Extending a legacy of leadership
During his decade of leadership as Vice President of Student Affairs, J. Davidson “Dusty” Porter, PhD played a transformative role inelevating the student experience at Tulane. Now that he’s retired, Porter and his husband, Timothy J. Ring, hope to be able to establish the Porter Ring Scholarship Endowed Fund through their bequest to Tulane.
Among the crucial initiatives Porter helped champion during his 2014- 2024 tenure were strategically growing campus health and wellness services as well as enhancing the Tulane residential experience on campus by seamlessly blending living and learning through programs like Residential Learning Communities and the Residential Faculty Fellows Program in first-year halls.
Porter says that he and his colleagues in Student Affairs, Newcomb-Tulane College and Academic Affairs focused on creating an intentional and robust Tulane student experience. This holistic experience included "both high academic rigor and academic engagement along with the social engagement that Tulane’s location in New Orleans offers.”
He also closely considered what support services were in place for students who were navigating challenges related to alcohol and other drugs, particularly those students who wanted to return to Tulane after receiving medical and behavioral care at home after taking a leave of absence from campus. “When I first arrived at Tulane, we didn’t have any kind of recovery community. We had students that were in recovery, but we didn’t have a university recovery community that the university was identifying, naming and supporting,” says Porter.
A seed gift from the Goldring Family Foundation kicked things off, with generous donors from across the university coming together to support and establish a new recovery community. In fall 2024, the Lux Recovery House, a dedicated community for sober living, opened on campus.
Porter was on hand for the celebration. “I was so touched by the students
that spoke ....
“What I realized, with my husband, Tim, was that it’s great to have the program, but how do we actually also recognize some of the students who invariably are going to be in leadership roles in the recovery community? It would be wonderful to recognize that in some way.”
In response, Porter, along with his husband Timothy J. Ring, worked closely with the Office of Gift Planning to create an estate gift to establish the Porter Ring Scholarship Endowed Fund. The fund will provide scholarship support to juniors and seniors in the Tulane recovery community.
Establishing a bequest intention with Tulane offered an ideal way for Porter to meet his philanthropic goals for supporting the Tulane recovery community while continuing to enjoy his retirement.
“I have a wonderful quality of life in retirement, but part of that includes being thoughtful about the resources I do have.
“For Tim and me, it was a better decision to say, ‘Look, while we may not have the kind of money immediately that we can simply give to Tulane, what we do want to do is to make sure that at the end of the day when we pass this earth that our investments, instead of giving them to people, we’d rather give them to things that we care about.”
Porter regards his time at Tulane as transformational. “Tulane gave so much to me. It gave me an incredible opportunity to work with a phenomenal leadership team on the President’s Cabinet and with the team that we had in Student Affairs. It allowed me to grow and develop.
“What’s important to me is just to be thankful and to support Tulane’s legacy in a very small way by continuing to attract incredible students and to support the students who are navigating an unexpected chapter of their journey, which is moving through recovery.”
To learn more about how you can create a lasting impact by establishing a bequest intention at Tulane University, contact the Office of Gift Planning at 1-800-999-0181 or giftplanning@tulane.edu.