Stern is home to the School of Science and Engineering. The university is a member of the prestigious Association of American Universities, a select group of the 62 leading research universities in the United States and Canada with “preeminent programs of graduate and professional education and scholarly research.” Tulane also is ranked by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching as a university with “very high research activity.”
Percival Stern Hall was dedicated on October 8, 1971, as a building for the sciences and designed by Curtis and Davis and Thompson B. Burk and Associates architects. The west end of the building replaced what used to be the Student Center, a popular Georgian Revival building from 1940 designed by Douglass V. Freret. Stern was built with five floors of reinforced concrete with walls of pre-cast concrete at a cost of $6.8 million. It is named after its principal donor, Mr. Percival Stern (B.E. 1899), who pledged $3M for its construction.
One of the most enduring campus legends is that the facade of Stern, if converted to a computer punch card, would read, "Roll Wave-Beat LSU" (or another less nicely-worded thought). While that would have been brilliant if executed, it is unfortunately not true. The erratic window placement in the facade is due to individual faculty members' preference for windows in their offices and classrooms.