Women's Ultimate Frisbee - Phoebe Coughlin

            On of my most favorite things I am involved in is being on the Women’s Club Ultimate Frisbee Team! Our frisbee team is called the Muses, after the all women’s parade during Mardi Gras; we love attending the parade every year as a team. Our men’s team is called Rex, after another Mardi Gras parade. There about thirty women on the team, most of which never played frisbee before coming to Tulane. The team is very tight knit and it is great to have such an awesome and supportive group of friends! Everyone is welcome to join at the beginning of the year not matter what their skill level is. I grew up playing soccer my whole life but had never played frisbee before coming to college and now it is absolutely one of my favorite things to do!

            One of the best things about playing frisbee at Tulane is going to frisbee tournaments! We attend about eight tournaments a year all over the Gulf South. We leave New Orleans on Friday afternoon after finishing up classes and return on Sunday night after a full two days of frisbee. This weekend we are headed to the “Tally Classic” tournament at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida! We have been to tournaments at Vanderbilt University, University of Alabama and University of North Texas to name a few! We play other college teams from all over the Gulf South and the country.  Often times teams from the northeast and Midwest come to tournaments in the South where it is frisbee weather year round! It really fun to meet people from all over the country who share a common bond, they love playing frisbee!

            At Tulane we have over thirty club sports, everything from ice hockey to crew to soccer to equestrian and quidditch. They are a great way to get involved, stay active and make awesome friends! To learn more about club sports at Tulane please check out the link below!

http://www.reilycenter.com/index.php/clubsports/club-sports-directory/

Be In That Number!

Community Service, Service Learning, and Advocacy at Tulane

As one of few universities that requires all students to complete serving learning before they graduate, it may come as no surprise that community service is a huge aspect of many Tulane students lives.

Aside from the Community Service Fellowship scholarship program and the two-tiered service-learning graduation requirement, there are many ways that Tulane students get involved with community service and/or advocacy based work on or off campus!

Swim 4 Success volunteers teach water safety skills and basic swimming
skills to local children at the Reily Recreation Center.

One of the main ways current students get involved is by joining one of nearly 50 organizations that fall under the Community Action Council of Tulane University Students (CACTUS). The CACTUS umbrella is a student-run resource council within the Undergraduate Student Government (USG). We receive funding and support from the university to provide transportation, logistical support, and other useful resources for our organizations to complete daily, weekly, and monthly service opportunities.

CACTUS organizations are divided into five affinity groups that work together to co-program, share ideas, plan events, and work with non-profits, governmental organizations, and other community partners around the New Orleans area. We have organizations working with and for youth in the city, health-related organizations, global service programs, serving to improve Tulane, and providing community support.

If you don’t see something on our list of active organizations, you can start one while you are here! All we ask is that you find 10 other current students that are also interested in being a member of the organization and a faculty or staff advisor! 

Tulane's first and only service dog program, TUSTEP, aims to raise and
train disability assistance dogs for Canine Companions for Independence. 

CACTUS has seen tremendous growth through the years, adding numerous projects and inspiring thousands of students to volunteer.

One of the most well known service initiatives on campus is the Outreach Tulane Day of Service. Outreach Tulane is a student-run university-wide day of service that provides ~1,000 students the opportunity to volunteer at dozens of locations around the city. It occurs on the first Saturday of each school year, welcoming students back to campus each Fall.

Check out the videos below to see what else the Tulane Center for Public Service and CACTUS do to support the local community!

What will you do to be in that number?

 

No Greenie Left Behind - Sam Patel

       Like pretty much every other college student, I was excited for my study abroad program in Copenhagen, Denmark, and of course ended up having an amazing experience.  Unlike most students, I spent the last week of my abroad program in a Danish hospital after fracturing my ankle in three places.  However, as a student at Tulane, I was in a unique position with an outstanding crew of professors, staff members, and friends that quite literally helped me to get back on my feet again.   

          

Taking a hands-on approach to learning about the Danish health care system 

               On the bright side, my injury came towards the end of my four-week summer program in Copenhagen, Denmark.  Tulane has several great summer programs that let you to take two classes with a Tulane professor while abroad.  I was taking an introductory neuroscience course and an animal behavior course, and had awesome time exploring Copenhagen and eating pickled herring for the first three weeks.  When I got hurt, I ended up having to go to the ER and waiting to have surgery for about twelve hours.  I was really lucky to have made some great friends on the program that stayed with me in the hospital, and then continued to come back and visit me throughout the week as I recovered.  One of my friends even switched her flight so she could help me get through the airport on my flight back to Chicago!  The three professors on my program came to visit me in the hospital too—even the dean of students, Dean James Maclaren, came to see me, despite the fact that I wasn’t a student in either of his classes.  My constant stream of visitors kept my spirits up.  It was a strange, challenging experience to be stuck in a foreign hospital for about a week, not to mention being pretty much immobile, but the great group of people on my program made it the absolute best that it could be.

