Tulane University students, faculty and staff celebrated the new homes of the Carolyn Barber-Pierre Center for Intercultural Life and the Center for Academic Equity last week with an open house. Both centers are now in Richardson Building on the Academic Quad of the uptown campus.
In 2019, the university announced that the Office of Multicultural Affairs and the Office of Gender and Sexual Diversity, along with Religious Life, would be renamed the Carolyn Barber-Pierre Center for Intercultural Life. The center honors Carolyn Barber-Pierre, assistant vice president for Student Affairs and Intercultural Life, and a Tulane Trailblazer. The Trailblazers program is an ongoing initiative established by Tulane President Michael Fitts that celebrates the contributions of people from diverse backgrounds who have made a substantial and lasting impact at Tulane. To read more, click here.
A $1 million gift from Board of Tulane member Lisa Jackson, Apple Inc.’s vice president of environment, policy and social initiatives, and her husband, Kenneth, will double participation in the Newcomb-Tulane College Summer Experience (NTCSE). The program helps newly admitted students from underserved backgrounds get a head start on succeeding at Tulane before fall orientation.
Jackson credits a similar program at Tulane with sparking her passion for engineering as a teenager. A top student at St. Mary’s Dominican High School in New Orleans, she attended summer STEM classes at Tulane on a scholarship from the National Consortium for Minorities in Engineering.
In 2019, Tulane announced that the Office of Multicultural Affairs and the Office of Gender and Sexual Diversity, along with Religious Life, would be renamed the Carolyn Barber-Pierre Center for Intercultural Life in honor of Carolyn Barber-Pierre, assistant vice president for Student Affairs and Intercultural Life, who has worked at Tulane for more than 30 years, serving the student community and moving the university toward a more inclusive environmental for all. She is pictured in the center’s new space in Richardson Building. (Photo by Paula Burch-Celentano)
Two centers dedicated to fostering equitable social, cultural and academic programming so that all students can thrive during their years at Tulane, have a new campus home.
A Plan for Now Update
March 4, 2021
Dear Tulane Community:
To become a truly great university – defined by breakthrough discovery, world-class scholarship and transformative personal growth and enrichment – Tulane must become a community that welcomes and supports a diverse array of students, faculty and staff. We must treat each member of our academic family, especially our BIPOC and other underrepresented members, with equity and respect. The past couple of weeks have underscored the need and urgency for us to build this type of community. Recent events
have caused distress for many, prompting deep inquiry, discussion and introspection about racism, sexism and how we work, engage and interact with one another. Together, we must examine our systems and structures as well as our behaviors and biases to consider and understand their potential impact on our BIPOC and marginalized communities.
Chief Shaka Zulu, Black masking Indian/Mardi Gras Indian and co-owner of The Golden Feather Mardi Gras Indian Gallery, shared his experience masking and the history of Mardi Gras Indians in New Orleans during a virtual session with Tulane s ALAMEEA Alliance.
Tulane’s ALAAMEA Alliance (Asian, Latino, African American, Multi-Ethnic, and LGBTIQ Alliance) recently explored the Black and Indigenous roots of New Orleans Mardi Gras in a virtual session for faculty and staff that combined musical performances and historical context.
In “Learning About Black and Indigenous Roots of Carnival Culture in New Orleans,” panelist Laura Rosanne Adderley, associate professor in the Department of History at the School of Liberal Arts, gave a brief history and framework of the interactions of African Americans and Native Americans/Indigenous peoples and how they are connected to Carnival and Mardi Gras Indians.