Tulane News & Press

1. Parkland shooting survivors host gun violence prevention panel at Tulane

   March for Our Lives – a student-led organization responding to the Parkland mass shooting – held a panel at Tulane as New Orleans was the group's last stop on the Southern leg of its Road to Change tour, which brought together survivors of the Parkland shooting and local activists and organizers to discuss topics including school-based gun violence prevention strategies and how to push politically for more restrictions on guns. Being conscious of their location, the panelists also turned to the issue of violence in urban environments, especially that which affects young people.
2. Dr. Catherine Burnette on preventing intimate partner violence in indigenous communities

   Dr. Burnette has dedicated her career to studying the health disparities of indigenous peoples, examining everything from domestic violence to substance abuse. Her latest article, “Indigenous Women and Professionals’ Proposed Solutions to Prevent Intimate Partner Violence in Tribal Communities,” was selected as the 2018 Best Paper by the Journal of Ethnic & Cultural Diversity in Social Work.
3. Dean Bordnick awarded again for addiction recovery technology

   Social Work Dean Bordnick this week received The Visionary Award for Outstanding Contributions to Youth Recovery Research at the 2018 Association of Recovery for Higher Education Conference (ARHE) in Houston for his work developing virtual reality solutions to substance misuse / addiction. Tulane is working to bring a recovery program to campus, and Bordnick said the School of Social Work is poised to be leader in this effort since social workers provide most of the treatment services for substance misuse issues.
4. Dr. Stacy Drury on childhood trauma impact on DNA

   Researchers have found the amount of violence in a neighborhood can directly impact a child biologically, so much so, that the rate of violence directly correlates to the length of telomeres at the end of a child’s chromosomes. “We have evidence that there are changes in the actual DNA in the cells within each child. We have evidence that it changes how children's stress response systems work,” said Stacy Drury, the Associate Director of the Tulane Brain Institute.
5. Dr. Cathy Taylor's national study shows 75% pediatricians reject spanking

   In a recent national survey, Dr. Cathy Taylor found that three out of four pediatricians don’t approve of hitting children for corrective purposes, often referred to as spanking. The study also found that most pediatricians think spanking seldom or never results in positive outcomes for kids. Taylor says, “Pediatricians are among the most trusted sources of credible advice that parents go to. If pediatricians feel empowered more to speak up about this issue and talk to parents about it, we could start to see parents’ attitudes and behaviors shifting as well.”
6. Dr. Cathy Taylor studies pediatrician views on spanking

   Dr. Cathy Taylor led a research team that surveyed pediatricians around the country and found 75% of children’s doctors don’t think spanking is an effective form of discipline and could do more harm than good.
7. Tulane "Project IX" students prototype school solutions to sexual assault

   Scholarly rigor, energy, determination and commitment typified this week's presentation by "Project IX" students, many of whom were sexual assault survivors themselves. But there was also a palpable sense of joy in the room as the students discussed their ideas. This unexpected joy seemed to spring from a collective knowledge that the scourge of sexual assault will neither define nor overwhelm us, but will be the catalyst for our transformation through education, justice and true community.
8. Former Johns Hopkins director, GW dept. chair named Dean of Tulane School of Public Health & Tropical Medicine

   Thomas LaVeist, a national expert on issues related to equity and health, has been named dean of Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. He will also hold the position of Presidential Chair in Health Equity, making him the first to hold one of Tulane’s newly endowed presidential chairs, created to support the recruitment of exceptional, internationally recognized scholars whose work transcends and bridges traditional academic disciplines.
9. Dr. Stacey Gage named to United Nations advisory board

   Dr. Anastasia Gage has been named a member of a new high-level advisory board for the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. The UN advisory board is expected to strengthen the link between the U.N.’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs and the global economic and social policy research community. Dr. Gage's latest project provides nursing students training in counseling first-time mothers aged 15-24 and the fathers of their babies on family planning, birth preparedness, newborn care and gender-equitable attitudes in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
10. Tulane student honored for relationship violence prevention work on campus

