. We are in the process of evacuating personnel from the Health Sciences Center downtown . Additionally, we are trying to continue to supply provisions to the remaining staff on-site at the Primate Center in Mandeville. All of the students who were evacuated to Jackson State University in Mississippi have returned to their homes or are in the process of returning to their homes.

2. Re-establish our communications with constituencies ASAP. In particular, we will be giving guidance within 48 hours about our plans for this semester. I understand everyone's anxiety but we need additional time to assess the situation in New Orleans.

3. Begin the recovery process. The campus did sustain some damage, though it generally fared very well during the storm. There are many downed trees, some buildings sustained water damage, and some roofing tiles were damaged. The necessary repairs are manageable. The dorms are intact and students' belongings are safe.

I will update you again no later than 11 a.m. CST tomorrow, September 2, 2005. Please disseminate this email as widely as you can through any additional means you may have.

Scott Cowen

Tulane Student Blog

This is a blog from one of our students. His words are his own, but are powerful. As are the pictures at the site, and they were takenbefore the flood.

Don't Transfer!!
I'm too tired to be persuasive, so I'm just gonna speak from the heart. Being in my fourth year at Tulane, I have developed a special relationship with both the school and the city. Even without a big time sports team, I have as much pride for Tulane as does a fan of UT or Michigan. The reason I picked Tulane when I was a freshmen is because I felt that they would go out of their way to give me the best experience they could provide. And they did. While I knew I'd be paying out the ass for school, I felt that I was getting my money's worth. Tulane will bounce back and fulfill this same promise. In fact, they will do everything in their power to make up for the terrible events that transpired. I bet there's a fantastic party right when we get back.

Tulane needs us. If too many us of transfer, they'll lose tons of money and it will bring them down, significantly. If anything, we could do a little good in life. We can help them recruit a class next year, or we can just hang tight until we get more news on relief efforts. If you must go, then you must go. But those of you that stay it wont just be for yourself, you'll be doing Tulane a great favor.

I hear about Freshmen trying to transfer, and I'm sure some will. But let me just urge to not to. Let me urge you to wait it out a semester, take classes somewhere else, or find a cool job around home. Life is full of expected situations, but go with your gut on this one. If you feel the love from Tulane that I felt when I was an incoming freshmen, then give it a chance.

Let me make you a promise, if Tulane isn't a life-changing experience, I'll buy you a drink at the Boot.

Tulane University Emergency Information

As you all know by now the city is a mess. I do not yet have a clear sense of what will happen for this semester. Dr. Cowen and his administrative team have relocated to Houston as of today (Thursday) and I expect to hear an announcement within the next 2-3 days. Please continue to monitor the link above for the latest information.

Thank you to those concerned, my wife and our children are safe and our house suffered minimal damage (we are in Covington). There is no power or phones so we have relocated to be with family. I can be reached at cmm @ drsbrady.com