GENTRY, A DIFFERENT HE LOVES THEM, TRANSPLANTS KIND OF WILL YEAH, YEAH, & NEWBIES A year later, Devon YEAH Supernatives embrace Walker returns to Bruce Spizer knows New Orleans. campus. all about the Beatles. THE MAGAZINE OF TULANE UNIVERSITY TUlaneDECEMBER 2013 The Young and the Settled PAULA BURCH-CELENTANO RARE BIRDS Teresa Cole, professor and chair of the Newcomb Art Department and Ellsworth Woodward Professor of Art, looks on as her printmaking students Ben Fox-McCord (left), Zoe Corbett (center) and Imen Djouini (right) lean in to get a closer look at a John James Audubon print titled “Yellow-billed Cuckoo.” The artwork is a page from the first of four volumes produced by Audubon between 1827 and 1838. Three of those volumes reside in the Rare Books unit of Special Collections in the Howard- Tilton Memorial Library. Taking It to the Streets On the cover: The Red Beans and Rice parade, established in 2010, in the Faubourg Marigny. Photo by Cheryl Gerber. TULANE MAGAZINE DECEMBER 2013 1 PRESIDENT’S LETTER Stretch yourself academically and socially, get out of your comfort zone, and develop in- terests and skills you never thought possible. Science majors, take a course on Shakespeare. Business majors, take a course on Aristotle. English majors, take a finance course. Pre-med students, take a theater course. Theater ma- jors, take an engineering class. Environmental science majors, take a dance course. In fact, everyone should learn how to dance. It just makes you happy. Attend at least one game every semester in every sport played here at Tulane. Our athletes are first and foremost students just like you and they need and deserve your support. Likewise, attend at least one campus art exhibition, concert, play and extracurricular lecture every semester. The arts need and deserve your support and you can benefit from lessons you will learn by doing so. And attend at least one service or event sponsored by a religious or political organiza- tion of which you know or care little about so that you will know and care a little more. MARK ANDRESEN MARK Most importantly, make a difference in someone else’s life, especially those who need help the most. This is what a Tulane education These Lightning Years is all about—using what you learn in the class- room to make the world outside the classroom by Scott S. Cowen a better place. This is what it means to truly grow intellec- The following is an excerpt of Scott Cowen’s convocation address delivered TRADITION tually, ethically and emotionally. to first-year students in McAlister Hall on Aug. 24, 2013. Touching the Victory Bell This is why when you graduate you will not has become something of a rite of passage for only have knowledge and skill, you will have New Orleans is my home, and now it is your home, too. And this is the first-year students. the real-world experience, ethics and empa- day we say hello. We will smile and shake hands and I will tell you how thy to become the leading thinkers, doers and truly glad I am to finally meet each of you and your families face to face. changers of our society. You will be a different I also know that in just four or five years, it will be time to say good- person, a better human being. bye. The time between the hello and the goodbye will happen in a flash. You will attain more than good grades and a But these lightning years are ones that will play a significant role in not good job. You will achieve a sense of fulfillment only what you will do with your life, but who you will become. by becoming the person you want to be. You So what happens between the hello and the goodbye—what will you will help others achieve their dreams, too, and do, how will you spend your time, what will you accomplish? become who they want and deserve to be. I would like to offer two suggestions: explore and engage. One more thing before I let you go. When A Tulane education is a participatory event. For example, one of the you exit through the front doors of this build- Tulane Interdisciplinary Seminars is devoted to the study of Mardi Gras, ing, you will see the Tulane Victory Bell. Thou- its social meanings, its racial history, its anthropological roots. You’ll sands before you have rubbed this bell as their experience Mardi Gras Indians in full costume, brass bands and second first symbolic act as Tulane students. Now it is lines. You’ll also experience what it means to let “the good times roll.” your turn. You’ll explore the city and learn its neighborhoods and its customs. As you rub the bell, consider all those who Some of the richest, deepest learning happens when what we have come before you as well as those who will are familiar with collides with what is different and previously un- come after. This time between your undergrad- known. The public service component of your curriculum will take uate “hello” and “goodbye” is truly a singular you from campus and into relationships that are new and unfamil- opportunity that will shape the rest of your life. iar. These encounters will change both you and the people with It is the beginning of your legacy. It is your time. whom you encounter. Do not waste a second. 