CBR Cycle 4 (2010-2011)
Fayςal Falaky - La Louisiane franςaise
New Orleans is a city distinct from any other in the United States, but what sets it apart –its
spirit, energy, food, art, music, and overall culture – has also proven to be precarious in the
aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Now more than ever, it is essential to help preserve the legacy
of New Orleans. To understand the world that made New Orleans, one must know the history
of French Louisiana.
Partnering with the Historical Center of the Louisiana State Museum and with KNOWLA (The
Digital Encyclopedia of Louisiana History, Culture and Community, a project of the Louisiana
Endowment for the Humanities), research and work conducted at the Historical Center will be
used to develop encyclopedic entries for KNOWLA. Some of the entries will be thematic: French
system of slavery, French influence in Creole and Cajun cuisines, etc. Others will be profiles:
newspapers like L’Abeille de la Nouvelle-Orléans and L’Union and authors like Charles Testut
and Sidonie de la Houssaye.
Nghana Lewis - Partner-to-Partner: Connecting Community Based Organizations and K12
Schools in the Fight against HIV/AIDS
An 18-month study of what a representative group of female, high school students know about
HIV/AIDS; the roles that community context plays in shaping their knowledge base; and the
impact that systematic, collaborative learning and programming with the Positive People’s
Project (“3Ps”), a grassroots New Orleans-based HIV/AIDS prevention intervention organization,
has on students’ post-engagement HIV/AIDS knowledge base, capacity to communicate what
they know to their counterparts, and individual risk for exposure to HIV/AIDS.
At the end of this project, student participants are expected to be able to demonstrate
proficient knowledge of prevention intervention ideologies and methodologies of HIV/AIDS
community based organizations in the city of New Orleans; package and disseminate this
information to their peers; and apply this knowledge to personal behaviors, which may put
them at risk for exposure to HIV/AIDS.
Ultimately this project seeks to establish a cost-efficient, easily replicated model of civic
learning and civic action that can be used to educate New Orleans youth about HIV/AIDS;
involve New Orleans youth in the fight against HIV/AIDS; and reduce New Orleans youth risks
for exposure to the HIV virus.
Vicki Mayer - MediaNOLA: Making media and cultural history public goods in New Orleans
The idea for MediaNOLA arose out of the Katrina disaster but has extended beyond a simple
recovery project. In 2005, many of the city’s archives were damaged from flooding, rain, or
mold. Countless stories of cultural organizations and social clubs lost their own historical
materials in the floodwaters, including original sheet music, scrapbooks, Mardi Gras Indian
costumes, and original video footage by nonprofits and artists alike.
Joining the effort to digitize archival materials and make them accessible to the public,
MediaNOLA aims to give a comprehensive account of the stories that can be told about the
production and reception of New Orleans media and cultural representations.
MediaNOLA aims to be a pluralistic resource for understanding how the city’s populations
interacted through and with media and cultural representations. The definition of media and
cultural productions have been left purposefully broad on MediaNOLA—from mass advertising
campaigns for a public amusements park in the 1920s or musical numbers for live
entertainment in the 1960s—in order to show where and how producing and consuming
populations may have interacted across gender, racial, or class boundaries, and where these
boundaries were rigid or not to be crossed. These histories thus offer a rich way to demonstrate
the role of media and culture in reflecting, reinforcing, and often resisting larger social forces in
the city over the past 120 years, such as racial or gender segregation, class stratification, and
the development of the city’s various subcultures based on age, ethnic, or sexual identities.
Aaron Schneider - Twenty-first Century Jungle or Re-Making the American Working Class
The U.S. South and New Orleans in particular are experiencing a rapid influx of Latin American
immigrants, adding new dynamics to still unresolved regional issues of race, gender, and class.
Historically, intra- and inter-relationships between and among black and white residents
shaped work and politics on the Gulf coast, and it took the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s
and 1960s to shake the exclusionary underpinnings of Southern life. Still, poverty, inequality,
and political exclusion remain, and the recent pattern of globalized production, migration, and
culture has infused new social divisions into progressive politics. To meet contemporary
challenges, a renewed movement of African Americans, workers, and allied citizens, joined by
newly arrived immigrants, has tremendous potential to reframe Southern politics and reshape
the nation, just as occurred in Civil Rights.
Employing active understanding of the way work, family and politics are intertwined with
changing race, gender, and class divisions, this project explores the changing nature of
exploitation and resistance from Latin America to the U.S. This research suggests that
exploitation in the U.S. South is connected to exploitation in the Global South, and we are at a
critical juncture in the definition of work in New Orleans and all of the Americas.
