The Storm After the Storm

Cowen with students (92% of undergrads returned to Tulane): "I wouldn't wish this on anybody. But we might as well take the opportunity to reinvent ourselves."

Not content merely to rebuild, Cowen is seizing on the emergency as an opportunity to remake Tulane as a truly elite school.

On November 1, Cowen moved back into his Tara-esque home on Tulane's campus, ready to tackle some tough choices. In early November, for starters, Tulane laid off 243 full-time staffers. But to survive the next few years, even more severe cuts would still have to come--including tenured faculty, the ultimate sacred cow. Virtually every area was affected, even seemingly integral groups like the fund-raising department, which was halved. While still in Houston, Cowen had gathered together a brain trust of his board, a group of outside advisers such as William Brody, president of Johns Hopkins University, and consultants from PricewaterhouseCoopers to come up with a plan that included both tactical financial measures and a broader vision for what Tulane would become in the future.

The dozens of meetings--which went on throughout October and into November--were long and painful, but seven years of experience and a lot of the analysis Cowen had already done in prior years led the group to some obvious cost savings. It quickly became clear that the medical school, which had moved to Baylor University for the year, was in the most trouble, primarily because of the lack of patients. The group ended its emphasis on clinical work and reduced the school's faculty and staff by a full 30%. "That was really difficult," says Dr. Paul Whelton, SVP for health sciences and dean of the medical school, "to tell people who had been loyal to this university for 20 years that unfortunately you are not critical to the mission."

The next steps were equally painful and more controversial still. In a strategy more common to a failing public company, the group scrutinized departments and programs that even before Katrina weren't "tubs on their own bottoms," or financially self-sufficient. The group also benchmarked Ivy League schools such as Princeton and Dartmouth. The hammer fell on December 8, when Cowen announced the school's Renewal Plan. Tulane would more narrowly focus on the undergraduate experience, which he believed to be the school's main strength. That meant entry into many doctoral programs, including those in many sciences as well as law, economics, and social work, would immediately be suspended. "We had made this decision [to emphasize undergrads] when Scott first came in 1998," says Catherine Pierson, chair of Tulane's board of administrators. "But these were the areas where we didn't have the resources to take them to a new level."

Borrowing a page from Jack Welch, Cowen announced that Tulane would now marshal its efforts in "areas where it has attained, or has the potential to achieve, world-class excellence… and suspend admission to those programs that do not meet these criteria." Resources would go, for example, to chemical and biomechanical engineering--but the remaining four engineering majors would be eliminated. Eight of 16 sports were cut altogether. And Newcomb College, the women's college for Tulane students, will be merged with Tulane to create a single undergraduate school--one whose naming rights could be a major funding opportunity. While the move will save money, Cowen says the primary goal is to create a common experience for every incoming Tulanian.

Cowen, who also chairs the mayor's Bring New Orleans Back education committee, declared that Tulane would focus intensely on the social problems that Katrina exposed so dramatically, spearheaded by its new Partnership for the Transformation of Urban Communities and a volunteer-service requirement for every entering student. "This is a chance to participate in the largest recovery project in the history of the United States," Cowen told the freshmen.

But while Cowen is certainly sensitive to the city's social needs, he's equally savvy about how to get funds to his school, and it's clear that projects focused on fixing New Orleans's woes are most likely to bring in the big dollars. At a time when there is so little trust in local, state, or government leaders, he hopes that people who want to help will turn to the school. "There are people who see us as the leadership in this city," says Jones. "They feel we have the integrity."

Given the scope of the crisis, Cowen's plan met with little initial resistance. It didn't hurt that he required Tulane's board to approve or reject the plan as a whole; it passed unanimously. But now, perhaps because Tulane is perceived to be on the mend, the critical rumblings are getting louder. In January, the American Association of University Professors wrote Cowen asking for a full accounting of exactly how he eliminated 166 full-time faculty positions (including 61 with tenure)--believed to be the largest number of mass terminations ever at an American university. Groups have sprung up to fight the changes with petitions and protests. And chalked in front of the engineering building was a lament: "We survived Katrina, but not the administration."