by Emily Wengert
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As the relief and recovery effort in the wake of Hurricane Katrina progresses, victims and survivors cling to the important things in life as they try to return to normalcy. For thousands of displaced students enrolled at one of the 25+ colleges and universities now closed, that normalcy includes finding a way to refocus their energies back on their education. In a show of caring, more than 600 schools nationwide have offered to help by paying tuition, eliminating fees, offering online learning options, or creating special classes for those affected.
Online Options Transcend Closed Doors
Labor Day Weekend was a busy one for Burks Oakley, director of University of Illinois Online. He spent the holiday creating www.sloansemester.com so students displaced by the hurricane could learn about an opportunity to earn 12 credits online for free.
Supported financially by $1.1 million from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Sloan Semester will give students suddenly unable to attend classes on campus access to intensive 10-week courses, which will start in October. Through this unique program, students can request the courses they want, which Oakley hopes to offer even if only three to five students enroll.
More than 180 schools with online programs (including Arizona State University, Carnegie Mellon University, DePaul University, Ellis College of NYIT, Kaplan University, Nova Southeastern, Penn State World Campus, Saint Leo University, University of Massachusetts Lowell, West Virginia University, and others) have volunteered their resources, which will be coordinated by the Sloan Consortium. Sloan-C, as they are also known, promotes collaboration in learning (Burks is a board member) and has joined forces with the Southern Regional Education Board on this endeavor.
Dozens of students have expressed interest in the semester, Oakley explains, among them Ray Porter, a junior at Xavier University.
"I've been looking for a bit of normalcy," admits Porter. He evacuated New Orleans before the storm hit with just a few items of clothing, leaving his computer, some credit cards, and his sense of security behind.
Having returned to his family in Houston, TX, Porter now wonders if his third-floor dorm room has any damage, something that may take months to learn because of the ongoing mandatory evacuation of the city.
But to make sure he graduates on time, he's not waiting months to continue his schooling, opting instead for the convenience of Sloan Semester. "I'm looking forward to getting myself back on track," he says.
Accomplishing Goals On Time
Walker Dupre, an MBA student at the University of New Orleans (UNO), has opted for a different online program. UNO, which is now operating out of its campus in Baton Rouge, LA, hopes to have online courses available to its own students starting in October. Just two courses shy of graduating, Walker is relieved.
"We kept saying how great December was going to be because I'd be finished with the program," says Dupre, who fled Metairie, LA, with his wife and two young boys to stay with his grandmother four hours away. "News reports said New Orleans was closed for the year. You start thinking, 'Well, there goes my last semester of class.'"
Fortunately, the home he and his wife just bought merely suffered wind damage from Hurricane Katrina, with no flooding. But without the availability of electricity and water in Metairie, he's uncertain when his family will be allowed to return to their home.
"Thankfully, they are going to do the Internet courses," Dupre says. "Then if we move back to Metairie, I can be consistent with my classes."
An Array of Assistance
In the early days after the storm, there was surely a consistent response from schools across the nation - the majority acted quickly to let students know about their options. Online bulletin boards popped up, like the one created by the Society for College and University Planning and another from the American Council on Education and the National Association of College and University Business Officers at CampusRelief.org.
Since many of the thousands of students in the affected region returned to parents' homes throughout the country, these sites connect them with opportunities in all 50 states. For instance, Delaware State University is giving free tuition for the fall to any student in Florida, Louisiana, Alabama, or Mississippi. At the Virginia Beach, VA-based Regent University, there has been a lot of interest in their offer for free tuition and books for online undergraduate courses for the second half of the fall semester. And Princeton University, New Jersey, has agreed to let in 25 academically qualified undergraduates and 20 graduate students.
Overcoming Educational Obstacles
More than 25 colleges and universities, including the University of New Orleans (UNO) where Jessica Gerard attends, have been forced to shut their doors, either temporarily or for the foreseeable future, since Hurricane Katrina swept through.
When Jessica Gerard, a UNO student, returned to her home in Slidell, LA, after fleeing days earlier before the onset of Hurricane Katrina, she and her fiancé found complete destruction. "We had eight feet of water and six inches of mud," Jessica says. "When we saw the house, all we wanted to do was cry."
With her property in ruins, Gerard says there is only one thing she can look forward to: finishing her last semester in college as she had planned.
Faced with trying to apply for aid from FEMA and coping with having no permanent place to stay (she's been living in a mission in Natchez, MS, that took her and her fiancé in when a church they had first stayed in lost power during the storm), Gerard was relieved at how easy it was to arrange her education with administrators from UNO and her new school.
"I could have gotten the runaround and I didn't," she says. "The school part really helped. Once I had that figured out, I could focus my attention everywhere else."
In a change from a stricter policy, University of New Orleans has agreed to accept credits from many institutions, including Southeastern, where Gerard will now attend to get the 15 credits she needs to graduate.
In this time of upheaval as people try to put their lives back in order, students are thankful for the flexibility, understanding, and options provided by the country's top colleges.
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