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Grants to assist college rebuilding efforts in New Orleans
Defying seemingly insurmountable odds, Xavier and Dillard universities re-opened to students only four months after Hurricane Katrina cut a deadly swath across New Orleans in August 2005.
While campus reconstruction was a priority for both historically black institutions, student assistance ran a close second because a high percentage of the student body comes from areas hard hit by the storm.
To help Xavier and Dillard rebuild their campuses and retain their students, the Mott Foundation has made three grants totaling $2 million. The most recent were a $500,000 grant to Xavier for scholarships and replacement of science infrastructure, and a $500,000 grant to Dillard for incentive scholarships. In December, a $1-million grant was made to the Southern Education Foundation to assist in the recovery of both schools.
Although Xavier sustained $40 million in damage and its campus was awash in mud and water, administrators resumed operations at remote locations two weeks after Katrina hit. And it welcomed back 72 percent of its undergraduates and 95 percent of its pharmacy students to campus in January 2006.
Because more than 60 percent of the students major in the sciences, Xavier officials identified the reconstruction of laboratories, classrooms and offices in science departments and the College of Pharmacy as most critical to recovery. Therefore, the university will use $400,000 in Mott funding for reconstruction and another $100,000 to provide financial aid to students.
Xavier President Norman C. Francis said almost every building on campus was touched by flooding or related storm damage. Today, the upper floors of Xavier’s buildings are habitable, and restoration of lower floors is ongoing.
Dillard’s still-closed campus sustained $400 million in damage. Through an arrangement with the Hilton Riverside Hotel in New Orleans, however, the university secured space to resume classes in January, with 1,071 students returning out of student body of more than 2,200 who had been expected to enroll in the fall of 2005.
Because the majority of Dillard’s students are from families with modest incomes, the university has established an incentive scholarship program that will enable the campus to retain and recruit students. Mott’s grant will be used to provide scholarships for the 2006-07 school year.
Marvalene Hughes, who took over as ninth president of DillardUniversity only two months before the hurricane left the 55-acre campus in ruins, has vowed to rebuild.
“Adversity is nothing new to Dillard,” Hughes wrote in a November 2005 message students, faculty and staff. “In its 136-year history, it has overcome social, political and environmental obstacles and become very well known for the quality of its academic program.”
The Foundation’s support for historically black colleges and universities, such as Xavier and Dillard, dates to the late 1970s. Prior to the most recent funding, Xavier had received five grants totaling $1.3 million and Dillard had received six grants totaling $655,000 from Mott.
In addition, Mott made a package of eight grants totaling $590,000 in late 2005 to current and former grantees to assist in hurricane recovery efforts in community organizing, coastal restoration and assistance to displaced Louisiana residents living in Michigan.