Three days of industry networking, viewing films, and attending panels in Park City create lasting impressions — and valuable connections — for SLA Digital Media Practices (DMP), Communication, and Cinema Studies students.

An opportunity to attend the Sundance Film Festival — the largest independent film festival in the U.S. — is a dream for many creators. This year, DMP collaborated with student-run organizations Green Wave Films (GWF) and Entertainment Business Network (EBN) to take 13 SLA students on a trip to the premier event.

After arriving in Park City, Utah, the students spent three full days watching independent films, attending panels with renowned industry luminaries, and networking with filmmakers and entertainment executives. As part of a curated Sundance experience, the Tulane delegation welcomed Tatiana Bears, co-producer of one of the most buzzed-about films at this year's festival — If I had Legs I’d Kick You from A24 — for an intimate Q+A. Bears shared insight on the complete filmmaking process, from developing and financing a film, to taking it to a premier showcase like Sundance.

“Attending the 2025 Sundance Film Festival was nothing short of transformative,” said Kristine Liang, DMP coordinate major. “Sundance revitalized my purpose as an aspiring filmmaker, showing me how much space there now is for stories like mine. One of the most profound moments was attending the world premiere of BUNNYLOVR, starring the wildly impressive writer/director, Katarina Zhu. I felt that her fearless exploration of sexual shame, internalized racism, and the complexities of Asian-American identity were breathtaking.”

The trip was led by DMP and Communication Professor of Practice Jolene Pinder, Professor of Practice Duane Prefume, and Adjunct Professor Bo McGuire. Pinder is a Sundance | Adobe Women to Watch Fellow this year; an installation, featuring clips of Pinder’s recently produced short film, was available for viewing at the Adobe House on Main Street during the festival. She, along with a few of the students, were able to do a walk-through of the house to see the installation and meet with Andrea Gutierrez from Adobe. During that conversation, Gutierrez encouraged the students to apply for the Sundance Ignite x Adobe Fellowship for filmmakers aged 18-25 — creating a fantastic networking opportunity they can draw upon in the future.

During his time in Park City, DMP coordinate major and GWF co-founder Noah Levine was able to make steps towards securing a post-grad assistant job in LA. “Going to this year’s festival helped me tremendously both in networking and seeing what this industry is all about firsthand,” he shared. “I was able to meet and connect with individuals from companies I’m very interested in, like Netflix and Paramount. This would not have been possible if I had not been at the festival! Sundance was an incredible experience and helped move my career forward.”

“Sundance offered us a rare glimpse into the world of filmmaking that we had yet to see” shared Olive Wheadon, DMP coordinator major and president of EBN. “We left with an even stronger connection to the craft, enriched by the stories, insights, and energy that surrounded us.”

For DMP coordinate major Mackenzie Camp, a chance encounter with a producer waiting in line for the same movie landed her a job interview with Range Media Partners.

Liang concluded, “It’s the ability of even the most niche and esoteric stories to foster compassion and evoke resonance that drives me as a filmmaker. The energy in those theaters felt incredibly rare — resembling that of an unbreakable community rooted in courage and passion. It was everything I love about film — everything I hope to create myself one day. I am endlessly grateful for the opportunity to have been part of it.”

Of his experience on the trip, DMP coordinate major and GWF Production Chair Julian Hewitt added, "As a student filmmaker, the most you can ask for from any university is an opportunity to be exposed to the film industry. Leaving Tulane with a trip to Sundance was not only a perfect ending to my time as a student filmmaker but ended up being one of the best weekends of my life. To walk around with professionals so casually felt extremely natural and made me confident to take my next step into the industry."

Third from left, Taku Hirano provides musical accompaniment as Lainey Wilson performs during the Quincy Jones Tribute at the 2025 Grammy Awards. Photo Courtesy of CBS via The Recording Academy/Grammys.
 

As one of the industry’s most in-demand percussionists, Taku Hirano is no stranger to sharing the big stage with musical greats like Stevie Wonder, Fleetwood Mac, and Whitney Houston. Most recently, the Newcomb Department of Music Professor of Practice in Music Industry Studies was invited to join the 2025 Grammy award show as part of a star-studded tribute to industry legend Quincy Jones, backing Herbie Hancock, Stevie Wonder, Cynthia Erivo, Lainey Wilson, Jacob Collier, and Janelle Monaé. The invitation for this prestigious honor was extended to him by Greg Phillinganes — former session keyboardist for many of Quincy Jones’ seminal recordings and musical director for Michael Jackson’s world tours.

