Carnegie Corporation of New York has made grants totalling $11 million to help revitalize three of New Orleans’ most prominent universities: Dillard, Tulane and Xavier, which were devastated by Hurricane Katrina. Now, as the schools rebuild and reach out to their community, three freshmen students explain why they chose to attend school in New Orleans: each sees hope and opportunity in a city where education will clearly play an increasingly important role.

	Teairra Strozier Photo by Irving Johnson III, Xavier University

Comments
by Teairra Strozier
Freshman, Xavier University
I’m from Decatur, Georgia, and lived in the metro Atlanta area all my life. I have two older brothers and a younger sister. Even though my two brothers haven’t graduated from college—they work in the building trades—they know the value of getting a college education and pushed me. My sister Breanna is in the fifth grade and looks up to me. She already called me here to ask how I’m doing.

Two years ago, I watched the TV coverage of Hurricane Katrina. I hadn’t seen anything like it, anything so severe. A lot of people came to Atlanta from New Orleans after Katrina and told us real horror stories.

Two of them were friends of mine at school in Decatur. They talked about how the city used to be and how it would never be the same—about how it will be more expensive to live here in New Orleans the way it’s being rebuilt without low-income housing. They aren’t coming back here. They feel that everything is gone, and that opportunities are better for them
in Atlanta.

But even before Hurricane Katrina, I thought that Xavier was the school for me. I want a career in science, and Xavier is just as prestigious as Spelman and Georgia State and the University of Georgia—schools many of my high school friends chose. The pharmacy program here is excellent. This is where I’m supposed to be.

I’m majoring in chemistry, leading to a pharmacy degree. I’m leaning toward research. I love chemistry. Science has always been my passion. It was one class I looked forward to in high school and I loved lab work, to see what happens first hand versus explaining it on paper. I’d like to work for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) or the Food and Drug Administration. I’m looking into an internship at the CDC in Atlanta when I go home next summer so I can get my foot in the door.

But there wasn’t a lot of encouragement for coming here from my friends. They would say, what if the levees break, what if the water comes back and hurricanes. In the beginning my parents were also worried about me coming to New Orleans after Katrina, but after we visited here, they liked the city and knew that Xavier is a great school.

I visited the campus again before I made my final decision. I wanted to see if I had any last minute jitters about it, but I didn’t feel like that at all. I can still see the devastation, but I also see how I can play my part to help out.

I’ve gotten a lot of good vibes on campus already. The faculty has been encouraging, they say I’m going to be great student here, and it feels good to hear that. I wouldn’t get that encouragement at bigger schools. The faculty can get to know you here.

Xavier also encourages community service by students and provides us with a whole list of different activities. For example, one day I’ll be at a clinic, handing out brochures to people in the community and maybe after that I’ll do something different like helping out at a school. The community needs help in every way you can think. I won’t get bored. I know that.

I’ve made friends with the other girls on my hall, so I’m adjusting faster than I thought I would. A lot of Xavier students here are from the New Orleans area, but I’ve made friends from Delaware, New York, Philly, Chicago, D.C., Virginia—there are a lot of people here from up north and all over. There are so many ethnic groups here. I thought it would just be a lot of black kids. It’s refreshing to be out of your element and among so many different people.

Here the college plays a role in the community, but it’s not the whole community. You can experience real life here. I haven’t been homesick yet. I can see myself coming back here after school and helping out.

	Chad Jenkins Photo by Reico Robichaux, Dillard University

Comments
by Chad Jenkins
Freshman, Dillard University
I lived in New Orleans East until my family moved to Gretna, across the river from the city, in Jefferson Parish. Our home was there during Hurricane Katrina two years ago and we evacuated to Houston. The Gretna side of the river didn’t get much flooding, but there was a lot of wind damage and broken windows and things like that.

But my relatives on this side of the river didn’t have a home to come back to. I couldn’t believe it until I came back and saw it for myself. It was overwhelming to see my grandmother’s house in the Lower Ninth Ward completely washed away, a couple of streets from where the barge broke the levee on the Industrial Canal.

My parents and my sister and I have relocated back in Gretna. At the time of the hurricane, my sister was going to LSU, but now she’s here in the Delgado Charity School of Nursing.
The last two years have been a kind of a challenge. It’s been harder to get around the city. Everything’s in the rebuilding process. But the city’s beginning to come back now. It’s re-emerging.

The high school I was attending before is McDonogh 35 High School. It was one of the first schools in New Orleans to open back up after the hurricane. The first floor of the building had been flooded and was closed off. We only had one floor open, so there was a big crowd on the second floor. It was hard to walk down the hall—we were always bumping into each other, something was always falling over.

Some of my friends had no homes and were staying in hotels and attending school by themselves. Some stayed in the Sheraton, some in the Marriott. I had a close friend who stayed in the Hyatt with his father, who had to stay in the city to work.

But it all turned out for the better. About 75 percent of our teachers were still there. Most of our programs continued, like marching band, football and basketball teams, so there was something for us to do instead of like at other schools where there were no extracurricular activities.

I think I made a wise decision to come to Dillard University. It’ll help us to bring back the city. Dillard is a family oriented school and welcomed me with open arms. Unlike the big colleges, where you’re just a number, you can get the one-on-one attention you need here. Plus, my mother’s an alum of Dillard, and my father attended here.

