Tulane adds Spark to nation’s capital

Nearly a dozen students from the Spark Residential Learning Community at Tulane University traveled to Washington, D.C., during spring break to explore the city’s cultural institutions and its women leaders.

“In Spark, these students have been learning and developing their own leadership skills,” said Anna Mahoney, director of the Newcomb Research Center and a residential faculty mentor for Josephine Louise Hall. “During the trip to D.C. they learned how they might apply those skills in the future across a range of fields.”

“See it and be it” was the group’s motto for the week.

“Our motto for the week was: See it and be it.”

—Anna Mahoney, residential faculty mentor

Students met with policy leaders, toured the National Institutes of Health, and visited Smithsonian museums and art exhibitions. They also connected with Tulane alumnae in the city, who shared their experiences — both challenges and triumphs — navigating the working world in Washington, D.C.

Spark is a live-in community located in the all-women Josephine Louise Hall on the uptown campus. The community is designed to draw on the legacy of Newcomb College by providing a place for first-year women to engage in activities, events and programs provided by Newcomb College Institute that focus on gender, leadership and social change.