Hirano met Phillinganes while touring the world for two years on Michael Jackson: THE IMMORTAL World Tour — a joint production by Cirque du Soleil and the Michael Jackson Estate — and has also worked with the musician and director on previous Grammy Awards telecasts, including a tribute to Motown Records founder Berry Gordy in 2023 (where they performed behind Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, and Chris Stapleton), a musical tribute to Lionel Richie in 2016 (where they performed with John Legend, Demi Lovato, Meghan Trainor, Luke Bryan, Tyrese, and Lionel Richie), as well as the All-Star Grammy Salute to Stevie Wonder special on CBS (backing Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande, Ed Sheeran, John Legend, Janelle Monaé, Gary Clark, Jr., Pharrell, Ne-Yo, Annie Lennox, Babyface, and Andrea Bocelli). At Tulane, Hirano applies his invaluable professional knowledge to teaching courses in Music Industry Studies within the Newcomb Department of Music and the Strategy, Leadership, Analytics Minor (SLAM), working with students to shape their own musical careers — and the future of the industry.

He shares his thoughts around the Grammy experience, technology and music, and how he incorporates performances like these into his teaching.

What was your favorite part of the experience?
My favorite part of this latest Grammy Awards performance was reuniting and catching up with longtime and fellow musician-friends. Within the Quincy Jones tribute band, there were friends I hadn’t seen since the Grammys two years ago.

It has always been a dream of mine to be able to take my musical training and apply it to thrilling experiences, backing artists on the largest of stages and on tours around the world. For this year’s Grammys, being in the room and part of the creative process, working out arrangements alongside Herbie Hancock, Stevie Wonder, Cynthia Erivo, Jacob Collier, and Lainey Wilson in rehearsals was a fun, unique experience — and I don’t take it for granted. It is a thrill that few get to experience. 

What did you bring back to the classroom from this experience?
Upon returning to class, I was able to share with my Intro to Music Business (MUSC2800) and Intro to Creative Industries (SLAM2600) classes photos and videos from behind-the-scenes and explain the logistics that went into rehearsals, camera-blocking, dress rehearsals, and the live performance that was seen by 15.4 million people. Also, it came to my attention that I had some students hold a viewing party! It warmed my heart to hear that my students and colleagues were thrilled for me and tuned in.

Which musicians inspired your career?
There are a myriad of musicians who have inspired me. One of my mentors was legendary session drummer Ndugu Chancler, who coincidentally worked a lot with Quincy Jones. Ndugu was one of the drummers on Michael Jackson’s Thriller album, playing drums on the hit song “Billie Jean.” He also worked with Quincy Jones on the film The Color Purple and even appeared in the movie. Ndugu played an instrumental part in both my education as well as introducing me to the music scene once I arrived in Los Angeles upon finishing my undergraduate studies.

Who's playing on your Spotify?
I currently have been listening to New Orleans legends The Meters. Not only are they one of my favorite groups, but they were also founded by my late father-in-law, Art Neville — who also went on to lead the Grammy-winning group, The Neville Brothers.

What are you most excited about for the future of music?
I am interested in seeing the integration of technology and AI with music, and its implications on copyright, rights management, and intellectual property issues. As a graduate student, my main area of focus was copyright, licensing, and metadata as it relates to music, as well as music supervision (the synchronization licensing of music for use in other forms of media such as film, TV, gaming, and advertising). We are in the middle of a very consequential period of how technology is intersecting with the music industry, and I have been keeping a close eye on it.

Erin Grayson Sapp was a student in the School of Liberal Arts' interdisciplinary PhD program — focusing on civil rights — when she first learned about the 1965 AFL All-Star Game and the January day when 58 Black and white players walked out of the Tulane Stadium to protest New Orleans' lingering segregation laws and discrimination against Black teammates. As Sapp continued her research, she discovered just how closely the Civil Rights movement was tied to the fate of football in New Orleans. Now, as the city prepares to host the 59th Super Bowl in February, her new book Moving the Chains: The Civil Rights Protest That Saved the Saints and Transformed New Orleans spotlights this pivotal moment in American sports history and its defining role in creating both the New Orleans Saints and the Super Bowl itself.

