Running for Civil Sheriff!

Well it has been a long time since I posted here and many things have happened. The biggest thing was that I entered the race for Orleans Parish Civil Sheriff. I added a link under the links section to my campaign website. It is just getting off the ground and is very basic right now and will continue to improve over the coming days.

My basic platform is change. I would like to see consolidation in the law enforcement of Orleans Parish. Rep. Bruneau recently submitted a bill that was defeated in the legislature and I would like to push to get similar legislation passed.

Please email me if you would like more information and if you really believe in what I am pushing for please donate a little money or time to the campaign.

Thank you all and I look forward to hearing from you!

Kevin

Sad News

Today, Tulane University released what many of us knew was coming, but had no idea how deep the cuts would run.

The two schools most drastically impact were the Medical School and the Engineering School. It was probably apparent that cuts would be made, but many feel that the programs cut should not have been. It could even be asked if it was necessary to cut any academic program. If it is true that Tulane has 85% of its pre-Katrina students returning that would put the school back to an enrollment of 2001. Most likely the enrollment will recover in time, or would have had those programs been maintained.

The Board also cut several sports both men's and women's programs were cut. I understand these cuts much more than the academic cuts. I am glad that some of the major sports were maintained: baseball and football in particular. I think it is a shame that we are losing women's tennis. They have had incredible records recently and all of our athletes have been great ambassadors for the school, especially this year as they have continued to compete and represent us in a very visible way.

Another cut made by the school impacts the history and culture of the university. Tulane will eliminate the Newcomb and Tulane Colleges. These colleges have been the beginning points for women and men respectively as they have entered the university. No more will we see the proud women of Newcomb with their daisyed caps and the distinguished men of Tulane standing proud at the unified ceremonies. While this is mostly an administrative move on paper, the cultural impact will be felt back through many generations of Tulane alumnae and alumni.

I have posted links to the sites supporting and fighting the survival of these schools and programs. Please visit them and show your support. Also, write to Dr. Cowen to show that these cuts impact the university as a whole. It may be too late or it may not be. If we don’t let our voices be heard we will never know.

I would like to say also that this is not to say anything negatively about the Tulane Board, Dr Cowen or the administration. I am certain from conversations I have had with various people at the university that these decisions did not come easily. These are both terrible and great times we live.

Take care and happy holidays,

Kevin

Call for Volunteers!

New Orleans needs you!

Camille Terk (Tulane MBA 05) is working with the Committee for Economic recovery in New Orleans and has contacted me to help build a team of Freeman MBAs and Freeman Alumni that are dedicated to the rebuilding of New Orleans and Southeast Louisiana.

In her own words this is who we need for this great opportunity:


Specifically, right now, I have already had requests for MBAs who are willing to:
1) evaluate other city government structures and come up with a best practices list of recommendations. Basically, who is doing what and how can we learn from other cities.
2) help generate out of the box ideas for new industry possibilities for New Orleans.
3) help generate and support the development of a biotech industry in NOLA.

And much more. These are just a few examples of work that committee members need help with currently. I think, who better than Tulane alums!?

So… I need your help. Can you help me to organize this- like yesterday?

So if you are interested please email me or call me as I am putting together a spreadsheet of interested people and what and how they would like to help. To email me use the link on the right.

I also received a call from Shannon Jones. She is working with President Cowen and the Committee for Education as part of the recovery process. She asked that we build a team of Freeman MBAs that are concentrating in marketing to design a plan to delivery the new message and brainstorm on ideas to create a new image for the new system in New Orleans. Another great opportunity! They are currently looking for currently enrolled MBAs, so if you are a first or second year MBA concentrating in Marketing and wants to help rebuild New Orleans, please let me know!

New Pictures

I finally resized the latest pictures from my last trip to New Orleans (linked through the title and on the left). In these pictures you will see the breech of the 17th Street canal and that area of Lakeview. It is devastated and the pictures really do not capture how bad it is there. Also, in these pictures are some pictures of my aunts’ house in Lakeview. I took pictures of the inside and outside. I need to thank a very good friend of mine, Ryan Harper for helping me removed debris from the yard and making the inside more passable for my mom and me this weekend to salvage what we can from the house.

