The Southern Society was the first to respond. Not more than three days after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, students from New Orleans, other parts of Louisiana and Mississippi had set up a table in Red Square to raise money for hurricane victims. “We just had a strong feeling of helplessness,” Hanlon deVerges, president of the Southern Society, said.
The Southern Society is still out there, but the rest of the Georgetown community is starting to wake up to the disaster. From accepting Loyola students to holding a benefit concert, Georgetown has begun to create a cohesive response to Hurricane Katrina.
The Academic Response: Keeping kids in school
When Gabriel Falcon heard about Hurricane Katrina, it was a category two hurricane off the coast of Florida. As a junior at Loyola University of New Orleans, he wasn’t too surprised by warnings of a hurricane during hurricane season. There was a voluntary evacuation in effect, and Falcon took advantage of it, looking forward to a weekend at home in Houston, Texas, with friends. He and his roommates packed a week’s worth of clothes and hit the road. They arrived safely in Houston 10 hours later-normally, Falcon said, the trip takes half that time.
It was not until the next day that Falcon would see the severity of Hurricane Katrina. When he found out that Loyola was closed for the semester, he realized that he would have to find another place to go to school, he said.
By the time Falcon started looking, Rice University had already started turning down Loyola students, he said. Rice had an extremely liberal acceptance policy for students of Tulane University, also in New Orleans. Falcon was able to earn acceptance into the University of St. Thomas, a Catholic University in Houston, but he learned that he would have to pay tuition, he said.
It was not until a week ago that Falcon found out, via word of mouth, that better options were available to him. Friends told him to check out the website for the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities. With a sister living in Northeast Washington, Falcon submitted an application to Georgetown immediately.
Almost every university in the nation seems to have opened its doors to students affected by Hurricane Katrina. Each school has a different plan for enrolling students, with some treating them as visiting students and others enrolling them full time, complete with tuition. The overwhelming sentiment, however, is the desire to help.
Georgetown has offered visiting student status to students from Loyola University of New Orleans, the only Jesuit school affected by the disaster, for fall 2005. According to the plan, students who applied by last Tuesday, Sept. 6, can transfer all credits earned at Georgetown when they return to Loyola in the spring. According University spokesperson Julie Green Bataille, approximately 60 undergraduates and 29 law students have taken advantage of the program.
Only students who are able to commute to campus were eligible for this emergency cross registration program, according to a university press release. The housing office did contact several Georgetown students with open spaces in their university residences on Tuesday, warning them that a hurricane survivor could be placed in that space. “Any attempt to discourage another student from moving in will be considered a breach of contract,” the e-mail read, quoting the Housing Occupancy Agreement.
Bataille, however, said that the University would not be able to provide housing to Loyola students in general. “There were a few special circumstances in which we were able to accommodate students,” she said. Students who have not yet received a new roommate will not get one, she added.
Falcon had applied toGeorgetown’s program well before the deadline, but he did not hear back from Georgetown until Labor Day, when an advisor called to tell him he was starting classes the next day.
But he was smiling. “They called to let me know I got in, it was amazing, I was just thankful, I hopped on a plane and came over,” he said.
Falcon said that his experience with Georgetown has been extremely positive. All he had to do was show the registrar his Loyola ID, he said, and he was on his way to his first class.
In addition, when Falcon applied, he said, he was asked to list the classes he had been signed up for at Loyola. The advisor from Georgetown helped him find similar classes here.
“They came pretty close-he hit two or three right on,” Falcon said. “At Rice, they’re just throwing them wherever they have room.”
Georgetown’s program is part of a larger initiative by the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities, of which it is a member. On August 31, three days after the hurricane struck,
the AJCU announced that its 27 members had all agreed to accommodate students from Loyola University of New Orleans, the only Jesuit school affected by the disaster. The AJCU did not specify the opportunities participating universities should offer to the evacuated students, so each administration was left to design a program. The universities vary in their requirements and what they offer to students.
At Fordham University, a Jesuit school in New York, students are being asked to submit an application, along with academic records from their high schools. However, Fordham is accepting students from all the universities closed by Hurricane Katrina, not just Loyola.
Zachary Brown, a student at Loyola’s College of Music, chose to apply to Fordham both because his family lives in New Jersey, and because its music program is considered strong. However, Fordham could not
guarantee that they would admit him.
“Students are accepted based on the University’s qualifications for admission,” a Fordham press release read.
Still, Brown is confident. “The impression that I got was that I had a pretty decent chance of getting in,” he said.
Students are HERE
Five thousand dollars is the target revenue for a benefit concert for the hurricane being held this Friday. Academic aid is important for those who escaped Hurricane Katrina, but Georgetown is also helping those who did not.
The Georgetown Hurricane Emergency Relief Effort is leading the effort. GU HERE was conceived last Friday at a meeting of approximately 50 students, faculty and administrators, according to Bataille. Bataille attributed the idea to students, but Nate Fabian suggested that the creation of the group was propelled by the President’s office.
The group’s goal is coordination rather than direct aid, according GU HERE member Nate Fabian (SFS ‘08). It’s main vehicle will be a website, my.georgetown.edu/hurricanerelief, which allows students to sign up individually to volunteer and allows student groups to post their events.
All of the money raised through GU HERE by Friday will be matched 2-to-1 by Nestle Corporation.
The group is working to organize activities until early next year. Several groups have already set up events through GU HERE, including a diaper drive led by Georgetown Right to Life and the Knight of Columbus. The library will be sending books for small children being housed temporarily at the D.C. Armory. And HERE is working with Habitat for Humanity to send students to affected regions next winter and spring.
-Additional reporting by
Melissa Lefkowitz
