Dear Tulane Community:
With the Thanksgiving holiday approaching, I have never been more confident that gratitude can literally change the world.
At its most transformative, gratitude is neither a two-way street nor a closed loop. It’s a Fibonacci spiral, expanding exponentially even as it circles back around. For a perfect example, one need look no further than Celia Scott Weatherhead, the namesake of the newly minted Celia Scott Weatherhead School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.
Celia’s record-breaking lifetime gifts to her beloved alma mater were inspired by her boundless gratitude to Tulane for the transformative educational experience she received and the lifelong bonds she built as a student. By giving back to the university she loves, she is inspiring gratitude in countless others: students who will benefit from new scholarships, faculty who will benefit from new research funding and facilities, and people across the world who will live longer, healthier lives thanks to the work of our faculty and alumni. Celia has ensured that innumerable others will be encouraged to keep the gratitude spiral going, scaling up our impact in an ever-widening path.
In keeping with our motto of not for oneself but for one’s own, part of the magic of the gratitude spiral is that it’s driven by altruism like Celia’s with no expectations attached. In a million different ways, our students, faculty, staff and alumni are also selflessly making a difference in the world and maintaining the momentum of generosity.
Take the architecture students who designed and built a tiny home for a man who had been unhoused for nearly twenty years — and then chipped in to help furnish it. Or the biomedical engineering students who are building training wheelchairs for toddlers — a story that prompted thousands in donations for the program from viewers around the country when it first aired nationally on CBS News.
I am thankful for efforts like these, and so many more, that draw on our institutional resources and expertise to build a healthier, kinder world for all. Together, we are extending and expanding the spiral of gratitude to ensure that the positive impacts of our work last for generations to come.
P.S. I hope many of you will gather for an early meal on Thanksgiving Day so you can join us at Yulman Stadium to see the Green Wave football team take on the Memphis Tigers at 6:30 p.m. A nationally ranked Green Wave playing a home game on Thanksgiving Day is certainly something to be thankful for!
