Shawn Abbott is Tulane’s new vice president for enrollment management and dean of admission. He came to the university from Temple University in Philadelphia, where he was vice provost for admissions, financial aid and enrollment management. He has also held leadership roles at NYU, Stanford and Columbia.

About 1,875 new undergraduate students entered Tulane in fall 2022. These students are the highest achieving and most diverse in university history. They were selected from an applicant pool of 43,028, which made Tulane’s acceptance rate 8.4%. Twenty-eight were valedictorians of their high schools, and 178 had perfect GPAs. Thirty-two are Louisiana Promise students who are enrolled with their full financial need met without loans.

“If we don’t take the information we currently have and be proactive by addressing the potential negative impacts on academics, emotions and socialization, we are going to have more children with anxiety or children experiencing depression, hopelessness, etc.” MAURYA GLAUDE, a professor of practice at the School of Social Work, quoted in an article in Teen Vogue, discussing the mental health of teens in Southeast Louisiana who are affected by hurricanes.

Laura McKinney, associate professor of sociology, and Michelle Foa, associate professor of art history, have received a grant from the National Endowment of the Humanities to develop a minor in environmental humanities. The interdisciplinary curriculum will give students more opportunities for deep examination of people’s relationship to the environment and draw on the expertise of humanities, social and natural sciences, and architecture faculty.

Professor of English and Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities Jesmyn Ward was awarded the 2022 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. The annual prize honors an American literary writer whose body of work is distinguished for its mastery and originality. Ward is the youngest person to receive the award.