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Taking refuge at UB
12 from New Orleans institutions are "visiting students"
By ARTHUR PAGE
Assistant Vice President
Tulane University rose to the top of Emily Eckert's list when it came to meeting criteria for the kind of university where she wanted to obtain her undergraduate education.
Emily Eckert, shown here with the UB
Bull in front of the Center for the Arts, is one of seven Tulane
undergraduates who have enrolled in UB as "visiting students"
for the fall semester.
PHOTO: NANCY J. PARISI
It's a mid-sized university with an undergraduate population of about 7,000. The undergraduate campus is surrounded by neighborhoods of beautiful old homes. Downtown New Orleans—"an indescribable city"—can be reached by a 10-minute, streetcar ride through the French Quarter. Even though Emily "wasn't thrilled" with the fact that it was located more than 1,000 miles from home, the June graduate of Buffalo's City Honors High School knew Tulane was where she wanted to continue her education.
Over the summer, she shipped clothes, computer and other essentials by UPS to Tulane and, at 8 a.m. on Saturday, Aug. 27, she began moving into her dormitory with the help of her mother and stepfather, Terry and Joe Petrella.
They had flown to New Orleans on Aug. 26, the day Hurricane Katrina made landfall in southeast Florida. "We knew it was out there, but it didn't look like it was coming to New Orleans. We didn't even think about it," Emily recalls.
Katrina wasn't on their minds on Saturday morning, either. Emily recalls being a bit startled at dorm check-in when she was asked to indicate her "hurricane plan," a routine question asked of Tulane students in case the campus needs to be evacuated. An upperclassman helping her move into her 10th-floor dorm room noted that Tulane had undergone a week-long hurricane evacuation a year ago, but that it was "no big deal."
It wasn't long after that, during a visit to the campus bookstore, that Emily and the Petrellas overheard someone say that because Katrina had shifted to the west, Tulane was planning an evacuation. It would close at 5 p.m., with classes resuming five days later on Sept. 1.
Her mother and stepfather were traveling to West Palm Beach that afternoon and they were able to secure Emily a seat on their Southwest Airlines flight at 2 p.m. She put a few items in a backpack, locked the door on her dorm room and left Tulane after experiencing only a few hours as a freshman.
Safe in Florida, Emily and the Petrellas spent several days in front of a television set, watching Katrina wreak havoc on New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.
"It was surreal," Emily notes. "The highway we had been on two days earlier was used as a boat launch. We had driven by the Superdome on the way out of the city. We saw images of Canal Street and other landmarks."
It was only after the levees broke and a large part of New Orleans was inundated in deep floodwaters that Emily realized Tulane would be forced to close for the fall semester. Although its homepage was down as a result of damage to the university's computer systems, Tulane kept students, families and friends up-to-date on a special Web site, http://emergency.tulane.edu. On Sept. 2, Tulane President Scott Cowen announced Tulane could not hold a fall semester on its campus.
Emily, who had reached that conclusion earlier, was back in Buffalo at noon on Wednesday, Aug. 31. By 4 p.m. that same day, she was registered for classes at UB and one day later, she was attending classes as a "visiting" freshman.
Similarly, UB has opened its doors—and arms—to six other Tulane undergraduates, one from Xavier University of Louisiana and one from the University of New Orleans who are attending fall classes at UB on a visiting basis. The UB Law School is hosting two visiting students from Tulane and one from Loyola University. There may be more by week's end.
Terry Petrella said that UB staff, ranging from admissions to academic counseling to the Student Response Center, have done "an absolutely incredible job" in assisting her daughter. "I'm completely impressed. We obviously are very grateful."
Emily, whose brother, Andy Eckert, also is new at UB this semester as a junior transfer from Boston College, was able to enroll in similar, if not the same, courses that were on her schedule at Tulane.
"Everyone at UB has been very understanding, very helpful," she adds. "Tulane still is my school, but UB is my school right now."