As students, our education is guided by lectures, papers, and exams, but the world inside the classroom is often much simpler than the world outside of it. What would happen, though, if the two worlds collided? If the idealistic theories of the classroom clashed against the difficult practices of reality? Well, look no further than Professor Leslie Scott’s fall course, “Philanthropy and Social Change.”

“Philanthropy and Social Change” is a service-learning course that uses experiential philanthropy to study the nonprofit sector, civil society, and social justice. Students in the course act as grant funders, using a $10,000 grant from Doris Buffett’s Learning by Giving Foundation to fund not-for-profit performing artists in New Orleans. This “learning-by-doing” approach forces students to confront the power and privilege of managing scarce resources in the face of abundant need.

On Wednesday, December 4, the course culminated in its student-led award ceremony, which brought together the students from the “Philanthropy and Social Change” course, Tulane faculty and staff, and the award recipients. Checks for $5,000 were presented to the two recipients of the class grant: Music Box Village and Culu Children’s Traditional African Dance Company.

Music Box Village is the flagship project of New Orleans Airlift and opened in 2011. A whimsical village of artist-made interactive “musical houses” and architecture, this grant will help fund a Creative Industries Internship Program — helping young adults in New Orleans to learn technical skills in music and art event production.

Culu Children’s Traditional African Dance Company — the organization I selected to represent during the course — is a children’s dance organization founded by New Orleans native Mariama Curry in 1990. Culu is dedicated to the documentation, preservation, promotion, and education of traditional African folklore. The company attends a traditional African dance conference each year and puts on its own annual conference in New Orleans during the summer. This grant will help fund their 35th anniversary conference, “A Visit to Africa.”

With tears in their eyes, both recipients accepted their checks and thanked the class for their work. Leah Hennessy, Interim Executive Director of Music Box Village, shared her appreciation for the students in the course who volunteered at Music Box by working the door, scanning tickets, and even doing manual labor to set up for shows. After some tough times, she explained, this grant was “everything.” Curry also became emotional when expressing her gratitude for the award. “This is the largest amount of money we’ve ever gotten,” she said. “You work so hard but are rarely acknowledged for your work. So, when you are,” as she wiped tears away, “it means a lot.”

The award ceremony was a satisfying finale for an intense semester of advocacy and deliberation. While only 2 applicants received funding, the class began with 26. The course itself was composed of 26 students, each tasked with representing and advocating a community partner. Throughout the semester, students met in person with their community partners to craft a student-led presentation to request funding. This is what made the course unique — instead of applicants writing their own application, students committed time to learning about their partner and created a grant application for them. This is also what constituted the service-learning component of the course. Around 15 hours were spent meeting with partners and developing their presentations. The remaining 5 hours were spent volunteering. Since most applicants were not funded, volunteering ensured that students still gave their community partner something impactful — their time.

Additional check presentations at the awards ceremony.

Students were also responsible for creating their own adjudication process. All decisions, from creating the process to selecting the winners, were decided by a majority vote. Ultimately, we decided that 1, 2, or 3 partners would be awarded. The minimum amount that could be awarded was $3,000, while the maximum amount that could be awarded was the full $10,000. The award would be unrestricted, meaning the recipients could use the funds on whatever they needed (programming, operations, etc). We created our own weighted rubric, which assessed criteria like use of funds, necessity and urgency, and impact. The overall grant funding process was conducted over 3 rounds.

I feel so lucky to have been a member of the fall 2024 “Philanthropy and Social Change” course. I had taken courses about nonprofits and development at Tulane before, but nothing compared to this course. I saw firsthand the inequities of how grant funding operates in the United States, with many large foundations requiring lengthy written grant applications, extensive financial documents, and, for recipients, reports on exactly how the grant was used. This course challenged those norms. We did not make our community partners take time out of their busy lives to write a grant application, nor did we require them to prove finances or share every detail of how they intended to use the funds. This approach, trust-based philanthropy, was the bedrock of our class’s approach.

This extremely personal process allowed me to have a service-learning experience that I never could have imagined. I am leaving this course with new relationships and connections that will last long past this semester. I have had the pleasure of forming an authentic relationship with Mariama and the mothers and children of Culu. I helped them make marketing materials for their shows, and we celebrated their award at a Friday night dinner. I plan on attending their annual conference and seeing the beautiful art our class funded come to life on stage!

