Jonathan Stroud, School of Engineering, Class of 2004

Jonathan Stroud today. Photo belongs to Jonathan Stroud.

Jonathan Stroud graduated from Tulane in 2004 with a Bachelor in Science in Biomedical Engineering. As a member of one of the last classes to graduate before Hurricane Katrina, Jonathan was a writer at the Tulane Hulaballoo and was also in the Homecoming court parade in City Park his senior year, which he describes as his favorite Tulane tradition.

Jonathan was also an avid Tulane football fan, and reminisces about when he and his friends used to go to every single game at the Superdome despite the lack of support from the majority of the student body. This support seems to run in his family, as he mentions that his dad, who attended Tulane in the 1950s, loved hearing the cheers emanating from the stadium, which was on campus at the time, although he was too poor to attend. Jonathan even returned to Tulane in September of this year to attend the game opener at Yulman Stadium.

While attending Tulane from 2000 until 2004, Jonathan was on campus for many of the turbulent events that have occurred in recent American history. He recalls his mother calling him right after the first plane struck the World Trade Center on September 11th 2001, and was on the phone with her as the second plane hit. He immediately ran to campus, where students were convening to watch the news unfold and comfort each other.

Following his graduation in 2004, Jonathan attended graduate school in Los Angeles at the University of Southern California, graduating in 2006 with a degree in Communication. While attending USC, Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, leaving the city in a state of devastation. This hit Jonathan hard, as he remembers being stuck in traffic on the highway when an NPR video of a clearly distraught women on the roof of her house where her husband had just drowned due to extreme flooding. The only thing Jonathan could do at that moment was pull his car over and cry. He returned to New Orleans for Mardi Gras the next year. First hand he saw the destruction the hurricane had caused the city noting, “I remember going down to Lakeview and to the ninth ward and there were cars that had been turned upside down and thrown into the side of houses, and there were houses that were completely off of their block.” Jonathan also noticed many significant changes at Tulane, including the consolidation of the Engineering and Science schools, and of Newcomb College and Tulane University.

Later on that year, he drove home from Los Angeles, and passed through New Orleans. He recalls his most memorable post- Hurricane Katrina memory, an evening on that trip when his tire popped in the middle of the ninth ward. An SUV with a man and his family approached Jonathan, and gave him a new spare tire. While helping Jonathan fix his car, the man told him about how they had lost their house and evacuated to Houston. This is a prime example of the selfishness of the citizens of this city, with Jonathan recognizing the generosity of the family. “He gave me his tire and he didn’t even have a house.”

Jonathan fondly remembers his time at Tulane and makes it a point to frequently come back and visit. In 2013 he graduated from the Washington College of Law at American University in Washington D.C. where he currently resides.

[Editor’s Note: This article was captured as part of the class “Media Histories” taught by Vicki Mayer in collaboration with the Office of Alumni Affairs at Tulane University. It was originally published on November 6, 2014.]