2 DECEMBER 2013 TULANE MAGAZINE TUlane CONTENTS Home in the Dome Green Wave football players surround Devon Walker before the Homecoming game in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. 2 PRESIDENT’S LETTER New students’ welcome 6 NEWS Blueprint for renovation • Ongoing search • Student- athletes • Who dat? Rob Steinberg • Actor’s ancestors • Stress shows up in genes • Maya discovery • Service challenge • PARKER WATERS PARKER Herbarium’s holly • Neville Prendergast 13 SPORTS 14 Gentry, Transplants Rowing crew • and Newbies Men’s basketball 30 TULANIANS Whatever you call them and whatever you think of them, these newcomers arrive in a Suzanne Geary • neighborhood as agents of both change and stability. By Ryan Rivet National networking • Outstanding Alumni • Clint Williamson • Meredith Restein • 20 A Different Kind of Will Justin Springer It’s been more than a year since a football injury paralyzed Devon Walker. This fall he 31 WHERE Y'AT! returned to campus to continue his degree. By Nick Marinello Class notes 35 FAREWELL 26 He Loves Them, Tribute: Ruth Benerito 38 TULANE EMPOWERS Yeah, Yeah, Yeah Yulman Stadium • Jennings scholarhip Fifty years since he first saw them on TV, Bruce Spizer (A&S ’76, B ’77, L ’80) has become • Career services • a leading historian of the Beatles. By Angus Lind Academic success 40 NEW ORLEANS Guided tours TULANE MAGAZINE DECEMBER 2013 3 LOVABLE LINGO Larry Smith (E ’51) of Oxnard, Calif., writes that “Lovable Lingo” in the September 2013 Tulane reminded him how he still uses New Orleans sayings such as “neutral ground” when he talks about lane dividers. He’s a fifth generation New Orleans native but has “been taken for a New Yorker” in his speech many times. YEAH, YOU WRITE Editor’s Note: SEGREGATED SPORTS be brief.” My heart dropped. negative impact of my writing We received several letters about I read the article “The Deseg- How was I going to explain to on alumni support. The meet- “Desegregation of a University” regation of a University” with my parents why I was suspend- ing was amicable but changed in the September 2013 Tulane. great interest and wanted to ed in my senior year? neither party’s attitudes. We are printing a number of add a bit to the school history When he then said that the Later in life I had occasion the letters here and will print of that period. As sports editor school’s publicity director was to work closely with both others in the next issue of the of The Hullabaloo on Nov. 7, retiring at the end of the school Boggs and Perez … even magazine. Readers’ thoughtful 1952, I quoted Hap Glaudi of year and he was wondering if I fished with Perez from his recollections are much welcome. the New Orleans Item. Tulane would like his job? I just stood lodge at Port Eads. had just beaten Santa Clara there shocked. He then said, Donald J. Whittinghill, A&S ’57 in a football game 35-0, and “This is only November. You Baton Rouge, La. APPRECIATION OF HISTORY Glaudi questioned whether the have the whole school year to As a contemporary of both Ed players of Santa Clara played think about it. Get out of here TRIBUTE TO DEVON Lombard and Steve Martin, so poorly because they had to or I will be late for Bubba.” As My son and I went to the Green I was pleased to learn that Ed leave their star halfback, Bobo I walked down the back steps Wave’s game at ULM (or, as I still completed his Tulane educa- Lewis, home in California, be- of Gibson Hall it all began to call the school, Northeast La. U.). tion to earn his degree and was cause of the color of his skin. sink in. If he was so tight on Since it is unlikely Tulane will very saddened to hear of Steve The editor-in-chief of the time, and as he said, it was only be back up in “north country” in Martin’s passing. As I came paper and I were both con- November, why did he have to the future for football, this was to Tulane from Texas, I had cerned, on many levels, about see me that afternoon? Was he a moment not to be wasted.