NEWS
System reaches out
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by Michael Gendall
Wednesday, September 7, 2005
Easy to overlook in the devastating wake of Hurricane Katrina are the thousands of college students who suddenly had their fall semesters cancelled as universities surveyed the damage to their campuses in the New Orleans and Gulf Coast areas.
Fortunately for refugees who desire to resume their educations this semester, many colleges across the nation, including the University of Wisconsin, will open their doors to displaced students.
“The state of Wisconsin, like a lot of states, is going to accept a number of refugees,” UW System President Kevin Reilly said during a teleconference Tuesday.
According to UW System Director of Communications Doug Bradley, enrollment has already begun at some UW schools.
“We just heard from [UW-Whitewater] today that they already have two students that are enrolled and they expect 10 to 12 more by the end of the week, [and] that’s just one campus,” Bradley said.
UW-Milwaukee said in a press release that it is “making every effort” to accommodate hurricane refugees, while UW-Eau Claire said in a press release that it is “prepared to admit 15-20 students who may have been displaced because of the hurricane.”
Reilly said enrollments are initiated by the displaced students or their families, either through an individual UW institution or through the UW System.
According to Reilly, the UW System Higher Education Location Program (HELP) has been launched as a means of placing students in the UW school that best fits the refugee’s needs.
“Each individual institution in the UW System to which the student would want to apply and gain access would have to look at that student and admit them,” Reilly said. “We’ve urged … institutions to be as liberal as possible in doing that, [and] a number of them have indicated that they certainly would be.”
Considering the magnitude of destruction in the South, Reilly said it is appropriate for UW schools to temporarily lower their admissions standards and not quibble over miniscule point deficiencies in people’s records.
“It’s a time to help people move on with their lives for this semester, [and] I know that campuses have already begun to react that way,” Reilly said. “They understand these are extraordinary circumstances.”
Less than two weeks removed from the initial flooding in New Orleans, it is unsure when, if ever, colleges in the affected region will resume normal operations.
“Hopefully, they’ll be able to transfer back to the institution they came from after a semester or two, if that’s what they want to do,” Reilly said.
Unfortunately, however, there are no guarantees Tulane University or other colleges in the New Orleans area will be able to accommodate their returning students, or that those students would want to return to a city forever changed.
“The more we see and think about it, the more it seems to be that … this could be a longer-term problem of handling displaced people,” Reilly acknowledged. “The [question] now is how can we get beyond the immediate barriers to get people [enrolled in UW schools] to get them started in their classes, and then work out the rest of it as we go along.”
