“So, Has Tulane Moved to Baton Rouge?”

Posted by Jeff Lipshaw

That was a question I got while traveling this weekend.  On what was otherwise a dreary, rainy day, I heard what sounded like an authentic New Orleans jazz band coming from the newly-opened Lavin-Bernick Center for University Life (i.e. the student union) just across McAlister Street from the law school.  The food court and bookstore have been moved from their temporary quarters in a bubble structure just up the road, and the place was jam-packed with students on this, the first day for the undergraduate of the THIRD full fall or spring semester at Tulane since Katrina.

I apologize for the poor quality of the pictures, but I was carrying my salad, and quickly pulled out my cell phone camera to take them.  The picture just above left capsules my only regret about the whole affair:  if I had come in this door rather than the other, I would have seen that Tulane Dining Services (a division of Sodexho Marriott), in addition to providing the aforementioned brass band, was also serving red beans and rice gratis as a “welcome to the new union” gesture.  I would have gladly traded my salad for the free food, proving that I truly have been co-opted into law professordom.