The Verdict Is In 

Eleni San, (SLA ’25)

Originally published in the 2024 issue of the School of Liberal Arts Magazine

The night in question?

A Halloween soiree and benefit for the local children’s hospital. The crime? The theft of all the auction items and the brutal beating of a security guard. The suspects? There was the mysterious young Poe Cameron, whose DNA was found at the crime scene, or the securities mogul and amateur art collector B. F. De La Porta, known to covet two of the auction’s paintings that would complete their collection.

While this scenario sounds like the subject of pulp fiction, these were the basic facts of the case that Mock Trial students found themselves arguing throughout the past year against rival university teams. Each year, the American Mock Trial Association publishes a fictitious case for students to dissect and defend, alternating between criminal and civil litigation. Students prepare for every aspect of a legal case, applying realistic legal principles to craft narratives for defense and prosecution, primarily by selecting from a cast of stock characters to call to the witness stand. As witnesses, students had no trouble getting creative, inventing lively characters like an elderly philanthropist with a thick Greek accent, a single-mother waitress who holds an obsession with Joanna Gaines, and a successful shawarma cart entrepreneur with a penchant for neighborhood gossip.

For Mock Trial attorneys, winning is chiefly dependent on style and presentation — smooth arguments, illuminating lines of questioning, and dignified confidence — and this year’s case presented a considerable challenge. There were two defendants for the prosecution to choose from every round, requiring two defense cases to be prepared and little notice of which would be selected beforehand. One of these defendants, Poe Cameron, had no affidavit to derive a background, facts, or even an alibi. Instead, those defending Poe were able to come up with everything shy of denying involvement in the crime, and those prosecuting found themselves along for the ride.

Despite being a relatively young program, TUMT gained immense traction this past year, first rising to the nation’s top 25 percent of teams before making it to the opening round of the national championships (ORCs) for the very first time.

Unlike most other teams, Tulane’s organization is student-run and -operated, affording those in the organization many leadership opportunities, from executive board positions to captainship over individual teams. Furthermore, because of the multi-layered executive structure, most members serve in leadership positions at some point during their tenure in the club. These officers work closely with several faculty advisors, including Professor Nolan.

The executive board often relies on Nolan’s assistance in surmounting bureaucratic barriers and promoting the organization. He takes the time to meet with students regularly to keep an eye on various issues and works alongside students to come up with solutions to bumps in the long road to the national championships.

“Professor Nolan has given me some of the best personal and professional guidance. He goes out of his way at every meeting to ask how we are and provide career and academic advice, and has always been one of TUMT’s most prominent institutional advocates,” said TUMT President of the Exterior Kaylee Horne (SLA ’25).

Beyond Words

Originally published in the 2024 issue of the School of Liberal Arts Magazine

The Transformative Impact 
of Language Learning

Roxanne Dávila, Associate Dean for Language Initiatives, Interim Associate Dean of Curriculum, Senior Professor of Practice of Spanish & Portuguese

In our increasingly interconnected world, the ability to communicate across cultural and linguistic boundaries is more crucial than ever. The liberal arts are at the center of this global dialogue, fostering critical thinking and creativity while emphasizing the profound significance of languages. In today’s world, learning to communicate in multiple languages extends far beyond mastering grammar and vocabulary; it is also about understanding different cultural perspectives and historical contexts. By communicating across different languages, we can build community, make connections, and draw comparisons; all, while at the same time fostering global connectivity and cultural empathy.

The following professors’ insights showcase why studying languages and cultures is essential to the liberal arts framework. From enhancing cognitive skills to creating career opportunities and bridging cultural divides, our emphasis on languages equips students to become informed global citizens.

French

Fayçal Falaky, Chair of French & Italian Department, Director of Middle East & North African Studies Program, Associate Professor of French & Italian

Tulane’s Department of French & Italian is pioneering an educational transformation with its “French Across the Curriculum” initiative. This program, branded by the slogan “make your other major go global,” integrates French language proficiency into a variety of academic disciplines, transcending traditional boundaries and infusing new vigor into humanities education. As the chair of the department, I am proud to lead this effort, which not only elevates the role of French in our liberal arts curriculum but also prepares our students for the diverse challenges of a globalized professional environment.

