New Business School downtown building highlights inequality of funds on campus
January 31, 2019
Last year, Tulane’s Uptown campus saw the completion of a $35 million new building, the Goldring/Woldenberg Business Complex, for the university’s A.B. Freeman School of Business. The new state-of-the-art building gave the business school new facilities far more advanced than those of the rest of the university.
And just two weeks ago, Tulane proudly opened the Stewart Center for Executive Education Downtown, another brand-new building designed for the school’s executive MBA program. While the expansion of the business school will help bring more money into the university, the more money that Tulane invests into one particular school, the more attention it draws to the lack of funds given to the others.
While the money for these buildings was raised specifically for that purpose, and thus did not divert money away from other schools, many are still frustrated at the inequity of facilities. The difference between the quality of Goldring/Woldenberg and other buildings on campus is staggering, a difference which can be felt even from walking along the outside of the building. While there is not anything wrong with the business school having nice facilities, it is clear that a shocking amount of funding goes to the business school, inadvertently leaving the university’s other five schools in the dust.
Tulane has also recently received an alumni donation to invest $10 million into a new building for the School of Science and Engineering. While it is great that SSE is receiving a new building, it seems surprising that so much less money will go into it than what went into Goldring/Woldenberg, considering that around one-third of Tulane students either major or minor in SSE. In the meantime, the School of Liberal Arts has not received any new building or renovations in some time while the School of Architecture is still headquartered in Richardson Memorial Hall, a building which was constructed in 1907.
While it is understandable that Tulane’s alumni from its more profitable schools are more likely to donate and bring about these constructions, it is also important to keep in mind that Tulane has an endowment of $1.3 billion. Even setting aside alumni donations, the university ought to be able to afford to put money into all of its programs, especially since its Audacious fundraising drive found success. The profits from this fundraiser should bring wealth to more than just one of the university’s schools.
Tulane should properly invest in all of its schools, not just the one that brings in the most money. In the university’s mission statement, the school speaks of its aspirations to be “a truly distinctive international university.” That is not a goal which can be achieved by primarily investing in one of your six schools. Tulane must properly spread out its funding among its other schools if it truly wishes to fulfill its mission statement.
Andrew Corwin • Feb 1, 2019 at 7:56 pm
An old alumni (and not from the Business School) with a reminder: when you take the “discretionary” part out of giving, then donations will dry up.That is a reality, and that “choice” must be respected.