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Thursday, September 8, 2005
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Life Goes On: Miles From Home, Tulane Officials Worry About Admissions, Fund Raising, and the Mail
As a Community College in Mississippi Digs Out, Staffers and Students Look to a Difficult Future
Stronger Hurricanes? Researchers Debate Whether Global Warming Will Make Storms More Destructive
Katrina Update: Announcements from colleges, associations, and government agencies.
Forum: Discuss the effects of the hurricane and exchange information.
Philanthropy: Donations to Hurricane-Relief Efforts Exceed $500-Million
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As a community college in Mississippi digs out, staffers and students look to a difficult future
Life goes on: Miles from home, Tulane officials worry about admissions, fund raising, and the mail
Stronger hurricanes? Researchers debate whether global warming will make storms more destructive
House-passed bill would let displaced students keep Pell Grants; debate looms over other relief measures
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Even as Tulane University officials try to work from here, amid the chaos, to reopen in New Orleans for the spring semester, it's business as usual for the admissions staff, which is attempting to recruit a class for next fall. As the heart of the admission season approaches, the staff is working out of quarters in Richmond, Va., near one of the suppliers of its admissions materials, most of which were left on the campus.
In an interview on Tuesday, Scott S. Cowen, Tulane's president, declined to go into specifics on the university's expectations for admissions next fall. But he said that members of this fall's freshman class are the "most vulnerable" because "they haven't had the opportunity to experience New Orleans and they haven't had the opportunity to bond to the institution." There could be a "ripple effect," he said, that could influence admissions in 2006.
Meanwhile, the university's admissions officers continue traveling to college fairs around the country, the traditional venues for selling the institution to prospective students and their parents. It just so happened that, on Tuesday night, one such gathering was scheduled here in Houston, just as the city was filling up with refugees displaced by Hurricane Katrina and days after Tulane officials canceled the fall semester in the storm's wake (The Chronicle, September 6).
But the show went on, and more than 200 students and parents showed up at a ballroom at a Marriott hotel to hear Ian Watt, a Tulane admissions officer, make his pitch, a talk that had obviously been revised at many points along the way by Katrina. He read e-mail messages from displaced Tulane undergraduates praising the university. And he reminded the group that mailing addresses and telephone numbers for the admissions office would change, although he was unable to provide that information just yet. "I want to focus on the future," Mr. Watt told the group, moving to his usual set of talking points -- the opening of an expanded student center, the university's successful baseball team, and plans to hire more faculty members. "The New Orleans you will encounter a year from now will be strong," he said. "Tulane is going to thrive."
During a question-and-answer period, nearly every inquiry from the audience centered not on Katrina's impact but on the nuts and bolts of admissions: SAT scores, declaring a major, references, and registering for classes.
In this slightly surreal setting, only two questions concerned Katrina. One was about what address to use for reference letters. The other inquired about the possibility of campus visits this fall by prospective students.
Afterward, in interviews, many students said their plans to apply to Tulane would not change because of the hurricane. "It seems like they have everything under control," said Mindy Schultz, a high-school senior, who reported receiving at least two e-mail messages from the Tulane admissions office in the last week. Her mother, Elyse, was equally optimistic. "As long as New Orleans is ready for them, she can go," she said.
Another mother, Laurie Dreyfuss, was a little more cautious about the plans of her daughter, Amanda. "I just keep thinking, What if this happened next year, when she was there?" Still, she said her daughter's decision about where to enroll next fall would probably hinge on what it always did: financial aid.
Just six months ago, Tulane announced the public phase of a fund-raising campaign with a goal of $700-million by 2008. The aim was to push the university's endowment over the $1-billion mark.
Now, with hurricane-relief efforts competing for charity dollars and what is likely to be a host of costly new needs on the campus, Tulane officials said this week that the focus of the campaign would probably change.
"The previous goals," said Yvette M. Jones, senior vice president for external affairs, "will be put on the back burner for now."
Tulane administrators are missing many things as they work out of a Four Seasons Hotel here, 350 miles from home, but one of the most sought-after things has been mail. Officials here believe the university's mail has been delivered to several locations, including New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Dallas. This is a concern because, even though important communications these days come by e-mail, snail mail is still good for one thing: checks.
While Tulane has business-interruption insurance that will allow it to continue paying its full-time employees and other essential expenses for a few months, it is trying to collect as much revenue as it can to help avoid a cash crunch, given that it will be closed for the fall semester.
So officials sent out a rescue team on Wednesday in hopes of locating as much official mail as possible and using a FedEx airplane to ship it to Houston.
"We have to figure out what we need -- things like magazines will be held, even The Chronicle," said one Tulane official.
A chance meeting in the lobby of the hotel, where Tulane has set up temporary quarters until office space is ready in the next few days, led to a little more help for the university's skeleton staff.
Deborah L. Grant, vice president for university communications, was walking through the lobby wearing a Tulane shirt the other day when a man approached and ask if she worked for the university. It turned out that the man's family had just been evacuated to Houston from Belle Chasse, La., and his daughter, Maren Leopold, was supposed to be a freshman this fall at Tulane.
Ms. Leopold sent an e-mail message to Ms. Grant, and by Wednesday morning the would-be student was working in the university's hotel suite, trying to figure out how to get a laptop to print a document. Ms. Leopold, who said she had been on the campus for "only a few hours" before it was evacuated, has no plans to take classes at another university this fall.
"I've had my heart set on Tulane, and I don't want to go anywhere else," she said. "So I might as well volunteer for them."
Background article from The Chronicle:
- Tulane's President, Working in Houston With a Skeletal Staff, Says Reopening by Spring Is Essential (9/7/2005)