No program had measurable success in turning the beleaguered organization around until 1996 when Mayor Marc Morial and the Department of Housing and Urban Development appointed Tulane University Administrator Ron Mason to be executive monitor and help the agency avert a government takeover. Mason credits partnering with universities as a key component of the Cooperative Endeavor Agreement s success. The NCUC is unique because universities are the driving force. HANO wasn t perceived to have had. Universities also have management expertise, and human and material resources.
Universities are in the problem-solving business.
If you can get a university that is in the business of solving problems to focus on urban America, then you've got yourself something. By connecting university students and staff with the urban community, you re creating a workforce that is always there to help people become self-sufficient. Sternly poised at the conference table in his HANO office, Mason reflected on how working in poorer communities gave him an appreciation and an understanding of grassroots organizing, which he says, prepared him to work in his dual capacity as university official and social program director. After graduating from Columbia University Law School, he worked as an organizer of poor rural cooperatives in Lafayette, Louisiana. He also assisted in developing Empowerment Zones for the city of New Orleans.