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Brinkley leaving Tulane for UNO

 
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wckirby



Joined: 10 Dec 2005
Posts: 355
Location: New Orleans

PostPosted: Wed May 16, 2007 7:39 pm    Post subject: Brinkley leaving Tulane for UNO Reply with quote

http://www.wwltv.com/local/stories/wwl051607jbbrinkley.770e267b.html

The reason I'm posting this here is this was one of Cowen's "coups." He really chased after Brinkley. Cowen wanted the name recognition at any cost. He's had a huge salary and a light workload at Tulane.

I'll also put it on the record that I think Brinkley is a lousy historian. He never fact-checks his books. Early in "The Great Deluge" (horrible title, a deluge is great by definition; it should have been the Deluge) he says the levees in 1927 were blown up to flood the Lower 9th Ward. The levees were actually blown up further downriver and flooded St. Bernard and Plaquimines Parishes.

Is this another rat leaving a sinking ship? No matter what, it's egg on Cowen's face.
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lob



Joined: 10 Dec 2005
Posts: 17
Location: New Orleans, LA

PostPosted: Sat May 19, 2007 2:20 pm    Post subject: Brinkley Reply with quote

One of the background reasons for the dissolution of the School of Engineering was the high cost of faculty. Engineering professors should make at least as much as the entry level graduates from their schools. That prices engineering faculty well above the average for undergraduate faculty at large.

That did not seem to apply in the case of Brinkley, who according to the Times-Picayune [1], was making over $150,000 per year at UNO. That was before Tulane wooed him away. Until recently, Brinkley lived in the converted church designed by Albert Ledner on Jefferson Avenue across from Newman School, a multimillion dollar property. It was not typical digs for a university professor. (I'll miss walking by and seeing the huge James Dean/Elvis poster in the foyer). One wonders how much Tulane was paying him.

That Brinkley would be wooed away from Tulane, just as Tulane once wooed him away from UNO should not come as a surprise to anyone. There is "world class" irony in Tulane's premier historian leaving to join a university where engineering is central to its mission.

Tulane's spokesman in the news article was surprisingly frank about much the loss means to the university:
Quote:

At Tulane, Paul Barron, Tulane's interim senior vice president for academic affairs, said he was dismayed by Brinkley's decision to leave.

"We are very disappointed, and we tried very hard to keep him," Barron said.


[1] http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-21/1179385415301370.xml&coll=1&thispage=2
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