Dear Tulane Community:
"Hit the streets."
That’s the advice I give Tulane students when they arrive on campus for the start of a new academic year.
Allow me to explain.
Each year, in early September, the Community Action Council of Tulane University Students (CACTUS), an umbrella organization of more than 40 service projects and clubs, sends 1,000 Tulane students to serve their community. During tomorrow's Outreach Tulane – as this event is known – students will weed, plant, sort, paint and partner their way through New Orleans.
They will work with 25 community organizations, including the Historic Treme Association with whom they will help beautify an essential part of our city. They will join A Community Voice to hand out information on lead safety and other environmental issues. They will clean, mulch and landscape City Park and assist our neighbors who have intellectual or developmental disabilities through Arc of Greater New Orleans.
In these, and multiple other ways, our students will show why Tulane is the nation's No. 1 university for Community Service, according to this year's Princeton Review rankings, and why we are also No. 2 in the Students Love These Colleges category; No. 3 in College City Gets High Marks; No. 4 for Happiest Students; No. 6 for Best Quality of Life; No. 9 for Best-Run Colleges and No. 13 in the Impact Schools category.
These rankings are just a small (but important) part of the great news I will share during today’s State of the University address for faculty and staff, which will take place at 3 p.m. in McAlister Auditorium. The event will also be streamed live here and a reception will follow in the Marshall Family Commons of the Goldring-Woldenberg Business Complex. A taco bar, giveaways and a raffle will all be part of the fun. Be sure to wear your green and come prepared to be impressed by the historic heights to which you have brought Tulane and the amazing journey we will embark on together in the coming weeks, months and years ahead.