CBR Cycle 3 (2009-2010)
Janet Ruscher – Post-Katrina Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Research on the psychological impact of natural disasters shows relatively consistent patterns
in traumatization and recovery; New Orleans population however is failing to follow the mental
health and trauma timeline that typically is reported in the empirical literature. Contrary to
typical estimations of a one to two year rebound marker for post-disaster mental illness
morbidity, indicators of New Orleans residents’ mental health suggest continued declines over
the past three years. For instance, the prevalence of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) two
years post-Katrina has continued to escalate rather than drop as is normally predicted one to
two years post trauma (Carr et al., 1997; McFarlane, 1988; Norris et al., 1999).
The current proposal suggests that the escalation of mental illnesses is not attributable solely to
the recovery effort, but rather stems from detrimental community coping mechanisms.
Specifically, the present inquiry proposes that the prolonged elevated incidence of mental
illness of New Orleans residents is due at least in part to community members’ public
perseveration regarding Katrina-related events. The manifestation of ongoing stress in such a
manner likely re-traumatizes those impacted – the New Orleans community as a whole – and
prolongs the personal recovery process, thereby maintaining and even increasing incidents of
mental illness.
Sandredin Moosavi – Assessing Beach Loss/ Recovery on Grand Isle, LA: Collaborative
Investigation between Tulane University, Grand Isle State Park, Grand Isle Residents
Grand Isle is a barrier island approximately one hundred miles south of New Orleans which
serves as the home for some 3000 permanent residents while providing significant protection
against coastal erosion and hurricane storm surges to several hundred thousand residents of
the Barrataria Bay and West Bank regions of greater New Orleans. As the only inhabited and
road-accessible barrier island in the state, Grand Isle provides significant fishing, cultural and
educational resources to the population of southern Louisiana. Grand Isle is a threatened
resource, however. Long term subsidence and high beach erosion rates combined with poor
land use management of the dune/levee system increasingly raise questions about the long
term survival of the island and its community.
This proposal is a collaborative investigation involving faculty and undergraduate students from
Tulane University, the Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences (EENS), officials from
Grand Isle State Park and high school teachers, students and residents on Grand Isle and
Greater New Orleans. The project will build on current service learning activities quantifying the
location and rate of beach erosion and deposition within Grand Isle State Park by including local
high school teacher/ students and community members in the research effort, allowing
expansion of the data generated to encompass the entire island at a time when major beach
and levee reconstruction work is being planned and enacted.
So’Nia Gilkey – A Program Evaluation of a Community-Based New Orleans Transitional
Housing Program: Process and Outcomes
The number of homeless in the City of New Orleans has tripled since hurricane Katrina, while
the number of service programs that provide housing support to this population have
decreased. Despite a variety of approaches and efforts, and although some progress is being
made in meeting the needs of the homeless to support stable housing in New Orleans,
understanding the problem of homelessness and instituting lasting solutions remain a challenge
that community-based programs struggle with on an ongoing basis (First, Roth & Awrea 1998).
Ozanam Inn is one of only two homeless service programs in the city of New Orleans that offer
transitional housing for homeless men in the city. The challenge with transitional housing
programs in general, and specifically with Ozanam Inn, is their capacity to effectively evaluate
program strengths and gaps and client outcomes in the short and long-term. This evaluation is a
two and a half year project focusing on the services of Ozanam Inn, client wellbeing and
stability.
Laura Kelley – Living History: A Historical Examination of the Pointe-au-Chien Indian Tribe
Unbeknownst to many in the metropolitan area, an hour and a half outside of New Orleans, in
lower Lafourche and Terrebonne parishes there exist an interrelated network of small, still
French-speaking Native American communities: the Pointe-au-Chien Indian Tribe, the Isle de
Jean Charles Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha, the Grand Caillou/ Dulac Band of the Biloxi-Chitimacha,
and the Bayou Lafourche Band of the Biloxi-Chitmacha.
The purpose of this project is to research, record, and thereby preserve, the culture, history,
and traditions of the tribes of this area with a focus on the Pointe-au-Chien Indian Tribe. In
general, the project will document the history and traditions of the tribe with the goal of
providing links between the tribe’s current customs with the traditions of the tribes of whom
the Pointe-au-Chien Indian Tribe descend. This project will address the current gap in historic
knowledge about Louisiana Native American history as well as document current traditions and
living memories of the tribe. Furthermore, the project intends to function as a springboard to
other related projects about the tribes of the region.
Nick Spitzer – “Talking to New Orleans”
This proposal attempts to restore and expand the enduring work of oral historians and
interviewers with related techniques in a systematic manner as a means to highlight vernacular
cultural knowledge of local citizens not previously recorded or generally found in local or
national collections.
