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Questions and Comments We've Received

May 9, 2003

Dear Dr. Cowen,

Let me tell you why your Tulane Endowment is so low.

It's because you treat your students so badly around the junior/senior years and then turn right back around and ask these same students(alumni) for money expecting them to forget that bad treatment just a few years back.

Your Faculty and Staff treats them like rich spoiled kids (which sometimes is true to an extent) who can afford a private education and need to be taught a thing or two. You and Tulane's staff and faculty indirectly want to kick them out of the community by nickle and diming them with fees and etc. You then justify all these treatments (good or bad) by the "weaning them from the womb" mentality......

You constantly charge Alumni and recent graduates for memberships to like the Reily Center a much higher fee than students, like 2 to 3 times as much. (not sure if you do that now, but around 1988 to 1993 you did, and from your dire situation again, you seem like you do now as well.) HOWEVER, you then ask these same alumni (those spoiled brats) to give thousands of dollars to Tulane each year. You would think that you should allow alumni to get in FREE, why? SO you can at least give them another reason to at least stay in New Orleans. It's called building "Community".....

(Look at the last Census.....approx 4% reduction in population in Louisiana, with probably 0% reduction in young people. The reason it's 0% percent (that's Z.E.R.O.) is because you never had a gain in the previous 10 years as well, so you can't tell the difference anyway as all young people keep leaving anyway for as long as I can remember.)

See how that works? you, Tulane, JERK your students right around their graduation and then expect them to remember Tulane when they leave the city. I remember how awful you treated the athletes by eliminating like the men's swim program and all I heard from these same ( and there were a LOT of them) students was "I am never going to give back to Tulane when I leave this university". I can't remember a single student saying, "Wow, this has been such a great experience, I want to give money back to them when I am rich."

Moreover, while a student, you would hold all these alumni parties with CATERING....Tulane staff would try to brush away all the students trying to get some food like flies....You could see these food carts going up and down McAlister Drive for Alumni event...yet none for the student who pays what? $20k a year? How much is $3 dollars a plate when you can get in return tens or hundreds of thousands per year in giving??? SEE HOW THE LITTLE THINGS COUNT.

SOUNDS like the SAME POLITICS in LOUISIANA GOVERNEMENT exist at TULANE as WELL

I also sometimes here stories in the distant past how Tulane jerks people around in the Medical community as well with one sided business deals. If you are not in the INNER circle, forget it......Then I am amazed at why Tulane after more 150 years doesn't know why it's endowment is so weak. Feel free to publish this, as I am pretty sure there as lot of people like this.....based upon what I hear personally, if it's one thing I know that Tulane can do, is "Jerk their own people around business wise".

BOOT CAMP versus CLUB MED While academics can mean a better job for students, a BOOT CAMP doesn't MEAN MORE ALUMNI GIVING.

ALUMNI's GIVING is NOT THE SAME as a PARENT'S TUITION. A Parent's tuition goes for 4 years, Alumni giving is for LIFE.

Why don't you take a little Q and A as well a POLL on Students in the Senior years and recent alumni and ask them what can be done better? Ask them what the worst things were that they would change? Ask them about the LITTLE things they would change? ( NOW that's a GOOD question.) Ask what bad things the recent alumni remember. Clearly Tulane is doing something wrong as this problems keeps happening. See how the LITTLE THINGS COUNT???

DON'T BLAME IT on ATHLETICS DON'T BLAME IT on ATHLETICS for the reason why your endowment is not like the other schools. Duke, Vanderbilt, Stanford, and Northwestern are doing something right, why can't Tulane? Tulane has been around for more than 150 years and should ask themselves what have they been doing with all that money. Tulane has NO EXCUSE.

HOW ALUMNI GET a J.O.B. By dropping to 3-A, you make it harder for the Alumni to flash their, "I go to a I-A big school" when applying for a J.O.B.

STREET TRANSLATION of "I go to a I-A big school": The harder you make if for Alumni to get a job, the harder it will be for them to give money back to Tulane. If you don't understand that, your are clueless to the real world of business.....Employers hire not only on what people know, but on WHO they know. "Who they know" means TRUST....the bigger the name the school, the more they can TRUST that person....it's just like buying between Wal-mart or some unknown store.....

BEING SMART is NOT the SAME as BEING SOMEONE I CAN TRUST Going through the hiring practice, the hiring manager is not just looking whether Tulane is an academic school, but also looking if the candidate can do the job AS well as communicate with him, management, and the customer.

IN THE REAL WORLD, the hiring manager has never gone out and looked at the schools overall SAT scores and said, "Oh this student came from a school that had 1400 average student body SAT score". The hiring manager goes out and COMMUNICATES with the candidate and TRIES to get to know the PERSON....it's call TRUST....It's called, "Yes, I have heard of Tulane, that have a good football team." Versus, some 3-A school, "Now, where is that school, never heard of them. Not really sure if I can TRUST YOU, because I have NEVER HEARD OF YOUR SCHOOL."

In the REAL WORLD or business world, it's called, "Getting your name out there". You got some 3-A school that can produce good students, yet are hiring managers going to remember the name of the school of a star employee? NO, they have already forgotten that and all they remember is the employee, not their school. Hiring manager's can't possible remember all the schools of all their employees and associate this school with this quality employee. Hiring manager's remember the employee, not their school.

MESSAGE for ACADEMIA I remember in the student handbook there is this quote by F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. "

Let's apply this quote to the REAL world.

Technical and NON-Technical. The Educated and the Not-So Educated. The Customer and the Company. Management and the Employees.