            Because I was unable to take my final exams, my professors gave me a huge extension on my last week of work in my two courses.  I was able to take my animal behavior final online a few weeks later, once I was back home in Chicago and had been able to recuperate a bit.  For the neuroscience class, because I had missed some lectures, my professor, Dr. Beth Wee, and I met up in the fall when I had returned to school.  She took time out of her jam-packed schedule and met with me numerous times to teach me all of the material that I had missed, and then let me take the exam as soon as I was ready.  This wasn’t really a surprise though, as Dr. Wee is pretty well-known on campus for constantly going the extra mile for her students.   Both my professors were so accommodating and went out of their way to be helpful, giving me all the time I needed until I was ready to actually finish everything.  They also continued to check on me throughout the semester as I recovered.

            My freshman year, I participated in an experience before classes started called the NOLA Experience.  On this program, first-year students get a chance to come to Tulane a week early and do fun activities to get to know the city.  It was one of my favorite parts of my first year, and I continued to participate in the program as a student leader, or an ‘OC’, my sophomore and junior year.  This experience has since grown into the Explore program, offering programs with a variety of themed experience for freshman spanning everything from food to sports to journalism.  For my senior year, I was especially pumped to participate as an OC in a newer program called Greenie Camp, named after a former Tulane mascot.  In early July, I had returned home from Denmark and had a second surgery a week later.  I was set to be on crutches for a good few months.  I knew that this would affect my participation in Greenie Camp, and I was crushed.  Beyond that, I didn’t know how I would make it through the semester on crutches.  With a heavy heart, I wrote an email to my staff leaders, Jered Bocage and Peter Young, who work in the Alumni House.  I explained to them my situation, and I told them that I hoped I could participate in the program, but I could understand how my participation might be more of a hindrance than a help.  Realistically, I couldn’t imagine how they would want to deal with me being on crutches as we headed to an off-campus retreat center and traipsed around New Orleans for a week.  I sent off the email, expecting that my days as a Greenie Camp OC would be over before they had even started.

My Greenie camp buds wheeling me around the French Quarter

          The next day, I had gotten an email back from Jered.  As I read his email, I realized how lucky I am to be at Tulane and to have so many wonderful people in my life at school.  I couldn’t keep the grin off my face as I relayed the email to my mom.  Jered acknowledged all my concerns but quite simply and firmly told me they had a strict policy: “No Greenie left behind.”  He told me to come back as planned, and they would do whatever they could to help me participate in the program, while also planning to be flexible in case I was doing too much.  Feeling optimistic again, I crutched off to Tulane to start my senior year.  

            Once I arrived on campus, it truly hit me how difficult my semester would be.  At home, I had my parents and siblings to help me with everything—getting up and down stairs, helping me make my meals, driving me places.  I was worried about how I was going to get through the semester.  It turned out that I had nothing to worry about.  I was so fortunate to be part of a group of ten OC’s—a stellar group of student leaders picked to lead the program.  I was soon blown away by how much they were willing to do for me.  My friends came through for me in an incredible way.  We went on an overnight retreat on the program, and I was worried about having to crutch all over a camp center—my friends pushed me in a wheelchair all over the camp so that I could get to all of the activities.  Admissions counselors Morgan England and Jeff Schiffman were also staff leaders on the program, and helped take care of me as well.  Morgan would zip around the city in her tiny smart car with me in the passenger seat to transport me to places like Café du Monde.  As the week continued, I grew more and more appreciative of all these amazing people.  When the program was over and we jumped into classes and extracurriculars starting, I was still able to rely on their help, along with some assistance from other friends.

            I live off-campus, about a ten-minute walk, but there was no way I could crutch to campus and all of my classes.  Luckily, Tulane has an Office of Disability Services (ODS), which was kind enough to provide me with some short-term help.  For the first few months of the semester, my friends would laugh as they witnessed me getting chauffeured around campus on a golf cart.  I also had many friends that volunteered to drive me to and from campus for my classes and for various extracurricular meetings.  Every once in a while I would get into a tough spot and need a quick ride, and there was always a friend willing to drop what they were doing to come and get me.  I never could have gotten through this semester without them.

