Catholic school among beneficiaries of $14 million in Carnegie grants

Published: 2007-10-04

NEW ORLEANS (CNS) -- Vartan Gregorian, president of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, is a shining American success story whose life is proof of the power and value of higher education. Now Gregorian and the corporation founded by U.S. Steel magnate and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie are sharing the wealth by investing $14 million in higher education and other learning initiatives in post-Katrina New Orleans, including a $4 million grant to Xavier University, the country's only historically black Catholic university. The $14 million in Carnegie grants, announced at a student forum at Xavier's University Center Sept. 19, also includes $5 million to Tulane University, $2 million to Dillard University, $2 million for the restoration of the Rosa F. Keller Library in Broadmoor and $1 million to Teach for America, which will triple the 130 corps members serving in New Orleans by 2010. Gregorian, 73, former president of Brown University and CEO of the New York Public Library, told hundreds of students from Xavier, Dillard and Tulane to continue feeding their intellectual curiosity because he learned, through personal experience, that education is the key to future success.

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