    Rachel Blume, a student in the Tulane School of Liberal Arts, was recently awarded the Campus UnSung Hero award from the One Love Foundation for her work leading campus programming around healthy relationships and relationship violence.
11. "The Bedsheet Project" to provoke campus dialogue around sexual violence

    The Bedsheet Project will allow students to write on, or even cut, bedsheets with any comments, questions or feelings about sexual violence on campus. The project is spearheaded by the Project IX Dialogue Team. Project IX is a team of students creating initiatives to get students thinking and talking about what consent looks like, to prevent sexual violence at Tulane, and how to build a safer community.
12. Tulane psychiatry faculty weighs in on the trauma of everyday gun violence in New Orleans

    Growing up in an environment plagued by high rates of gun violence can affect someone for the rest of his or her life, according to public-health experts. In the 1990s, the CDC and Kaiser Permanente partnered on a landmark study of more than 17,000 individuals, looking at the connection between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and children's long-term health. The more ACEs someone has—the higher their ACE score—the higher their risk of depression, drug use, and such health problems as diabetes and heart attacks, which disproportionately impact communities of color.
13. Drs. Wallace and Theall, states' reproductive rights laws linked with adverse birth outcomes

    Drs. Maeve Wallace and Katherine Theall conducted a study focused on the relationship between state laws that shape the breadth and scope of women’s reproductive rights and two adverse birth outcomes (preterm birth and low birth weight) in every U.S. state. They found that women in states with the lowest scores — the most restrictive reproductive-rights climates — had greater odds of delivering a preterm or low birth-weight infant the following year (2012) as compared to women in states with the strongest reproductive rights. They also received the Charles E. Gibbs Leadership Prize for the best paper published in the journal Women’s Health Issues in 2017.
14. Op Ed: Dr. Kat Theall on promoting equity for all New Orleanians

    Dr. Kat Theall notices how the abilities to raise a family in safe and stable housing, to eat healthy foods, to visit a doctor or get medicine when needed, to pursue high-quality education through college and beyond are taken for granted by some and distinctly out of reach for others. As the city's 300th anniversary approaches, Theall wonders if this will finally be the year New Orleans uplifts black women and black birth, which would the stage for a safer, healthier and more equitable next 300 years.
15. Drs. Overstreet and Baker on "Safe Schools NOLA" study

    Since 2015, Tulane University professors Stacy Overstreet, Courtney Baker and Kathleen Whalen have collaborated with a team of community partners to determine how six local schools can better support trauma-exposed students through an innovative study called Safe Schools NOLA. The study will help school administrators create an action plan to support those students.
16. Tulane's Taylor Center develops "Project IX" design-thinking seminar to combat sexual assault

    Based on what they found out in the Climate Survey results, faculty and student fellows from the Taylor Center for Social Innovation and Design Thinking created a 10-week, student-led project, "Project IX," that would sift through the results of the survey and create several tangible solutions for the problem of sexual violence on campus.
17. School shootings require attention, discourse

    In the wake of another mass school shooting, discussion about gun laws and how we think about and treat mental illness are brought back to the forefront of national conversations.
18. Tulane sexual assault survey results hard to compare among schools

    Experts say it is harder to decide whether the stark survey results mean that Tulane University has a much bigger problem than its peers around the country, or whether it simply did a better job of measuring sexual assault by using the most up-to-date methods and that these results may more accurately reflect what could be higher rates of sexual assault experienced on college campuses nationally. It will be hard to know this and compare Tulane's results unless more schools use comparable survey tools.
19. Tulane releases sexual assault survey results

    The report from the 13,000-student private research university adds to growing evidence that sexual assault is a widespread problem on campuses throughout America. Tulane President Michael A. Fitts called the findings “deeply disturbing” and pledged an expanded campaign to end sexual violence.
20. Tania Tetlow co-announces results of sexual misconduct survey

    The “heartbreaking” results of the Tulane Climate Survey on Sexual Misconduct were released Wednesday, Jan. 31, at an all-campus town hall. The results were presented by Tulane President Mike Fitts, along with Tania Tetlow, senior vice president and chief of staff to the president, and Meredith Smith, assistant vice provost for Title IX and Clery Compliance.