2005: A Year In Review

Last year would close out with a natural disaster that was beyond anyone’s comprehension — a magnitude 9.3 earthquake unleashed a tsunami which traveled across the Indian Ocean, taking the lives of an estimated 250,000 people in Southeast Asia. The Asian tsunami would set the stage for the natural disasters which would occur in the New Year.

Probably the most reported and unforgettable story in 2005, in addition to the ongoing War in Iraq, was Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the Gulf Coast region of the United States at the end of August. The hurricane’s aftermath is still affecting the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. In the higher education community, thousands of students, faculty and staff had no schools to go back to when the storm was over. The three historically Black colleges in New Orleans — Dillard University, Southern University-New Orleans and Xavier University of Louisiana — were forced to shut down for at least the fall semester after suffering substantial damage to their respective campuses. They would also have to lay off some faculty and staff. As expected, the higher ed community stepped up, as many colleges and universities across the country opened their schools to both displaced students and faculty.

Earlier this fall, New Orleans universities Loyola and Tulane, which did not incur as much damage as the city’s three HBCUs, announced that students from Dillard and Xavier will be able to attend class and administrators from the two universities will share office space on the campuses of Loyola and Tulane. But the impact on Tulane would be felt as well, as the school announced cutbacks and faculty layoffs in December. Dropping five of its undergraduate programs and half of its doctoral programs, Tulane President Scott S. Cowen said, “This is the most significant reinvention of a university in the United States in over a century.” There’s no doubt that statement could apply to the other universities affected by the hurricane as well.