Engineering Cuts at Tulane

ASEE Prism, Feb 2006 by Shallcross, Lynne

KATRINA

MORE THAN five months after Katrina hit New Orleans, her wake is still rippling through Tulane University. In December, university officials announced a restructuring plan that will cut three undergraduate engineering departments-civil and environmental engineering, electrical engineering and computer science and mechanical engineering. The two departments that remain are biomedical and chemical engineering. "I argued very strenuously that these degree programs should be retained," says Nicholas Altiero, who prior to the hurricane served as the dean of the School of Engineering. In addition, five doctoral engineering programs were also cut. At the undergraduate level, the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the School of Engineering will be reorganized into two new schools: the School of Liberal Arts and the School of Science and Engineering. Altiero has been named dean of the new School of Science and Engineering. A group of engineering students have formed a group to protest the closures.-LS