In one of my last post I spoke of how bad the condition of the city was and my doubts of how the city could support the numbers of people that will descend in January. Well my outlook is a little brighter now after spending more time in the city. This was the first time I saw true signs of recovery. Many restaurants are now open in the city, nowhere near pre-Katrina days, but still very encouraging. I had dinner at Kyoto the Saturday night I was in town and we even talked about how things looked almost normal, with the exception of uniformed National Guardsmen having ice cream at the Creole Creamery. (which was by the way one of the first places open in my neighborhood!) I believe my earlier comments were a bit skewed by the shock of seeing the destruction in the city. As you return for the first time you will understand. The first time or two in, the city leaves you in shock. Many of the things you will see just will not make sense.

So we are nearing the time many of us will begin to move back and start rebuilding our lives in New Orleans and will be able to watch and participate in the rebuilding of the great city of New Orleans!

Good News and Links

Well I finally broke down and called the Call Center in Houston today to ask about books that we purchased before the storm. I was told the Barnes & Noble (the campus bookstore) will be accepting returns for refunds once campus reopens.

I have also posted some new links in the links section, the most important being the Course Schedule for he Spring. The one posted is dated October 13th so it may not be the most up to date version, but hopefully pretty close to it. Hopefully they won't cut anymore classes.

Lagniappe Semester

Well, I just read the Dean's update posted on October 25th. One of the biggest questions regarding the upcoming spring term was answered. Unfortunately, the Lagniappe semester that has been discussed for quite some time has been clarified for the graduate students. The dean has stated plainly there will be no Lagniappe semester for the graduate students at the Freeman School. He also stated that as far as he is aware no graduate program would have the Lagniappe semester.

My understanding was as the dean also stated that this was for students who paid full time tuition for the Fall and Spring. This would be a bonus (for lack of a better word) for those of us who did as the university asked and returned to be good citizens of the school and city. Sort of a reward for going through the experience we have over the last 9 weeks and came back to keep the school strong. The Lagniappe semester was part of the incentive of us sticking with the school.

Well I am sure most of you have already read the dean's message for yourself, I just wanted to say something about it as the news was deflating to say the least.

Kevin

New Orleans Update

I spent the last weekend in New Orleans and it is still very strange there. Uptown is quickly returning to "normal" whatever normal will be after all of this. And when I speak of Uptown I am really only talking about from St Charles to the River and even then it is small pockets. As I explained to someone earlier today, instead of one big city, New Orleans right now is a bunch of small towns. When driving around you can instantly enter an area that has no people, no electricity and debris still scattered everywhere. The good news is that many restaurants have opened and continue to open each day. And of course Bourbon St. seems pretty normal, with the exception of the greater than Mardi Gras presence of law enforcement.

I did spend Friday in Lakeview at my aunt’s house clearing the front of the house and some paths inside so that we can attempt to salvage as much as possible. Of course that will be very little. The area though is shocking, depressing and ultimately unbelievable. The destruction is colossal. We even drove over to where the breech occurred and I could not understand or believe what I was seeing, entire homes destroyed, moved and washed away. Television and pictures cannot even begin to give a true grasp of how bad it is there. Even though they can’t tell the whole story I will be posting pictures soon of the area. I have to resize them first.

Some of the positives happening around town besides the stores and restaurants that are opening are things like the Red Cross and the Salvation Army have stations set up all around the city to distribute items like food, water and ice. The Red Cross continues to open service centers as well to assist people financially. Many if not all of the Red Cross and Salvation Army volunteers are from out and town and it makes you feel good about things that so many people are willing to take time from their lives to come help out the city. I can’t wait to get back full time to be a part of it! There are also volunteer groups do things like cleaning up Magazine Street and Canal Street. This past weekend they had the B.Y.O.Broom party on Canal and in the CBD.

When you are in town be sure to tune to WWL 870 AM as there is a wealth of information being announced 24 hours a day. Everything from what is open to how to get FEMA assistance.

All in all I know that New Orleans will be back, just how long it will take and exactly what it will feel like in the interim are the big questions still to be answered.

