Summer is typically a quiet time on Tulane’s campus, but here at the Freeman School, it’s been a different story. Here, the sound of jack-hammers has filled the air as workers demolish the rear façade of Goldring/Woldenberg Hall in preparation for construction of the Raymond Family Student Gateway, which will serve as a main entrance to the new Goldring/Woldenberg Business Complex. Currently, the building is expected to be completed in the late fall and host its first classes in January 2018. It’s been a challenging 18 months for students, faculty and staff as we’ve dealt with the
inconvenience of construction, but the Goldring/Woldenberg Business Complex will be worth the wait. I guarantee it.
This new building was necessitated in part by the explosive growth we’ve experienced over the past six years. According to the registrar’s office, business school students now account for nearly a third of Tulane’s undergraduate population and nearly a quarter of all students at the university. In addition to expanding our physical plant, we’re also hiring faculty and staff to accommodate this growing demand for our services. This summer, we’ll welcome another six full-time faculty members, the latest additions in our ongoing faculty enhancement initiative. These appointments include three tenure-track assistant professors from the University of Washington, Indiana University and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School as well as three professors of practice who between them have more than 50 years of executive-level professional experience. We’re very lucky to have them as colleagues, and I’m very much looking forward to working with them in the coming months and years.
The cover story of this issue highlights the Freeman School’s large and growing number of international programs. Many people — even some of us here within the business school — have only limited awareness of the scope of our international programs delivered in locations around the world. In fact, international business education has been central to the Freeman School since our founding. In the last 20 years, however, we have taken that imperative to a new level thanks in large part to the efforts of John M. Trapani III. In the early 1990s, Professor Trapani began to develop an innovative strategy based on the notion of institution building. By partnering with business schools in Latin America and Asia to enhance and expand their offerings, we have been able to reach new markets, dramatically increase international opportunities for students and grow our reputation on a global scale. If you have any doubt as to the effectiveness of this strategy, I invite you to visit the Freeman School. This summer alone, we’ll host nearly 150 international dual-degree students from China, Guatemala, Mexico and Peru. I can’t think of another business school that delivers as many international programs and offers as many international opportunities for students as Freeman.
In closing, I hope you’re having an enjoyable, relaxing summer, and I look forward to seeing you this fall during homecoming or at another Freeman event.
