When I last wrote in this space, I began with a quote from Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, “The way to build a great city is to create a great university and wait 200 years.”

With Tulane at 186 years old and New Orleans at 300, I declared that the time was now for Tulane to join civic and business leaders in transforming our hometown into a startup leader, a healthcare and biotech hub and home to a diverse mix of entrepreneurs, artists and innovators.

The Spring Tulanian, which included this message, never happened. Blame COVID-19. But Tulane’s impact on the city and the world only increased with our researchers seeking COVID-19 treatments and a vaccine, our medical professionals caring for COVID-19 patients, our epidemiologists assisting the World Health Organization and more. The urgency of these efforts was a major reason we returned to campus for in-person instruction and operations this fall. With its deep relational culture, hands-on learning and research and its location in one of the world’s most culturally and environmentally significant regions, Tulane benefits greatly from the physical presence of its campus population.

To make our return to campus possible we launched one of the country’s most rigorous safety, testing, tracing and isolation/quarantine programs. This allowed a return to campus life and prioritized the safety of the Tulane community and our neighbors. For instance, we regularly test thousands of students, faculty, staff and contract workers, many of whom are full-time NOLA residents and who would not know their infection status if not for Tulane. We have also provided thousands of community-based test results for first-responders, nursing homes, incarcerated individuals and mental health patients. In addition, we are hoping to assist the New Orleans Parish School Board in a testing program for teachers and staff.

The transformative expansion plans I mentioned at the beginning of this piece are still in full swing. I recently joined Mayor LaToya Cantrell at a ribbon-cutting for the long-vacant Warwick hotel, which we plan to fill with apartments and retail space for downtown students, researchers, physicians and faculty. We are also planning to be the anchor tenant in the redevelopment of the Charity Hospital building, hoping to fill more than a third of it with laboratories, classrooms, offices and clinical space. Our goal is to place more labs and scientists near the central business district where their discoveries can come to market faster and spur future investments.

In addition, we are committed to creating a  better Tulane by building a culture that embraces diversity and fosters a sense of belonging for all. Part of this includes increasing the diversity of our student body through efforts like the Louisiana Promise. Through this new program we will make a Tulane undergraduate degree more affordable for Louisiana students from low- and middle-income families and create initiatives to increase access to higher education overall for students in New Orleans. We want to be a university that  recognizes diversity as fundamental to advancing intellectual rigor, learning and scholarship. And through business, civic and social partnerships we seek to build and support a fairer and more equitable New Orleans and Gulf Coast region.