Take care,
Kevin

Been too long

It has been far too long since I posted, sorry about that.

There is a lot going on with school and I haven't had a chance to get answers to some of the questions that I have and I know many of you have as well. Things like:

How will the hours we take in the spring be counted for enrollment? To be full-time, part-time, etc?
What about the textbooks we bought for the fall and took those classes elsewhere? Need a refund please!
What will they do if a class needed for graduation is now not being offered due to the reduced course offerings?
June 22nd! are you serious!? And how does that impact the Lagniappe semester? Do we get session 2 of the second semester for free?
And one last one, when will the normal Freeman servers be back up so we can access needed information?

I will also post about my most recent trip to the city and the new curriculum soon. I want to provide you guys with more links and documents in case you are interested in them.

Happy Halloween!

Kevin

Town Hall Meetings!

(Again the title is the link)

I just found the linked page tonight regarding Tulane Town Hall Meetings to be held at universities that have Tulane students attending. The first was held in Dallas at SMU a while back and the most recent was yesterday in Charlottesville at UVA. The next is being held at the University of Maryland on Monday October 10th. Please check the link above for future dates at a school near you.

I hope you are all able to attend and get the needed information from them.

Take Care,

Kevin

Pictures

I finally got around to posting all the pictures I've taken in and around New Orleans during my recent trips. The title to this post is the link to the website.

Weekend Home

I spent the weekend in New Orleans this past weekend and describing what the weekend was like is difficult.

The city is very different right now. Even though the mayor has "opened" the city for repopulation not many people have returned. Most of the people I saw in my neighborhood came in only to assess and pick up a few things and leave again. I also saw many people loading Uhauls to leave town. I assume that is what they were doing as when I was driving out of town I saw many Uhauls and trailers loaded with belongings headed west.

The entire town has a weird feel to it as New Orleans used to be a city that never slept is now put to bed at 6:00 PM. My experience was that the curfew was not strictly enforced inside the city, but if you were caught outside the city after 6:00 then you would find it difficult to re-enter that night. This did happen to me, but luckily "found" a way back into town. I could stand in the middle of the intersection near my house and look in all directions and not see or hear anything. The only sounds were the occasional police or National Guard patrol.

The city also has a terrible smell to it now. Now I know that New Orleans was not the freshest smelling of cities before Hurricane Katrina, but now with all the rotting food and dead things still decomposing. As the wind blows you smell carries to all reaches of the city. It is impossible to get away from indoors or out. (Again, I refer you to the pictures of my refrigerator below.)

Tulane’s campus is looking much better, from what I could see. President Cowen’s statement about the campus being closed to everyone was very true as there are armed guards at every entrance. It looked as though much of the debris has been removed and repairs were well underway. I still believe that it will be difficult for the school to open in January. Not that the school will not be ready, but I wonder if the city will be. Hopefully, if Jefferson Parish and Metairie is any indication it will be ready. Metairie appears to be well on its way to being able to support a large population whereas New Orleans does not even have basic services available at this time. Water is still not potable, electricity is still not available to much of the city and even much of Uptown, the only hospital open is Touro and that is for emergency services only, but you can go out to Jefferson Parish for medical needs, and it will be sometime before all this is back up and running.

I don’t say these things to be a pessimist, it is just what I feel and what I saw this weekend. I just didn’t see that much progress from what I saw two weeks ago. If you also consider what I saw in Lakeview it is hard to be very positive about the state of the city right now. I know many of you are reading about how the French Quarter is returning to life and it is, sort of. Bourbon Street is still lined with out of state police cars. They must have taken over the Royal Sonesta as a dorm/command center. Bars, stores and restaurants are beginning to open and only have to wait for the health department and supplies to reach them. There are several bars opening around town, but even the ones that once served food now only serve beer and drinks without ice.

The good news is that there are thousands of workers in town working to restore services, remove debris, maintain safety, and repair just about everything. I even had firemen from North Carolina come by the house to make sure I was doing okay. I will also be posting so links soon to pictures, articles and more information about school and the city.

I hope the goals of the school and city are realized and I look forward to seeing everyone very soon.

Take care,

Kevin