Notable New Orleanians: A Tricentennial Tribute

TULANE
UNIVERSITY
Top:Tulane University’s shield, with
overlapping “TU,” has been the symbol of
Tulane since the 1800s.
Bottom: Tulane's commencement ceremonies
are an experience unlike any other. The
Unified Ceremony brings together all
Tulane grads, from undergraduate to
graduate and professional students to
celebrate their day, which includes the
procession of graduates and faculty, keynote
address, and the conferral of degrees. After
the Unified Ceremony, graduates proceed to
their school's individual ceremony, where
they walk across the stage and have their
picture taken.
Service has always been the core
mission of Tulane University—Non sibi
sed suis “not for one’s self, but for one’s
own.” It is fitting, then, the college that
would one day become Tulane was
founded by seven young doctors fighting
cholera, yellow fever and small pox
epidemics rampant in nineteenth century
New Orleans.
Since its origin as the Medical
College of Louisiana in 1834, Tulane
has grown into one of the most well-respected
research universities in the country, offering
degrees in architecture, business, law, liberal
arts, medicine, professional advancement,
public health and tropical medicine, social
work and science and engineering. Also, harking
back to its founding credo, Tulane is
renowned as the first private research university
in the nation to make community engagement
a requirement for graduation.
As a member of the Association of American
Universities—a select group of the sixty-two
leading research universities in the United
States and Canada—Tulane offers “preeminent
programs of graduate and professional education
and scholarly research.” The Carnegie
Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
has recognized Tulane as a university with
“very high research activity” and has included
it in a prestigious category occupied by only
two percent of universities nationwide.
Tulane’s journey to the university it is
today has been long and filled with significant
milestones. In 1847, by act of the state legislature,
the Medical College of Louisiana
became a comprehensive public university,
the University of Louisiana. After closing
during the Civil War years, the university
was subsequently transformed into Tulane
University of Louisiana as a result of the
donation of more than $1 million in land,
cash and securities by Paul Tulane, a wealthy
merchant from Princeton, New Jersey. Then,
in 1884, Tulane was constituted in its present
form as a private, nonsectarian university.
Over the ensuing years, Tulane steadily
moved forward on its path to becoming a
renowned university. In 1885, the university
established a graduate division, which became
the Graduate School in 1925. The year 1886
saw the creation of the H. Sophie Newcomb
Memorial College, Tulane’s coordinate college
for women. In 1894, the College of Technology
was introduced and later became the
School of Engineering. That same year the
campus moved to its Uptown location on
St. Charles Avenue.
As the university expanded, Tulane continued
to add new programs and strengthen
existing ones. The School of Hygiene and
Tropical Medicine, originally formed in 1912,
would eventually become the School of Public
Health and Tropical Medicine. Established in
1914, the College of Commerce would
become the highly ranked A.B. Freeman
School of Business. Also notable, the first
School of Social Work in the Deep South was
formed at Tulane in 1927. The School of
Architecture became a separate entity in 1950
after originally being a department in the
School of Engineering. Tulane’s division of
continuing education—originally known as
University College—continues to operate as
the School of Professional Advancement.
Lastly, Tulane’s Health Sciences campus, in the
central business district of downtown New
Orleans, has experienced extensive growth
and innovation in recent years after the opening
of Tulane Medical Center, a 300-bed teaching
hospital and ambulatory clinic, in 1967.
NOTABLE NEW ORLEANIANS: A Tricentennial Tribute
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