With 16 departments and 20 interdisciplinary programs, the School of Liberal Arts houses the humanities, social sciences and fine and performing arts disciplines at Tulane University. With countless possible opportunities and pathways to follow, we teach students how to think and how to learn. The School of Liberal Arts fluidly reaches across academic boundaries through innovative courses, dynamic programming and path-breaking research, and recognizing that diverse fields within the liberal arts come together in unpredictable interdisciplinary combinations to advance understanding of our complex reality.

As we look ahead to a new era of academic ambition, transforming the undergraduate experience is at the heart of our mission. And the School of Liberal Arts, through which all Tulane students pass at some point in their undergraduate experience, with the wide array of fields we embrace, and with our relentless passion for learning and discovery, is at the center of Tulane. To do so, we must start from the ground up, transforming the student experience by transforming their learning environment.

Newcomb Hall is a distinguished and iconic edifice that stands as a pillar of the uptown campus. Built as the academic and administrative home of Newcomb College during WWI, it has served our community in numerous iterations for over 100 years. As uses shifted and needs changed, stopgap adaptations were put in place, only for these to be followed by new stopgaps for new emergent needs. The layers of changes lacked a totality of vision, severely undercutting the original design and resulting in an array of dim, cramped spaces. While the School of Liberal Arts continues to draw a wide range of students, students are disheartened by the condition of Newcomb Hall.

Looking Ahead

The vision for the renovation of Newcomb Hall takes James Gamble Rogers’ light-filled original conception, carved up over the intervening century, and reimagines it around the principles of interdisciplinary synergies. In the first stage of this large-scale renovation, we create a dynamic first-floor that reverses the usual orientation, and opens up to Newcomb Quad, featuring collaboration spaces, interdisciplinary meeting rooms and a suite dedicated to our trademark program Strategy, Leadership, and Analytics Minor (SLAM). On the fourth floor, we create a space for the Department of Communication and our fast-growing program in Digital Media Practices, featuring screening rooms, editing and finishing suites, a green screen shooting room and a podcast recording studio. This is an exciting, light filled space to inspire and to educate, where the full range of the digital and communication arts can commingle.

We’re excited for the many opportunities this critical renovation will offer the School of Liberal Arts community. With a full-scale renovation, we have a rare moment when we can establish spaces that reflect our culture and curriculum. Ours is a collaborative culture, and the many shared physical spaces incorporated in this renovation will center and elevate that commitment to collaboration, sparking a rich cross-pollination of ideas across majors and between students and faculty.

In addition to these collaborative spaces, the renovated Newcomb Hall will offer an exciting event space on the first floor, allowing a space for speakers, large meetings and marquee events. By welcoming guests and colleagues in a modern, dedicated space, Tulane will demonstrate the esteem with which the liberal arts are held.

We break ground on this exciting renovation mid-year in 2024. We’ve received approval for work on the most critical elements of Newcomb Hall, namely the first and fourth floors. Along the way, we’ll bring the infrastructure of the entire building, including heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, new plumbing and sprinkler systems, an upgraded elevator, and modern restrooms and mother’s rooms to this 92,000 sq. ft. building. With an open central lobby and spaces for our entire community, the first floor of Newcomb Hall will stand as the heart of our thriving community.