$1 Million for Architecture's Community Work

Attached please find the Tulane University Press Release announcing our recent receipt of a $1 million anonymous gift to support the Tulane City Center's sustainable design and planning work in the community as well as my own message to the school community.

To the Tulane School of Architecture Community,

I am delighted to announce an exciting gift to the Tulane City Center from an anonymous donor. Please see the article from this morning's Tulane New Wave.

Scott Bernhard, Jean and Saul Mintz Associate Professor and Director of the Tulane City Center, has worked on this gift for more than two years in collaboration with me and several senior colleagues in Gibson Hall. Please join me in congratulating Scott on this wonderful achievement. The pledge is for $1 million, payable at the rate of $100,000/year. The proposal was written to support the Tulane City Center's sustainable design and planning work in the community.

Scott and I have developed a strategy for implementing this gift over the next ten years. Each year the TCC will issue a Request for Proposals (RFP) for community-based non-profit organizations who are interested in partnering with TCC, Tulane School of Architecture faculty and our students on a project. There will be a standard protocol for these non-profits to follow. A selection panel will be put in place (with faculty and student representation). Following the selection of each project, we will conduct a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) process for faculty, and all interested faculty will be considered. Ultimately, the selection decisions in both cases will rest with Scott Bernhard and me. You will see this process rolling out as soon as we receive the first payment of the ten yearly gifts.

This is one of many major gifts to the Tulane School of Architecture that I hope to bring to the school in collaboration with others within and beyond the school. Our success in connecting architectural education with community needs has distinguished the school since Hurricane Katrina. This builds on earlier gifts and grants we received immediately following the storm. We have several other current donors who are helping with significant financial support for the Tulane City Center, URBANbuild, and other aspects of the school's outreach work. In this particular initiative and gift, I am impressed with and deeply grateful to Scott Bernhard, Dan Etheridge, and Emilie Taylor as the core staff of the Tulane City Center for their tireless dedication, and to the many faculty and students who have done work through TCC and beyond. Collectively they have made substantial contributions to the re-building of New Orleans and have produced wonderful opportunities for students and faculty. Without these qualities and their hard work at the very foundation of this enterprise, we would not have realized this $1 million gift.

Kenneth Schwartz, FAIA
Dean