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Letter from Alum

 
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doreilly



Joined: 30 Dec 2005
Posts: 27

PostPosted: Fri Jan 13, 2006 10:42 am    Post subject: Letter from Alum Reply with quote

TO Dean Nick Altiero and Members of the Tulane Engineering Board of Advisors                         Jan 8, 2006

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I Have been waiting for a good explanation from Scott Cowen of the decision to close down most of the engineering school and am still prepared to accept a believable explanation though with time and more statements coming out hope is almost gone

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After receiving advice of James Gill's article in the Times Picayune IÂ download and read it prompting this letter to all of you.

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Gill quotes several reasons given ‘Certain courses lacked the potential to achieve world class excellence" and Tulane has "A commitment to building a world class educational and research institution and implementing measures to insure the Universities's financial stability" and "We want to grow in areas where we have strength. You can't build a major program by fixing levees"

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If those statements truly represent the reasoning behind this action. it stands out like a sore thumb that the only sure cure would be to change management

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Lets think about these statements. "World class Excellence" When I went to Tulane 60 years ago it had a world class engineering school. Tom Feehan was a graduate. He became head of Brown and Root (now Halliburton), Jack St Clare became number two at Shell Oil. Norvin Pellerin built an internationally recognized manufacturing company I ran a company that designed and built on 5 continents and I received in New York the Mole's award formally given to Herbert Hover among others and considered by many the most prestigious award in the industry

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Professor Walter Blessey taught me about prestress concrete. He pioneered it in this country and became President of the ASCE With this knowledge I played a major role in the construction of the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway.

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When I was introduced or written about it was almost always mentioned that I graduated from Tulane University in engineering

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What happened. Are we no longer world class. How will more recent graduates like Tom Jack Norvin and Henry be introduced in the future.

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"Financial stability" I have very serious doubts that the people running Tulane understand a financial report or if their primary objective has been to make a profit or at least to break even. Figures I have been given show the Engineering school collecting less than half the posted tuition rate Before he fired me from his advisory board I asked Eamon Kelly how well he thought General Motors would do if they advertised Cadillacs at $100,000 and gave away half of them for free. Obviously the University has an objective other than breaking even and that was to buy high SAT scores which the Engineering school could do best but showed poorer financial results

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"World class research institution" Waldermar Nelson and I strongly believed Tulane could turn out more useful engineers at less cost if we did not put so much emphasis on research. About 20 years ago the then President announced that Tulane would become a research institution. I suspect that this was timed to coincide with Congresses decision to add money to various bureaus to dole it out to their home schools Since then the administration has strongly pushed research. Nick told me several times that he advised all new hires that they would be spending half of their time on research.

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Simple logic tells you that would mean it would cost nearly twice as much to teach an engineer. You would have twice as many professors, twice as much staff etc etc. I am sure that any of you that run an engineering company and know what it takes doubt that engineering is making money on research and yet that is what their future program was largely based on

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I had several hundred of engineers working for my company. Never once did we hire one trained in research. I have a home near Los Alamos one of the most famous research facilities in the world. I do not know of anyone from Tulane that is working there. My firm spent a lot of money on research. As much as I love Tulane we did not give any of it to Tulane however we did retain knowledgeable experienced professors as consultants

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I know very little about research in the Med School. Indications are that Tulane was doing very well in that area, and these comments are not directed there. I expect there is little or no research in Law and Business. Why should Engineering have that burden

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"Fixing levees" We have had what is being called the most expensive engineering error in the history of the world. And it is in Tulane's back yard. After that disclosure Tulane announces it is going out of the business of training engineers. I hope history does not make some kind of connection. Is protecting the City of New Orleans beneath Tulane's interest. What about wetlands. Isn't that of world wide importance

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What do I see as the real problem. I do not believe that the people running the University understand engineering First lets look at the Board of Administrators. I no longer keep track but for years there was only one Tulane engineering graduate serving on that board. I seriously disagree with the financial requirements to obtain a position on that board and am not surprised at its decisions

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In case you have not noticed, for years the administration looked down on engineering. I pointed this out to Nick and he disagreed with me, but did agree they do not understand engineering. I suggest looking at the TV show prepared to start the last fund drive or look at the Tulane publications not produced by the Engineering school and now look at the quotes in Gills articleÂ

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When the levees broke and the teams of engineers came in to tell us why, I did not read of a single one from Tulane

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Apparently we did not have any of the kind of engineers engaged in outside consulting that taught me when we were a world class institution

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What is wrong with bringing in some experienced practicing engineers to teach part time and let them do outside consulting

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During the holidays I had a very interesting conversation with someone that is an expert on college education and has a position in Washington that she says precludes her from publically expressing her opinion. She has no connection with Tulane. I was fascinated in how her views mirrored my own



She had heard about and was really surprised at Scotts announcement and said she concluded that the administration simply wanted to do away with engineering and if it did Tulane would never attain its previous stature.. She made the comment that why don't the people that want to do this just go off to some liberal arts college



 She said Tulane had a marvelous opportunity to have graduate engineers go to work studying why the disaster happened how to prevent it what should have been done and how to repair the results. I think she meant graduate students from all over. She thought there were several organizations that would jump at the opportunity to finance such a program



She made an astute observation that a decision like shutting down engineering should not be made under stress but Tulane should have resumed operating for at least one semester



It also has become clear enough for everyone to see that politics plays a major role in what engineers can do. I was deeply disappointed that something as vital as the levee system protecting New Orleans was not scrutinized by one or more of the engineering schools. Any opinion they gave out would negate any political interference. That is a lesson that engineers should be taught early



I have had many conversations about this and have yet to find anyone that does not believe Scott is making a mistake. Let me add my personal exception to this. I am still waiting for Scott to  share all he knows and was thinking that led to his decision



I hope many of the recipients of this letter will write their own views



Henry F. LeMieux
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Sylvan



Joined: 15 Jan 2006
Posts: 1

PostPosted: Sun Jan 15, 2006 11:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
I am still waiting for Scott to  share all he knows and was thinking that led to his decision


I emailed Cowen Dec.10 about my disappointment re: this decision and received this reply the next day. I was quite disappointed by his comments about Tulane's responsibility to NO, as well as by the tone in general.

Email from Scott Cowen-


I understand your disappointment with this decision. Please know that it was made only after careful consideration and input from a group of Blue Ribbon Advisors, representing some of the most well-respected academic institutions in the country. In addition, we consulted with the President’s Faculty Advisory Committee, comprised of elected members of the faculty from all corners of the university, and members of our Board and administration familiar with the sciences and engineering. In consultation with these advisors, we decided to strategically focus our resources on programs and schools where we have the greatest potential to achieve a national reputation in undergraduate and graduate education, as well as in academic research. This forced us to make some difficult decisions about which programs and schools best fit these three criteria. Unfortunately, many of our engineering programs were simply too small – in terms of faculty, student enrollments, and funding – relative to their counterparts to effectively compete for national recognition.

While it is true that the recovery of New Orleans offers many engineering opportunities, Tulane is a national institution and cannot structure its programs primarily around the needs of a single region unless we can demonstrate that the focus will help us achieve national prominence in all aspects of research and education.

We have retained our programs in chemical and biomedical engineering and combined them with disciplines in the physical, biological, and chemical sciences to create the School of Science & Engineering. We feel confident that this combination will create strong synergies and an ideal platform to further build Tulane’s science and engineering programs. It is my hope and expectation that this rebuilding process will happen in the coming years as Tulane’s financial recovery takes place.

Scott S. Cowen
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