It's amazing how in the real world of business, how clueless the programmers and engineers are to the needs of "CUSTOMERS"....And the same for liberal arts, they still have no idea how to do technical tasks.....Case in point, CRM "Customer Relationship Management" and SFA(Sales Force Automation) and ERP(Enterprise Resource Planning)......big name software sold by big name companies, IBM, SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, etc.....In the business world, the programmers who write these thing are clearly TERRIBLE. Thus a lot of businesses lost millions and why over 60% of these CRM implementations have failed....and a big reason why the economy in the shape it's in as well.

If was running Tulane, I would make it mandatory that any technical or engineering student take a business course on understanding the customer. As I remember, there were very few non-technical electives needed to graduate with engineering......If I had my way, I would increase and make MANDATORY "ease of use" courses in the Computer Science Department as well and how to communicate to NON-Technical users and how to create programs that are very easy to use so that they don't need a 500 page manual.....If you wonder why government is so screwed up, it's because a lot of these computer programs are so hard to use AND they don't even solve the problem in the first place.

Now, this is coming from a Engineering graduate of BS '88 and MS '90

A lot of companies have failed by hiring graduates with 4.0 GPAs and MBA's from Ivy league schools. Just look at all the dot com's. You would think that all these MBA's being taught about business should not have produced all these bankrupt companies that started with billions of dollars; but it did.

If was running Tulane, I would teach my students, especially those in the technical schools, to understand the customer and see from the customer's eyes and understand what the customer wants. IF I could do that, that would translate in to business success, which means more alumni giving, which means more endowment, which means more better pay for Tulane Staff and Faculty.

ATHLETICS = NATIONWIDE ADVERTISEMENT It's that simple. When a parent (or student) decides to send their child to some far away place, they want to know where they are going and what they are doing. And what's going on with that school they sent them to thousands of miles away. They want to have assurance of what's going on there and on a weekly basis.

You got to ask yourself, how are parents and students in the future going to know who and where Tulane is if you don't ADVERTISE....and if you don't ADVERTISE...student applications will DROP from the shear fact that people just simply forgot about Tulane (it's not like you sell a product nationwide...Ahhh!, but you DO, it's call Athletics). DON'T think that people won't forget about Tulane if you drop athletics....Less Student Applications means less demand, which means less tuition, which means less pay for faculty and staff......(looking in a the U.S News Annual Book on Top Colleges in only part of the decision process, that's a big book as well and there a lot of names in there) As you can see, there are a lot of reasons why Tulane is in the predicament it's in....AGAIN.....

p.s. (Considering the high rate of obesity in America, eliminating Athletics also sends a wrong health message to students that academics is more important than health.)

p.s. I am simply amazed at how many Louisiana natives I meet OUTSIDE of Louisiana who don't live in Louisiana. If it's one thing Louisiana needs is to take is that Tulane student handbook quote, F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. " and apply it to setting a up and running a business in Louisiana versus somewhere else.....HINT: a lot has to do with government waste, inefficiency, etc....LA government needs to see thought the eyes of business.

p.s I do hear some good things coming out of that new mayor Nagin.

*****

Dear President Cowen:

As I sifted through my emails I found a forwarded email from an old college friend. After reading that there is a possibility of Tulane dropping out of the Division I-A for football, I would be remiss if I did not try to convince you differently. I graduated A&S in 1988 and pride my self in following the Wave in all athletic endeavors. Not only has the school's academic reputation not been tarnished by competing at this level, I feel it further enhances the reputation when the team has on field success (12-0 record in 1997, ConAgra Bowl Champion 2002, etc..) or when an ex-player (Burnel Dent, Shawn King, Tim Foley, Ken Karcher, etc..) and ex-coach (Mack Brown, Larry Smith, Tommy Bowden, etc..) make it to the NFL or the top tier college programs, I can say with pride that they attended and played for or worked for one of the greatest universities in the country. Living in Boston with my family, I can honestly say that Tulane is in the same levels of other academic first football programs like Duke, Stanford, Vanderbilt, & Rice. If the goal is to win a BSC, I am honest enough to say that Tulane is not typically among the top choice; however, there are not many Division I-A programs that go into season after season with a legitimate chance to win this honor.

However, to know that Tulane can compete successfully and It is in my opinion that they do, It would actually hurt the school's reputation by quitting or dropping down a level or levels. In an age where institutions like the University of Connecticut and Marshal are upgrading from the I-AA to I-A I think that rather than change from Division I-A the school should rather look to change either conference affiliations, work harder with the NCAA in coming up with a college playoff system (to be played over the Xmas break), or play games in a new location to give the team a more college feel (i.e. City Park). Again, I support the action of remaining at the Division I-A level. If money is the problem, I would like to help in both organizing fundraisers and giving money when and where I can help.

I will leave you with a couple of final notes. When I was in graduate school (in the northeast), I drove across country. One of the first stops we made was at the storied Notre Dame. The school shop sold pennants/flags with every seasons game play listed by score dating back to the schools first year of football. In the yearly part of the 1900's (I believe around the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s) listed on the pennants was Tulane University. Another side note is that I once heard Gregory Peck being interviewed on an old Johnny Carson episode where he proudly talked his early memories about the Rose Bowl where Tulane was one of the teams competiting. My point President Cowen, is that if the Green Wave did not compete among the best these historical moments could have never happened.

I choose to attend Tulane based on its academic reputation coupled with the school's affiliation with big time college athletics. Please do not knock the program backwards, Tulane, its students, its alumni and the city of New Orleans deserve better.

Thank you for your time

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