Thanks to the generous support from a grant from the French Embassy in the United States and the Albertine Foundation, we are poised to expand our offerings significantly. The funding will enable us to develop additional interdisciplinary courses that continue to blend French with other fields such as psychology, law, and environmental studies. We will also be able to subsidize the costs of the Diplôme de Français Professionnel (DFP) exams. The Diplômes are professional French-language certifications that assess the ability to use French in real-world business and professional situations, providing students with credentials that are recognized globally.

Another exciting development enabled by this grant is the creation of a K-12 outreach program. This initiative will establish connections with local French immersion schools to foster early language acquisition and promote continuous language learning through to the university level.

These initiatives represent just the beginning of what we hope will be a growing trend across American universities to appreciate and use the French language as a tool for professional and personal development. By integrating French language study with substantive academic inquiry across disciplines, we will set a transformative example for the future of language education in the United States.

Haitian Creole

Laura Rosanne Adderley, Associate Professor of History

It is not uncommon at Haiti-related artistic or cultural events in Louisiana to have someone mention the visual similarities between New Orleans and the city of Jacmel in southeastern Haiti. Often, this mention relates to something visually obvious such as shared characteristics in 18th- or 19th-century architecture. Or some people may have experienced the pre-Lenten carnival season in both locales.

When the Patois Human Rights Film Festival of New Orleans hosted a screening of Kanaval: A History of Haiti in Six Chapters, this documentary, set in Jacmel, drew an audience of over 200. Members of that diverse audience could readily appreciate the African and French influences in the Haitian Creole title of the film — Kanaval — and why the organizers use the linguistic term “patois” to name a film festival designed to promote multicultural understanding.

Most of the connections between Louisiana and Haiti have roots in a multi-century history of shared European colonialism and widespread African enslavement. What captive Africans produced creatively and politically in fighting colonialism and slavery has given us much of what is valued as core cultural heritage in both places in the 21st century. It should surprise no one that in our local public history environment we find Bruce “Sunpie” Barnes, a legendary zydeco musician, ethnographer, writer, and one of the most visible advocates for the strengthening and revival of kouri-vini — Louisiana’s own French- and African-derived Creole language.

From the era of colonialism and slavery, the history of the Gulf South has been intertwined as much with the Caribbean as with North America. Between 1791 and 1804 when enslaved people in the French colony of Saint Domingue overthrew that slave society to create the free Black Republic of Haiti, displaced populations both free and enslaved came to south Louisiana, increasing the local populations by significant percentages in New Orleans and beyond. In 1811 enslaved people in south Louisiana, many with knowledge of the success of the Haitian Revolution, led the largest antislavery uprising in what is now the United States.

Given the deep connections between Louisiana and Haiti, our Haitian Creole language courses allow students to understand the multifaceted relationships between this local region and the Caribbean. Through the Haitian Creole language program, students can gain a nuanced appreciation for the historical exchanges that have shaped New Orleans and the broader Gulf South region.

Engagement with these connections may be found in multiple public culture spaces in greater New Orleans. While other U.S. cities have larger Haitian American populations and different avenues for engaging many contemporary Haitian issues, New Orleans offers students a uniquely deep opportunity for rooting their Haitian, Caribbean, and French studies in historical and global contexts.

Native American & Indigenous Languages

Judith Maxwell, Professor of Anthropology & Director of Native American & Indigenous Studies Program

Learning any new language opens our minds to new ways of thinking, of categorizing the world, of interacting with other beings around us. The languages of the Americas are rich in the lore of this hemisphere and its cultures. All of the Indigenous languages of the Americas are in danger of extinction. Hundreds are no longer spoken. Fluent speakers of many languages can be counted on the fingers of one hand, while some languages in the United States still have hundreds of native speakers. Languages of Central and South America may have hundreds of thousands of speakers, but all are in danger of being replaced by the language of their European colonizers. American linguist Michael Krauss (1998) estimated that by the end of this century over half of the surviving Indigenous American languages will have disappeared. With these languages go worldviews and epistemologies.