            Even though having a broken ankle and being stuck on crutches for three and a half months was not the way I wanted to start my senior year, I honestly feel extremely blessed.  I have so many amazing friends that came through for me during this rough time.  People were willing to drop what they were doing to come and pick me up, essentially chauffeur me around, and take me to dinner and other fun activities so that I wasn’t just stuck in my house all semester.  I absolutely, positively could not have made it through this semester if it had not been for a really special group of friends, faculty, and staff members that went above and beyond without a second thought.  My parents were worried about letting me go off to school with such a big injury, but they were so impressed by how much others were willing to do for me.  If I had been anywhere else, I don’t think I would have had professors that were willing to do whatever it took for me to make up my work, staff members that bent over backwards to accommodate me, and friends that were there for me every single step of the way.  But like Jered said, no Greenie left behind.  Tulane is a really special place, and this semester, hard as it was, also served as a great reminder of how amazing Tulane, and the people here, are.  So moral of the story—try not to trip down the stairs when you are studying abroad, but if you do get hurt, Tulane will be there for you.

By Sam Patel

Decision Time; I've Been Accepted (Part 2)

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions; Sifting Through Your Admitted Schools List 

First of all, congratulations! Besides the upcoming deadline for depositing and therefore deciding your future at just one university or college, the hard part is done. I congratulate you for all of your accomplishments thus far. I remember, not too long ago, sifting through the universities I was accepted to, trying my best to imagine myself at each institution.

There are many aspects that come with being a Tulane student that have aided in my happiness here. While I cannot begin to list them all, I hope this list will help give you a better idea of what Tulane University is like from the inside so you can better picture if this is truly the place for you.

Extracurricular Opportunities 

The Tulane Green Club works on a variety of projects such as
composting and creating sustainable gardens around campus.

Tulane has over 250 clubs and organizations for students to get involved with. We have everything from the more traditional multicultural, religious, academic, service, and sports related clubs all the way to the Benevolent Society for the Propagation of Assorted Tomfoolery and Other Sorts of Peculiar and Otherwise Absurd and Baffling Nonsense (Otherwise known as, the Juggling Club). Greek Life at Tulane encompasses roughly 45% of Tulane undergrads. That being said, it really doesn't define who you are, who you hang out with, or what you do on an average weekend. With our spring rush system, you will have the opportunity to meet other upperclassman and underclassman in your classes, extracurriculars, and day-to-day life during your first semester. If you decide through those encounters that Greek life at Tulane is something you're interested in, great! If not, also great! In my experiences I have about an equal amount of friends in/not in a Greek organization and a fairly even spread of friends in multiple organizations.

One of my favorite aspects of Tulane student life as whole is our ability to balance the academic side of college life with extracurricular and other outside involvement.

Club Rowing is just one of many ways to stay active as a Tulane undergrad!

Entertainment 

The Uptown Mardi Gras experience is something for the books!
Tulane students are intertwined with local families and tourists to
catch the parades away from the Bourbon Street madness.

That last point brings me into one final one: entertainment. It is no surprise to most that New Orleans has a long history enriched in festivals, celebrations, and drinking. From Sazerac’s at The Roosevelt to Hurricanes at Pat O’Briens, there are plenty of famous venues serving up tasty concoctions. Be that as it may, actually living in New Orleans provides a far different story than Bourbon Street binges and late nights in the French Quarter. In my opinion, Tulane students get the best of both worlds. We spend a large portion of our time in the Uptown neighborhood, enjoying local comforts like afternoons slurping down Snoballs or evenings watching the sunset at the Fly. There is no shortage of amazing venues to catch live music any given night or a delicious fresh seafood gumbo or po’boy all within walking distance from the Uptown campus. Don’t get me wrong, with more festivals than days of the year in the Gulf South, Tulane students definitely have our fair share of excuses to get out and find some relief away from the classroom and Uptown neighborhood. The key to a successful Tulane career, or any college career for that matter, is moderation. As Tulane students, we may have to do a little more long term planning to balance out exams and midterm papers with Mardi Gras parades, catching the Rebirth Brass Band at the Maple Leaf, or chomping down a few pounds of crawfish at Crawfest, but it all comes naturally to most.

Generally, all Tulane students know and understand that academics comes first and stay true to their academic and professional goals for the duration of their Tulane experience. 

Crawfest is an annual music, food, and arts festival located on campus. Each year, over 10,000 community members and students enjoy a day of live music, 20,000+ pounds of crawfish, thousands of pounds of veggies, and 25 local food and art vendors across 2 quads.

The Fly is Tulane's version of a beach, minus the sand or ocean. It is a beautiful park set directly alongside the
Mississippi River bend where students are often found relaxing, hanging out, or even studying!

About the Author

Trey Holmes

Class of 2016 

Major: Public Health 

Minor: Business 

Involvement: GWA, Greek Life, CACTUS, Community Service Fellowship, USG