As my devoted readers, many of you know that I LOVE Tulane University and work in the Admissions Office, sharing the most amazing parts of Tulane with visiting high school seniors who aren't really sure what to do with the next 4 years of their life. This year I am so busy that I am only able to work in the office on Fridays, but I pack a lot of "Come to Tulane" in one day! This morning I worked with a counselor planning a special tour I am to give next Friday. Then a family arrived waaaay early for the afternoon tour and I chatted them up a bit. Turns out the prospective student is interested in neuroscience, so then I was really able to chat them up, and eventually invited them to attend the Neuroscience lecture I was attending at noon. I walked with them from Admissions to the LBC, joined along the way by the 2007-2008 Homecoming King, a great friend of mine. Taylor chatted with the prospective student for a bit (they bonded over being male and from Louisiana) and I bonded with the mother and younger sister (who was a total doppleganger for Taylor Momsen [Little J from Gossip Girl], except about 10 inches shorter...aka, average height for a 15 year old!) over girly things. At the lecture, I introduced them to the head of the undergrad Neuro program and I think they were not totally bored during the lecture, so that was good!I've been giving tours since my freshman year, and believe you me, you get some doozies of questions when you are giving tours. Today I gave a tour on the spur of the moment and the questions asked were all doozies. Perhaps I should preface the questions by the fact that of my rather large tour group, there were only 3 questions during the whole tour. Word to the wise: if you are going on a college tour, oh EVER, ask questions. This serves 2 purposes: 1-if the tour guide won't answer them, they are not nice and may have something to hide, 2-the tour is your opportunity to ask a current student anything, use this to get your questions answered. Just, please, for your tour guides sake, please make sure it is a relevant question. So my questions of the day:
#1: Why are you called the Green Wave?
Answer #1: Tulane is known as the Green Wave because in the early 1900's Tulane did not have a nickname. Around this time the football team was steadily improving, and they wore green uniforms. Apparently our defense was so dominant that an opponent remarked after a game that it had felt like "a green wave was heading towards him". That got the Tulane newspaper's attention, and they started using the term, Green Wave, and it was later officially adopted .#2: Why are there no Asians at Tulane?
Answer #2: There are actually many Asians at Tulane. In fact, I believe we have passed at least 5-10 Asian students throughout this tour. Above you will find a photo of the Officers of AASU, Tulane's Asian Association.#3: Why is Tulane called Tulane?
Answer #3: In and of itself, this is not a doozy of a question. It is only considered a doozy today, because I had very specifically gone through the "founding of Tulane" part of the tour in the beginning, and really, does it matter how the school got it's name? For those readers who do not know the story, Tulane was founded as the Medical College of Louisiana in 1834, as a public medical university. In the 1880's Paul Tulane, a wealthy alum of Princeton who made his fortune in New Orleans, was looking to bequeath said fortune to a university. Originally he wanted the money to go to his alma mater, Princeton, but they refused to rename the university after him. He next turned to the city which had given him his fortune, and the Medical College of Louisiana had no such qualms about accepting the money. So the Medical College of Louisiana was renamed Tulane University, was incorporated as a private university, and Paul Tulane had a school named after him. And everyone lived happily ever after.