In the School of Liberal Arts, we teach a variety of Indigenous languages, among them Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya, Kaqchikel, K’iche’, Ch’orti’, and Tunica. Our earliest documentation of the Tunica language comes from the late 1800s. This documentation consists of the field notes and publications of three linguists: Albert Gatschet, a Swiss ethnolinguist who visited Louisiana in the 1890s; John Swanton, who in the 1910s worked with one of the speakers whom Gatschet had interviewed; and Mary Haas, who worked with the last known native speaker in the 1930s. This speaker, Sesostrie Youchigant, died in 1948. The language died with him. Nonetheless, Donna Pierite, wife of tribal member Michael Pierite, took it upon herself to revive the language. She acquired copies of all the publications on the language and most of the field notes. In 2010, a cousin, Brenda Lintinger, sought help from me and Tulane students to aid in the effort. Since then, Tulane students and alumni have worked with members of the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana to bring back the language as a medium of communication and creativity.

An intensive summer class, taught during the first two weeks of June, gives Tulane students enough fluency in the language to help teach children at a week-long summer camp on the reservation. After this immersive experience, students can continue to collaborate with the tribe, preparing teaching resources and games, transcribing archival records, recording songs, and participating in cultural activities such as basketry summits, quilting circles, potting, herbalism, and stickball.

For heritage speakers, using their native language brings them closer to their cultural heritage, bolsters self-esteem, and provides a vehicle for community cohesion. During one winter immersion, a young groundskeeper who could only join the classes during his work breaks looked at me during a tutorial and, with tears in his eyes, said, “You are teaching me my language.” Tulane students are playing an important role in helping to restore access to this language and identity.

— The BIGGEST — FREE PARTY ON EARTH — THE ECONOMICS OF MARDI GRAS —

Originally published in the 2024 issue of the School of Liberal Arts Magazine

When asked about the start of the Mardi Gras season, most people might say it begins 10 days before Fat Tuesday or with the early parades like Krewe du Vieux or Chewbacchus. Some might pinpoint January 6, Twelfth Night, as the day the city begins to transform itself into the official colors of purple, green, and gold. However, those deeply rooted in Mardi Gras traditions understand that while public displays of Carnival don’t happen until early January, the preparations for the next season start almost immediately after Fat Tuesday has passed. Krewes begin to develop themes, royalty is chosen, and artisans begin sketching out designs.

In early March 2022, just days after Fat Tuesday, I received a call from Ben Dupuy, a representative of the Mayor’s Mardi Gras Advisory Council. He proposed a meeting to discuss a potential collaboration. They, along with New Orleans & Company, wanted me to conduct an Economic Impact Analysis for the 2023 Mardi Gras season, with a comprehensive report due by January 6, 2024.

There are 4 main phases of a project such as this

Planning: forming the questions being asked; figuring out what data is needed and where that data can be found

1. What economic activities in New Orleans are directly linked to Mardi Gras, and should we, for example, include tourists who visit during, but not because of, Mardi Gras in our analysis?
2. How do these direct effects multiply into indirect effects, such as the economic impact of money earned by a float builder?
3. Does this economic activity displace other potential activities, such as a household throwing a Mardi Gras party instead of another type of party?
4. What local and state tax revenues are generated from these activities?

Once the questions were clearly defined, the next step was to formulate a data collection plan, mindful of the potential for double counting. For instance, if a krewe spends money at a local restaurant, this economic activity must be included in the report. However, including both the krewe’s expenditure and the restaurant’s Mardi Gras-related revenue would overstate the economic impact. Additionally, some data would be unavailable, requiring the use of proxies. For example, without extensive surveys, it was challenging to determine household spending on Mardi Gras parties along the parade route. Fortunately, to attempt to solve this particular problem, I obtained revenue figures from local grocers, which allowed me to make informed predictions and extrapolate the necessary data.

The New
Green WaveAdvocating For Reproductive Justice

Originally published in the 2024 issue of the School of Liberal Arts Magazine

L-R KARISSA HAUGEBERG, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR & EVA-LOU JOFFRION EDWARDS NEWCOMB PROFESSOR IN HISTORY, KATE BALDWIN, PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH & COMMUNICATION, AND CLARE DANIEL AT the International Movements for Reproductive Health and Justice Symposium.

