When did Tulane become a national university?

fallenchemist
Mon, 15 Aug 2016 13:13:53 +0000

well-considered opinion

I am sorry if I came off as harsh, but it was just wrong, and so I don’t take it as well considered. I have been a student of Tulane’s history since I attended in the 1970’s. I was from St. Louis, and I would say about half my classmates were not from what is classically taken as the “South”. I am calling the South for these purposes Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, Mississippi, Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida and Georgia. I count Florida since the upper half, at least, is very southern in character. Not so much the lower half, where Tulane draws very well, but let’s throw it in anyway. FWIW (not much), my roommates were from NYC, Kansas City, KS, and Jackson MS my freshman, sophomore and junior years respectively. BTW, Tulane has always been classified as a national university by USNWR since they began their rankings in the early 80’s. They do have a regional university category, and they obviously didn’t think Tulane belonged there. Tulane has been part of the American Association of Universities, an honor bestowed only on the highest level research institutions, which are all national universities. That has been true since 1958.

There is no question that Tulane continued to become more national, as defined by geographic origin of their undergraduates, after I left in 1977. Katrina absolutely brought attention to the school, but a huge amount of that was negative. In fact, that was the reason I got so involved on CC, there was so much misinformation about the state of the city and the school. So while kids applied in droves (it was free and Tulane made it very easy in other ways as well, such as no essays back then), there was a ton of reluctance, especially among parents. Tulane only enrolled something like 900 students total for the freshman class the year after Katrina, so the “flocking” was not immediate.

So perhaps I was a bit abrupt, but Tulane as a national university really has little to do with Katrina.