I had already been recruited by Dillard President Marvalene Hughes. The McDonogh 35 drum corps I belonged to had marched for the Dillard commencement two years in a row. Dr. Hughes recruited our whole drum corps. When I visited the Dillard campus, I felt at home immediately. I knew it was the place for me.

I plan to major in business, concentrating in marketing, but also to perform service work around the city to give back to the community. I worked as a summer camp counselor for inner city youth two years in row, and participated in food drives and other activities in my church.

Looking ahead, I’m mainly interested in business courses. My friends and I started our own business producing custom T-shirts. This summer we sold about $500 worth a week at $20 per shirt, mainly through MySpace. We made enough to buy our own silk screen machine and plan to expand the clothing line. We’ve put all the money back into the business.

I learned a lot from this. We worked on our business plan, kept control of inventory, marketed to customers—it was like an introduction to business management.
After I graduate, I want to own my own business in New Orleans and help bring businesses back to the city. Small businesses are definitely a way to rebuild the city.

	Ashley Hollier Photo by Paula Burch-Celentano, Tulane University

Comments
by Ashley Hollier
Freshman, Tulane University
I’m from a small town, Youngsville, in south-central Louisiana, just outside Lafayette, where I graduated from St. Thomas More Catholic High School. I was very involved there—student council, Campus Ministries, Student Ambassadors, co-editor of the yearbook, Beta Club.

Hurricane Katrina didn’t directly affect our city, but we really were affected by the overflow of people from New Orleans, including some of my closest friends. We were more affected by Hurricane Rita, which was a lot closer to us. We did a lot of service projects through our school. I was in the Lafayette Junior Leadership my senior year to help evacuees. About half of our senior class worked on three damaged houses in nearby towns, like Abbeville, helping families that FEMA didn’t get to.

Being close to home—my whole family lives in Louisiana—was a large part of my choosing Tulane, even though I’m the first in my family to come here and most of my high school friends went to schools like LSU. I’m an only child, and we’re very family-oriented, so I wanted to stay near my parents and other relatives.

The more I learned about Tulane, I realized that’s where I wanted to be. There are great programs. I’m majoring in architecture—I’m doing a five-year master’s program. And the size is the right fit for me. There’s a good mix of students from all over the country and the world, and that was very inviting to me. Most of them are hard workers and very involved.
I’ve already got to know a lot of them through the Face Book online social network for the Class of 2011, which I help administer. We already have a community going in the freshman class. We built a little bond even before we got here. I met my roommate through there.
I was especially attracted to Tulane by the requirement to do a certain number of hours of service to graduate and a certain number each year to give back to the community. It’s something I’m familiar with. I’ve always gone to Catholic schools, where service is required. Giving back to the community you’re in is something that’s really important to me.

In the architecture program, during your last year you work on a project called Urban Build in which the students build a house for a family that needs one. Urban Build was organized by Tulane Architecture School. You do everything involved in building a house, from start to finish, beginning with the design. It’s a really good hands-on program that ties architecture to community service.

I also want to get involved in extracurricular activities—like the Green Wave Ambassadors, who provide tour guides for visitors to the campus. They were very welcoming to me whenever I came here. I’ll also probably get involved with some kind of Catholic or Christian organization.

Supporting education like Carnegie Corporation is doing here is a great way to help rebuild New Orleans. There are other ways to rebuild besides new structures. If it helps draw the best and brightest students here, that will be one of those ways.

And you can’t get better atmosphere for students than New Orleans as far as food, music, and culture. I went to Jazz Fest earlier this year, which has such an eclectic mix of music—and Voodoo Fest is coming up in October. New Orleans is a totally different city than anywhere else in America. It has a flavor and a culture of its own.

So many people who’ve never been here don’t realize how New Orleans is being rebuilt. Some think that parts of the town are still underwater. But I also understand that some parts of the city are still suffering a lot. It’s important that we realize that, but at the same time realize that it’s coming back. It’s a constant renewing, rebuilding process.
Tulane is such an awesome school. It opens up so many opportunities.

* * *

Teairra Strozier, Chad Jenkins and Ashley Hollier told their stories to Robert B. Rackleff, a consulting writer and elected county commissioner in Tallahassee, Florida. He earlier was a speechwriter for President Jimmy Carter, U.S. Senator Ed Muskie and J. Richard Munro, chairman of Time Inc. He is also a retired Naval Reserve Intelligence Officer. Rackleff earned a bachelor’s and master’s degree and was a doctoral student in U.S. History at Florida State University. He is the author of “Overturning Buckley,” in the Carnegie Reporter (Summer 2000), and a 1972 book, Close to Crisis: Florida’s Environmental Problems.

WEB EXTRA — Carnegie Corporation of New York has made a total of $14 million in grants to help revitalize New Orleans. In addition to $11 million in support for three New Orleans' universities--Tulane, Dillard, and Xavier--the Corporation has provided a $1 million grant to Teach for America, the national corps of recent college graduates who commit two years to teach in urban and rural public schools, to help the organization triple the size of its New Orleans teacher corps over the next three years. In June 2007, the Corporation announced a $2 million grant to the Broadmoor Improvement Association for the reconstruction, restocking and refurnishing of the Rosa F. Keller Library and Community Center, a building that serves as the historic Broadmoor neighborhood's learning, cultural and civic hub. Read a press release about the grants.
Read an essay about New Orleans by Vartan Gregorian, President of Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Copyright information | Masthead | Carnegie Corporation of New York web site