What might it look like to bring together scholars from around the world with local activists, students, and people who work in reproductive health and reproductive justice? When SLA faculty Kate Baldwin, professor of English and Communication, and Karissa Haugeberg, associate professor and Eva-Lou Joffrion Edwards Newcomb professorship in History, with Senior Professor of Practice and Director of Research at Newcomb Institute Clare Daniel, were awarded a $225 thousand grant from the Mellon Foundation to host a prestigious Sawyer Seminar on reproductive justice in the Gulf South, they began an in-depth exploration into this question. The seminar, The New Green Wave: Reproductive Justice in the Gulf South and Beyond, kicked off in October 2024. Below, Baldwin and Haugeberg share a preview of what else we might expect in the coming two years.

When we tell people about the grant, one response we get frequently is “What is reproductive justice?” This is usually a good place to start because, for the purposes of our Sawyer Seminar, we follow SisterSong’s definition of reproductive justice as “the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities. “This helps people understand, for example, the critical links between racial justice, environmental justice, and reproductive health and rights. Our seminars will include scholars and partners from many disciplines and backgrounds. One of the best things about this grant is our opportunity to collaborate with community partners while also connecting with international scholars working on reproductive justice in other national contexts. Our kickoff began with a symposium in October — International Movements for Reproductive Health and Justice — featuring scholars visiting us from nations including Ireland and Mexico.

In conceiving this seminar series and related activities, it has been very important to us to think outside the box. For example, whenever possible, we plan to rethink the traditional academic conference format, in which scholars typically read and respond to written papers. For the October conference, each panel paired visiting scholars with a local community partner. Our conference partners included some of the most dynamic voices in reproductive justice and health in Louisiana. Petrice Sams-Abiodun, vice president of Strategic Partnerships at Planned Parenthood of the Gulf South; Tyler Barbarin, director of Grants and Development at the Louisiana Abortion Fund; Alex Moody, staff attorney for Lift Louisiana, an organization that advocates for women’s reproductive health, rights, and justice in Louisiana; Martha Silva, professor of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, Tulane University; and Latona Giwa, executive director of the Midwest Access Project, a national nonprofit that seeks to improve the lives of marginalized women and their families. A moderator introduced each guest, asked the community partner to describe their organization’s relevant work, and then asked the scholar for an example from their research to demonstrate the past or present state of reproductive justice or health, from their perspective. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we reserved time for the panel of scholars, activists, and practitioners to engage in conversation about the ways their research interests and work experiences intersected. These panels were organized around themes that include history, Latin America and the borderlands, parenting, and injustice.

One of the first things we did after brainstorming this format was host a meeting with potential community partners — inviting them to the literal and figurative table to provide feedback on our proposal. We discussed the best practices for using humanities and the arts to have an impact within our communities without it being a one-way street, to open a dialogue in which our invited scholars are learning from our community members, and vice versa. Our community partners advised us how to best shape our seminars. For example, one of our community partners advised that if we want to engage a range of communities, we should be creative in where we host our events, and take into account access to transportation, parking, and childcare. Another community partner suggested that we might encourage audience participation with table readings of a play, story workshops, or artist demonstrations. Could we include a skill-building workshop within each seminar? For example, have a follow-up workshop on how to do grassroots messaging, or how to tell stories effectively for advocacy, how to use media and/or disseminate research for public engagement? We also talked at length about ethical research within communities.

Finally, we have been thinking about the impact, the longer-term piece that will be archived so that the seminars can be accessed and stored for posterity and future engagement. Highlighting dialogue between scholars and activists and underscoring what they can learn from each other are distinguishing features of our seminar. To help achieve some of these goals we’ve hired a graduate student assistant, Darcy Roake, who is completing a PhD in History, and a postdoctoral fellow, Sarah Hedgecock. In addition to helping us plan the upcoming seminars, they have created a website and are working on a podcast series so that people can continue to engage with the materials from the seminars and build upon the exciting work done throughout this project.