To understand the context of the walkout, Sapp studied a decade’s worth of sources on the city’s racial struggles and sports history. After earning her PhD in English and American History, she became a scholar-in-residence at the Historic New Orleans Collection, where access to invaluable archives helped transform her initial term paper into this major project.

In 1965, despite its role as longstanding host of the Sugar Bowl, New Orleans was not yet a football city — especially since integrated university teams and clubs across the nation refused to play here due to the fact that the city was holding onto Jim Crow-era segregation laws. When players arrived for the All-Star Game in January of that year, Sapp explained over email, “The All-Stars were expecting a week of celebration, but instead, the Black players were turned away from taxis, restaurants, and nightclubs.” When Black players checked in at the Roosevelt Hotel alongside their white teammates, they were told they would have to use the side entrance. Their mistreatment reflected the racist policies that ruled the city, creating a mixed atmosphere of apathy and turmoil.

The All-Star boycott had the power to break through some of this apathy. “In New Orleans, before the walkout, civil rights progress largely took place slowly and quietly, behind closed doors,” Sapp shared. “The walkout gave citizens a popular cause to rally behind, a shared reason to openly promote progress.”

The game was meant to be a crucial stepping stone toward giving the city its own professional football franchise — something locals believed was just out of reach. “With the All-Star Boycott,” Sapp explained, “suddenly racial conservatism was football obstructionism. In a striking reversal of old trends, widespread change took place very openly and quickly after the walkout.” By 1966, when three Black players returned to New Orleans, their cab driver took them right to an oyster restaurant in the French Quarter.

“The driver explained that those guys didn’t realize the impact they had,” Sapp emphasized. “The city wanted pro football so badly they had accelerated integration, meaning cabs, cafes, and clubs were open to everyone.”

On February 3, 2025, mere weeks after the 60th anniversary of the All-Star Game walkout, two players — Pro Football Hall of Famers Bobby Bell of the Chiefs and Ron Mix of the Chargers — will return to New Orleans and join Sapp for a talk at Tulane School of Law. The two are among the many 1965 All-Star players who went on to major pro football careers, winning awards and Super Bowls — while often using their platforms to continue advocating for social change. “This was a very early example of activism in American sports,” Sapp stated. “And they had no idea what the repercussions would be. They had a monumental impact that wasn’t even lost over time, but rather downplayed in real-time, and just never fully brought to light.”

“Locals have long clung to that colorful story of backroom politics (not serious civil rights reform) as the origin of the Saints,” Sapp remarked. In 1966, two Louisiana congressmen greased the necessary palms to pass antitrust legislation through Congress so that the American Football League and National Football League (NFL) could merge — a move that gave New Orleans hope for their own team and created America’s first Super Bowl. While the rest of the Saints’ origin story is familiar New Orleans lore — a shady quid pro quo between a Louisiana politician and the NFL commissioner — the All-Star Game and its athlete activists get left out of the picture. After the protest, many white New Orleanians became defensive. As the likelihood of getting a pro team increased, New Orleans wanted to prove to the NFL that they were a big-league city and any new progress was “just proof that the city had been had been tolerant all along.” As a result, Sapp said, “Locals largely never admitted change was needed — and never celebrated that it occurred.”

Moving the Chains is the first book to spotlight the All-Star Game boycott and its significance. Sapp found it “heartbreaking” to learn that many All-Star players felt forgotten for their activism. “They deserve to be honored for their courage, action, and impact,” she said. “I only wish more had been during their lifetimes.”

Erin Sapp (SLA '13)

Like all good historians, Sapp excels at connecting dots and uncovering hidden throughlines. The All-Star Game boycott and the progress it ignited helped the city land a pro football franchise; in turn, the Saints redefined New Orleans. With their own team, New Orleans became a major city, football hub, and event destination — hosting their own Super Bowl in 1970 (at Tulane Stadium). Moving the Chains and the All-Star Game legacy further proves how much the Saints mean to New Orleans.

“The power of the team stands out to me as something exceptional, unlike any other league city. And the walkout explains why that is,” Sapp emphasized. And since unity was so key to founding the Saints, she goes on, “From day one, the Saints club was absolutely everyone’s team.”

Order Moving the Chains: The Civil Rights Protest That Saved the Saints and Transformed New Orleans from LSU Press and other booksellers, and stay tuned to register for the February 3 event at Tulane School of Law.  

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.