Black America August 27, 2010 HBCUs Fare Well Five Years After Katrina Dr. Marvalene Hughes had been president of Dillard University less than two months in August 2005 when the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina all but washed away the institution and three campus buildings burned to the ground. Hughes had offers to leave the historic college in the center of New Orleans’ Gentilly community. She decided to stay, and today, she doesn’t regret the decision. “I knew we had to rebuild,” Hughes told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “I wanted to do something that I could be proud of forever.” Five years after the floodwaters have gone away, the historically black colleges in New Orleans are still standing. Dillard, Xavier University and Southern University New Orleans all have some new buildings and growing student enrollment. They also have some older and young alumni, many whom decided to return to campus as soon as dorms were open and arrangements were in place to resume classes. Conisha Holloman was among hundreds of students returning to a New Orleans HBCU after Katrina. She was a freshman majoring in biology/pre-med at Xavier when Katrina hit. Today, she is in medical school at the University of Rochester. “I had been on campus in a program about eight weeks during the summer. I already had bonded with friends, and the college meant something to me,” Holloman told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “I said if President Francis is going to reopen the university, I’m going to be there.” Holloman admits it wasn’t easy going back in January 2006. “We had blackouts sometimes. The water didn’t work well sometimes. The neighborhood around us was empty,” she said. “But our professors had so much passion. They were willing to live in FEMA trailers so they could be there to teach us.” As for the campus inconveniences brought on by Katrina: “People will look at it all today and see what we went through and know that it built character,” Holloman said. In the fall semester of 2004, 4,100 students were enrolled at Xavier University, the institution affiliated with the Catholic Church. Enrollment in 2006, a year after the storm, was 3,000, and this fall, about 3,400 students are expected to enroll, said Warren Bell, Xavier’s associate vice president for university and media relations. The campus sustained damages estimated at $80 million, but today, all buildings have been either rebuilt or restored, Bell said. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has reimbursed Xavier for about $36 million so far, Bell said, but more is expected. The amount of damage and required construction was much higher at Dillard. Already, more than $250 million has gone into the newly renovated campus, and plans are in the works to rebuild three dormitories. That project is expected to cost about $25 million, said Maria Mercedes Tio, a Dillard spokeswoman. The university has received about $45 million from FEMA, she said. Like Xavier, Dillard has seen a consistent growth in student enrollment in recent years, with Fall 2010 enrollment up 20 percent, Tio said. A total of 1,993 students were enrolled in Dillard in August 2005. The projected enrollment this fall is 1,223. Hughes said foundations, alumni and churches across the country have demonstrated their love for Dillard and support for the students with their contributions. “I have never felt like I was in this alone,” Hughes said. “Since August 2005, we have raised $65 million.” “I immediately received a call from the Mellon Foundation, and they wanted to give us $1 million. The Carnegie Foundation was equally generous,” she said. While Hughes was in California for the Christmas holidays in 2005, she received a call from business owner Sidney Frank, who said he wanted to give $1 million to Dillard before Christmas Day. The support, Hughes said, helped the 141-year-old Dillard continue its mission of educating students and serving the community. Next week, a new student union will open on campus, but it won’t be just for Dillard students, Hughes said. “We are a part of this community,” and there was not a lot remaining after the storm, she said. So when Dillard considered medical facilities for its students, it also considered community residents. The new student union will have medical and dental services and a pharmacy available to area residents. They will also be able to use recreational and exercise facilities for a small fee, she said. HBCUs play an integral role in the lives of faculty, students, the community and the nation, said Dr. Norman C. Francis, president of Xavier for more than 40 years. “I knew that Xavier was too important to this country and too important to the young people who had worked so hard for us not come back,” says Frances. Students, faculty and staff were scattered all over the country, but in January 2006, they began to return. Classes resumed and repair and reconstruction began because of a joint commitment, Francis said in a video presentation. “It wasn’t I,” Francis said. “It really was all the folks, 85 percent of who had lost their own homes, mine included, who started focusing on how do we get Xavier back.” Like Hughes at Dillard, Francis said he and the Xavier family also had great support from friends and alumni. “It was not just affirming,” Francis said, "but it was giving us great comfort to know there were people out there sharing with us our pain and our loss - and saying we want you to come back." SANDRA M. PHOENIX Program Director HBCU Library Alliance sphoenix@hbculibraries.org<mailto:sphoenix@hbculibraries.org> www.hbculibraries.org<http://www.hbculibraries.org/> 404.592.4820 1438 West Peachtree Street NW Suite 200 Atlanta, GA 30309 Toll Free: 1.800.999.8558 (Lyrasis) Fax: 404.892.7879 www.lyrasis.org<http://www.lyrasis.org/> Honor the ancestors, honor the children. Register now http://www.hbculibraries.org/html/meeting-form.html for the October 24-26, 2010 HBCU Library Alliance 4th Membership Meeting and the "Conference on Advocacy" pre-conference in Montgomery, AL. The Pre-Conference and Membership meeting are open to directors and other librarians.