This project will provide an overview of theoretical and practical knowledge about the human
conversation as metaphor and method, when recorded and directed in a consistent manner,
proving useful to students who may go into journalism, public folklore or history, media
production or other non-academic fields. It will also form the basis for shared information
gathering and interpretive scholarly and applied use by a variety of institutions with local,
regional and national constituencies that engage public cultural work.
CBR Cycle 2 (2008-2009)
Nathalie Dajko - Field Research on French in Louisiana
Once the principal language of Louisiana’s Old World in habitants, as well as ultimately the
primary language of several indigenous groups in the state, French in Louisiana has been
systematically replaced by English in the last century. While pressure to speak English came
from many directions, the most effective was a deliberate attack carried out by the Louisiana
state government, which required in 1921 that schooling be conducted in English only. The
effect was a ban on French in schools that entailed humiliation and often corporal punishment
for speaking the language. However, French has not been abandoned entirely. Revival efforts
are underway in the state today. An important aspect of this revival is the full and complete
documentation of the language as it is spoken by its most fluent speakers, to ensure that future
generations of language revivalists will have as much data as possible to work with.
This project, aiming to document a very important part of Louisiana’s cultural heritage: the
French language, focuses on Lafourche Parish, one of the most francophone regions in the
state, yet coincidentally also one of the most routinely neglected by academics and language
and cultural revivalists alike. Making this project all the more pressing and relevant is the
imminent threat of language death as the communities in Lafourche currently find themselves
in ecological danger given their location on the coastal wetlands of Louisiana.
Joseph Letter - Katrina Kids Memoirs Project
The Katrina Kids Memoirs Project began as a community partnership between service
volunteers from Tulane and students at the New Orleans PM High School. The PM High School,
established by the New Orleans Public School system in the aftermath of Katrina, was designed
as an alternative for students who were returning to the city to work in the recovery effort and
could not attend regular school hours. It is not a charter school, nor is it a part of the Recovery
School District, which means that the PM school receives few of the benefits specifically
targeted for post-Katrina educational programs.
Tulane students were paired with students in a tenth grade English class at the high school,
thus beginning a collaborative writing partnership through which Tulane students would help
produce a collection of personal memoirs dealing with Katrina related experiences. Portals
Press was secured as a publisher for the project, and the United Way agreed to fund all
publishing costs and arrange for a public reading by the students.
Gina Manguno-Mire - “The Orleans Parish Mental Health Court (MHC) Study: A Preliminary
Evaluation of its Effectiveness”
Before Hurricane Katrina, Orleans Parish Prison (OPP) housed nearly 6,500 individuals on an
average day. With a pre-Katrina incarceration rate of 1,480 prisoners per 100,000 residents,
New Orleans had the highest incarceration rate of any large metropolitan city in the United
State.
Individuals who are in prison are considered a high-need group given their increased risk for
mental illness. Minority groups are particularly at-risk and often suffer from significant disparity
in mental health care, including reduced access to mental health services and poorer quality
care. The outcome for mentally ill inmates following release from prison is poor, as individuals
with a mental disorder are more likely to have a greater number of prior sentences and are at
risk for criminal recidivism and re-arrest. Given the increased awareness of the scope of the
mental health problem in the criminal justice system, the development of mental health courts
(MHCs) to assist in the treatment of mentally ill defendants had burgeoned over the past
decade. Small scale studies have shown that participation in MHCs, compared to treatment-asusual, results in increased access to mental health services, reduced incarceration rates, and
improves quality of life for participants.
This research aims to: 1) describe the participants in the Orleans Parish Mental Health Court
and 2) to offer preliminary outcome data regarding the program’s effectiveness.
Jeanette Magnus - Mary Amelia Douglas-Whited Community Women’s Health Center
Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, Department of Community Health
Sciences, The Mary Amelia Douglas-Whited Community Women’s Health Education Center is
committed to serving the women of New Orleans. Throughout the Center’s history, it has built
partnerships with neighborhood, community and faith-based organizations in New Orleans and
the surrounding areas. However, Katrina changed the communities and their priorities thus
changing how the Center worked with them. Since Katrina the Center has re-assessed its
mission to fit more closely the vision of promoting health through community action. The
mission is to facilitate capacity building to enhance community women’s health and well-being
throughout their lifespan.
