NEW ORLEANS - When Tulane University reopens its gates today, more than 10,000 students who were displaced after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans will return to the same campus but to a very different school.
Administrators and students are optimistic that they can build on the foundations of a hurricane-torn campus, but they realize it will be an uphill battle.
Ninety-two percent of Tulane's students will return for the spring semester after they brought their stories to other universities across the nation last fall. Several became visiting students at Duke.
"It feels like spring here," said Tulane spokesperson Mike Strecker. "I hope that's a good metaphor for the return of Tulane and the return of New Orleans."
Orientation
A "Welcome Back" sign hung over the packed center of Tulane's campus this weekend, as freshmen returned to the rooms they abandoned in late August. Upperclassmen unpacked boxes and returned home once more.
"It feels kind of strange to be moving into college for the third time," said Tulane freshman Nichole Kanopoulos, who lived on Duke's East Campus last semester. "I think you can tell, though, that a lot of parents are a little apprehensive about leaving their kids."
Although administrators were leery going into "Orientation DejA Vu," Kevin Bailey, orientation coordinator and assistant vice president for student affairs at Tulane, said the weekend went smoothly.
Students and parents participated in a characteristically Bayou return to Tulane filled with "good eats, good sounds and fond memories."
Events such as "Jazz and Jambalaya on the River" and "TU at the Zoo" highlighted the weekend.
"First we're telling the students, 'Welcome Back,'" Strecker said. "We're giving tours of the campus and tours of the city just to give them the lay of the land and let them know what they're returning to."
Some students return to a drastically different living situation.
Far removed from the clutter of boxes and the joyful din of long-overdue student meet-and-greets on campus Sunday, senior Olivia Watkins stood at the entryway to "Dream"-a 60s-chic cruise ship docked on the Mississippi River. The ship will house a number of returning students until Tulane's remaining trailers arrive from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
When she lived on Duke's Central Campus last semester, Watkins got used to waiting for buses.
Sunday she stood outside the "Dream," smoldering cigarette in hand, waiting for an overdue shuttle bus to drive her to Tulane's main campus for lunch. The ship only offers breakfast and dinner.
"They won't allow us to bring any food on board," Watkins said. "They expect us to survive on orange juice and iced tea until dinner time. They will do your laundry if you get it in on time, though."
The students have not found the living quarters as hospitable as their previous ones.
"I was disappointed with the whole idea of it. It freaked me out a lot, and it made me nervous," Watkins said of her new accommodations. "People aren't really excited about being here. It really does feel like you're trapped."
There is one perk.
"It's beautiful at night," she added.
Structure
When Katrina forced them to leave campus last August, Tulane's top brass relocated to Texas to discuss how to rebuild a school rocked by one of the greatest natural disasters in recent history.
"There's no road map, no route to deal with these things, so really it was a matter of hashing out a new plan," Bailey said.
After a comprehensive review in Texas, administrators were forced to evaluate the strongest parts of the Tulane experience. In the end they decided to put most of their resources behind the undergraduate experience, said James MacLaren, dean of the faculty of liberal arts and sciences and associate provost for Tulane.
"The focus now is on a more student-centric campus," MacLaren said. "As we look to the future, we obviously have to look at making some very hard decisions to make a renewal plan for future growth."
In the past few months, administrators have announced that Tulane will phase out six of its eight engineering departments, cut a number of athletic programs and combine the men's college of Tulane and the women's college of Newcomb-a move that has many students up in arms.
The Tulane Hospital, which moved to Texas after Katrina, will remain there.
Strecker said the eliminated programs will significantly affect only three percent of the undergraduate population.
Administrators have also used the disaster as a means of fostering a stronger connection with the greater New Orleans community. Students will now live on campus for two years instead of one and will need to fulfill certain service requirements before graduation, Strecker said.
"While administratively it is a big change, the experience of the student will be the same-only enriched by the opportunity to rebuild the city," he said. "It is crucial that we reopen."
Returning
Kanopoulos knew from the start that she wanted to go back to Tulane.
"It was an odd time," she said of her experience at Duke. "I didn't want to get attached to it, so I wasn't as involved. It was bittersweet leaving it."
Three-fourths of the Tulane undergraduates found themselves dispersed at college campuses throughout the country. Those students who sat out will be allowed to take additional classes during the summer.
"I can't say enough in gratitude to Duke and all of the other schools," Strecker said. "Unlike the response by the government, the response of the higher education community to this was just phenomenal."
Kate Schafer, a Tulane senior who found herself at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, was still able to put out the weekly Tulane paper Hullabaloo.
Like most upperclassmen, she said she could not see herself finishing up the college experience at any place other than Tulane.
"One of the big things that people realized when they were away, is that the number one thing at Tulane is the people," Schafer said. "The people are back."
Schafer said she realizes that her school will look very different, but she believes Tulane needs to open this semester if it is to be the school it was before Katrina struck.
"Tulane has to open financially. I think it's ready to open on a skeletal level-we have the teachers, the students and the classrooms," Schafer said.
Kanopoulos shares Schafer's optimism.
"It's good to finally be where you're supposed to be-where you belong," she said as she sat on the stairs to McAlister Auditorium.
Like many places on Tulane's campus, there are no waterlines in McAlister.
A few blocks over, the mailrooms across from Butler dormitory had been filled with two feet of water.
Less than a half a mile from Butler dormitory, derelict homes were covered with the characteristic "X" that marks the spot where rescuers searched for bodies only three-and-a-half months earlier.
But on Tulane's campus, it was Orientation DejA Vu all over again.
"From where I stand, you would never think anything had happened," Strecker said as he looked out on one of Tulane's main quadrangles. "That's not to say that the city doesn't have a lot of work in front of it, but we're ready to begin the process of rebuilding."
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