New Orleans campuses coming back to life

[Cheesesteak]

New Orleans campuses coming back to life
A degree of success after Katrina

Monday, January 23, 2006
By HOLLY K. HACKER / The Dallas Morning News

NEW ORLEANS – No sooner had Brian Hoffman arrived at Tulane University in August than Hurricane Katrina chased him away. But the freshman from Dallas never doubted that when the campus reopened, he'd head back.

"Why would you not want to be a part of the rebuilding?" he said last week as he sat outside a popular coffeehouse with friends.

Walter "Zev" Rudberg returned to Tulane last week, too, but he's not sure he wants to stay. As part of its financial recovery from Katrina, Tulane is phasing out Mr. Rudberg's major, mechanical engineering.

"I'm trying to figure out where I am, what I'm doing. I don't like having things up in the air like that," said Mr. Rudberg, a sophomore who's also from Dallas.

With their fall semesters abruptly canceled, more than 70,000 students at New Orleans colleges scattered across Louisiana and the rest of the country. Texas schools alone took in more than 5,000.

Now, tens of thousands of those students are resuming their studies in one of the biggest, most celebrated homecomings since Katrina struck five months ago. To city and state leaders, the future of New Orleans lies not only in the rebuilding of levees, but also in the resurrection of higher education.

With half a dozen universities and a community college, higher education is a critical part of the city's economy and cultural life. New Orleans cannot rebound if the colleges founder, leaders say.

"Just think for a moment of the potential impact of that on the economy, on the workforce, on the future tax base," said E. Joseph Savoie, Louisiana's commissioner of higher education.

"So, we're focusing heavily on aggressive and creative ways to try to get students back in school. We need them back in school in Louisiana because Louisiana's economy needs them, particularly in the long term."

There's much rebuilding left to do. Some campuses remain closed, forcing students to live and learn in trailers, hotels and other creative facilities. All the schools that are reopening are smaller than before Katrina, and some of the cuts are deep.

Tulane, the wealthiest and most elite school, has laid off 180 faculty members, 130 of them at the medical school because the city has far fewer patients to serve. The university also plans to consolidate 45 doctoral programs into 18, and eliminate 14 altogether. Five undergraduate majors, mainly in engineering, are also being cut. Eight sports will be eliminated.

Katrina's devastation could affect Texas universities if faculty from New Orleans find work here.

Economics professor Chetan Davé was supposed to start teaching at Tulane last fall. After Katrina, he found work at the University of Texas at Dallas. He has decided to stay.

UTD President David Daniel predicts there will be competition to hire talented professors who have lost their jobs in New Orleans, either by displacement or layoffs.

"There are never too many smart people out there to be hired," he said.

A symbol
Dr. Savoie says the return of college students is an encouraging first step.

"It's symbolic of the revitalization of the workforce and the economy and the life of the city," he said, "but we've got many more challenges ahead of us."

New Orleans' mix of colleges and universities is as eclectic as the city itself. Tulane, considered one of the nation's top 60 research campuses, is the city's largest private employer with a pre-Katrina payroll of 8,000. Other schools include Loyola, the largest Catholic university in the South; three historically black institutions; two medical schools; a big public university and a community college.

Katrina inflicted damage on all the campuses, but hit some harder than others. At Loyola, only the recreation center sustained major damage. Next door, Tulane took a bigger hit, but officials and construction crews went to work in the fall and repaired more than 80 buildings to reopen this semester.

A few miles away, Dillard University was swamped by up to eight feet of water. The rambling campus, with its clusters of oak trees and white Georgian buildings, remains closed. Students are staying at a Hilton hotel downtown and taking classes there, at the World Trade Center and at Tulane.

Southern University at New Orleans, a public school, is nowhere close to reopening. Those students who returned are housed at a Marriott hotel downtown and taking classes at a charter school as they await Federal Emergency Management Agency trailers to open on campus.

On Southern's main campus, the reek of mold pervades the library. Books remain on the shelves, but mold and water damage have left most unreadable.

Xavier University reopened last week, but its neighborhood still shows much of the devastation from Katrina. Students walk to class past gutted homes with heaps of clothes, TVs and appliances piled on the sidewalks. The student parking lot has been taken over by FEMA trailers to house displaced Xavier administrators, campus police and other staff.

"It's going to take a long time for it to be the same," said Deneshia McIntosh, a Xavier junior from Carrollton. From McDonald's to Foot Locker, many of the restaurants and businesses near campus remain closed, she said, and not all street and traffic lights are working.

The University of New Orleans is near the London Avenue Canal, which was breached after Katrina. The campus sits just high enough that water crept into a few buildings, while homes along the nearby, lower-lying streets were so damaged they remain empty.

"A couple of feet make all the difference," said Wendy Schluchter, a UNO biology professor. She said UNO was the only dry patch around, and about 2,500 people waited there for three or four days to be evacuated. To survive, some broke into UNO buildings for food, water and shelter.

A revised outlook
College leaders remain confident that the schools will rebound, but not necessarily as they were before. The U.S. Department of Education has pledged $230 million to campuses affected by hurricanes Katrina and Rita, including schools that took in displaced students.Tulane President Scott Cowen has said he believes Tulane needs to focus on fewer programs and make those stronger.

Some higher education experts predict the public universities will undergo major changes, too. With fewer resources, they'll need to figure out which programs will serve the market best, and may end up collaborating more and offering more courses online, said Bruce Chaloux, an official at the Southern Regional Education Board.

"I think come this late summer, we're going to have a better feel of what the long-term impact was and will be," he said.

This being academia, some professors are trying to turn Katrina into a learning experience.

At Loyola, many professors have redesigned courses to incorporate Katrina, and others have drawn up new classes.

One new course is on the psychology of disasters. Another, on oral histories, will require students to gather stories of Katrina survivors.

At Tulane, Douglas Meffert is teaching a class on the history, ecology and culture of the Mississippi River basin. It's not new, but this time it will be especially relevant. Students will visit some of the levee breaks and will debate a new plan by the Bring New Orleans Back commission (on which Dr. Meffert sits) to rebuild the city.

Dan Etheridge, Dr. Meffert's teaching assistant, said he hopes students share with others what they learn, because the city needs ambassadors.

"You don't necessarily have to be advocating a certain strategy," he said, "but just helping people understand some of the complexity and what's at stake."

[EP Pony Fan]

Man, how could you not root for those guys? Not their athletic teams, necessarily, just the students themselves. I'm rooting for them to get back to class, to get back in their dorms, and to get back a city to which they'll always have a strong attachment.

[Stallion]

must have been a hell of a weekend. Tulane got about 15-18 football commitments this weekend-although for the most part they are scrambling big time

[SMUguy]

Any truth to the rumor/fear that they might lose players from their current roster? Sad as it is, it would be understandable if some players decide they want to re-start their careers elsewhere.

[Stallion]

they've lost one kid to LSU whose major was engineering which was eliminated a Tunane. The word is that's it.-So far.

[Water Pony]

Good luck to Tulane:

SMU should want like-minded universities to be successful, e.g. Rice, Tulsa, etc. In the BCS world, private, academically committed schools need to florish. Losing even one, it not a good trend. State schools and BCS conferences have hijacked big time sports and "our model" needs all the help it can get internally and externally.

Go Mustangs!
Go Green Wave!
Go Golden Hurricanes!
Go Owls!
Go Deacons!
Go Commodores!
Go Wildcats!
Go Blue Devils!
Go Cardinal!
Go Eagles!
Go Irish!
Go Middies!
Go Cadets!
Go Falcons!

[Cheesesteak]

Go Water Pony!