In order to refocus efforts on promoting health, this project proposes an environmental scan of
three local communities: Treme, Algiers and St. Bernard Parish. An environmental scan is a
method of assessing the external environment and its interconnectedness to various layers and
components of community. A thorough assessment of the community creates a deeper
understanding for resolving issues and harvesting resources (Morrison, 1992). A current and
accurate description of the community and how the community views itself is vital to the
creation of programs that will meet community needs.
CBR Cycle 1 (2007-2008)
Amy Koritz- Living Cultures Project: Sustaining Arts, Culture and Heritage in New Orleans
Neighborhoods
New Orleans is an internationally treasured center for the arts and culture, and cultural tourism
is a key focus of the City’s economic redevelopment plans. The Cultural Sector Plan focuses on
repairing and compensating arts organizations and facilities, as well as individual artists, for
losses suffered in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. While the emphasis on supporting a
cultural economy that focuses on translating cultural production into dollars quickly and
directly is important to the city, and the transfer of funds directly into individual artists crucial,
both approaches overlook the role of the arts and culture in strengthening neighborhoods and
building communities. This project will attempt to seed a policy-research and cultural
community development project collaboration between Tulane, UNO, and the Urban Institute.
The Living Cultures Project will compile and disseminate a compendium of research, policies,
models and practices, and will hold a series of policy convenings around key issues of concern in
community cultural development such as crime and violence, civil liberties, artist housing, and
licensing.
Jennifer McGee- African-American Renal Transplant Experience
Racial disparities are present for outcomes following renal transplantation. Although current
kidney data demonstrates an equivalent one-year graft survival for blacks and whites, a worse
long-term graft survival exists for blacks. To date reasons cited for differences are considered
multi-factorial and are incompletely understood. After comparing similar patient sub groups
for several institutions across the US, the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients
documented improved kidney allograft survival among African-American recipients at the
Tulane University Center for Abdominal Transplant, which transplants African-American
patients at a volume two times the national average. Taken together it is our goal to use the
Tulane African-American renal transplant experience to aid in understanding outcome
disparities through the investigation of the community’s conviction regarding transplantation.
At completion of the surveys and interviews, data will be analyzed and a report generated.
Identification of the community’s opinion on transplantation will reveal areas of excellence as
well as areas in need of improvement thus fostering more research questions.
Stacy Overstreet- Posttraumatic Stress Disorder among New Orleans children
Children within the New Orleans community are currently at high risk for Posttraumatic Stress
Disorder (PTSD), due to high rates of violent crime compounded with the events surrounding
Hurricane Katrina. PTSD is an anxiety disorder associated with debilitating symptoms, such as
intrusive thoughts and flashbacks related to the traumatic event, persistent feelings of fear and
worry, and an inability to concentrate. The goal of this study is to examine the persistent
attention deficits in children with PTSD, which may occur regardless of the presence of threat,
through a direct and objective measure of attention. Results can inform individual and classwide intervention strategies for students who demonstrate symptoms of posttraumatic stress.
This preliminary study could serve as the foundation for larger scale research examining the
effects of trauma on academic functioning, a significant problem faced by the New Orleans
community.
Carol Reese- Developing partnership between Longue Vue House and Gardens and
Pontchartrain Park
Pontchartrain Park, which opened in 1954 with lots for sale in the Gentilly section of New
Orleans, was the first community planned for middle-class African-American home ownership
in a segregated city. In 2005 the community planned a fifty year founding celebration but the
neighborhood was inundated in August 2005 by the London Avenue Canal failure. Ironically,
however, having reached its fifty-year anniversary, Pontchartrain Park is eligible for National
Historic Landmark Status. Residents are combining forces to have their community recognized
at the local and national levels and to rebuild their homes and iconic public green spaces that
give the neighborhood its special character and feel. This project will immediately assess the
situation facing 1000 flooded properties to ascertain key recovery indicators. It will also lead
into the preparation and submission of National Register Historic District nomination for
Pontchartrain Park and collaboration with Longue Vue House and Gardens in development of a
recovery plan for the green space, playgrounds, and landscaped streetscapes.
Allison Truitt- A Cultural Geography of Vietnamese Communities in metropolitan New
Orleans
Vietnamese-Americans are the largest Asian-American group in Louisiana, concentrated largely
in the metropolitan New Orleans area. This community-based project will identify and
document how religious intuitions sponsor and support Vietnamese cultural life. It is intended
to provide preliminary findings for a large study on transformations in the social economies and
networks of the Vietnamese community of metropolitan New Orleans. Identifying how
religious institutions also serve as cultural centers is an important first step. This project will
document the social histories and community events that take place in five different
institutions throughout the metropolitan region, including Bo De Buddhist Temple, Cao Dei
Temple, the Vietnamese Baptist Church, and LaVang Catholic Church.