This page has links to all of The Chronicle's coverage of Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma and their effects on college and university campuses in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. Also see: a Discussion Forum on the hurricanes.

Weekly Articles

Administrators, professors, and students describe their efforts to recover from the devastating storm. (9/1/2006)

• IN LIMBO: A professor furloughed by Southern University at New Orleans struggles to find a job amid uncertainty about her teaching slot. (9/1/2006)
• AT A NEW PLACE: A student whose parents met at Dillard University and who was slated to be the editor of its newspaper this year has decided not to return. (9/1/2006)
• OUT OF THE RUBBLE: The physical-plant director at the University of Southern Mississippi's Gulf Coast facilities deals with relocations, FEMA regulations, and rebuilding. (9/1/2006)
• BACK TO WORK: A professor of biochemistry at Tulane University lost his home, but some of his research material has survived. (9/1/2006)
• ON HER OWN: A hair stylist and massage therapist in Long Beach, Miss., is repairing her home herself with instruction from Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College. (9/1/2006)
• FROM A DISTANCE: An assistant professor of philosophy at the University of New Orleans learned fast how to teach online. (9/1/2006)
• ON THE FIELD: The baseball coach at Delgado Community College has salvaged his team's season. (9/1/2006)
• AT HOME AGAIN: A Loyola University of New Orleans student who grew up in a local suburb left for a semester but has found stability by going back. (9/1/2006)
• ON CALL: An expert on post-traumatic-stress disorder volunteers free counseling services to students and faculty and staff members at the University of Southern Mississippi's Gulf Park campus. (9/1/2006)

SUITS FILED: Loyola University New Orleans and Dillard University have sued their insurers over unpaid claims and reduced coverage in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. (9/1/2006)

Tulane is looking to the future despite a small freshman class and New Orleans's lack of progress in rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina. (5/26/2006)

• 'NO HOPE': Still without a campus nine months after the hurricane, Southern University at New Orleans is struggling to survive. (5/26/2006)

HURRICANE RECOVERY: Louisiana's higher-education commissioner has announced a plan to offer need-based grants of up to $1,000 each to those who enroll or re-enroll at colleges in the state. (5/12/2006)

COMPUTERS TO THE RESCUE: Two students from Millsaps College, in Mississippi, developed online databases to help the Red Cross organize the thousands of volunteers who showed up to help after Hurricane Katrina. (5/12/2006)

Katrina damaged more than half of Dillard University. But where others might see only debris, planners look for opportunities. (4/28/2006)

DISPLACED BY KATRINA: Students whose colleges were closed by the storm had favorable experiences elsewhere, a study shows. (4/28/2006)

POST-KATRINA CUTBACKS: The University of New Orleans and Loyola University New Orleans plan to cut faculty positions as part of their hurricane-recovery plans. (4/21/2006)

Scott S. Cowen, president of Tulane University, reflects on lessons learned from the university's recovery efforts after Hurricane Katrina. (4/21/2006)

At Loyola University New Orleans, Kevin W. Wildes's experience as a clinical ethicist helped him guide the institution after the storm. (4/21/2006)

'PRESERVE THE LEGACY': A group of students and alumnae have sued Tulane University to try to save its women's college, which the university plans to merge with its other undergraduate college. (3/31/2006)

NO BEACH PARTY: Thousands of students have volunteered to spend their spring breaks helping to rebuild the Gulf Coast. (3/31/2006)

Public-health students learn fast, and on their feet, as they help people in post-Katrina New Orleans. (3/10/2006)

Using hurricanes as a rationale, Louisiana tries to succeed where other states have failed in making long-delayed changes in its higher-education system. (3/10/2006)

ANOTHER ILL WIND: At the storm-swept University of New Orleans, faculty members, many of whom have been sleeping on office floors, now brace for layoffs. (2/24/2006)

PEER REVIEW: The president of the Louisiana State University System plans to step down this summer to devote more time to hurricane recovery and fund raising. Some observers wonder if he was forced out because of his opposition to the proposed closure and consolidation of some campuses. ... Some professors are not happy with the way a search is being conducted to fill the new job of chancellor of Arkansas State University's main campus. ... The University of Notre Dame has found its next spokesman at the Chicago Tribune. (2/24/2006)

Hurricane-swept colleges in Mississippi have made progress toward resuming normal operations but face long-term uncertainties in an effort that officials estimate will cost at least $674-million. (2/24/2006)

VIVE LA DIFFERENCE: Trying to save the women's college at Tulane University, a group of students and alumnae has protested a plan to merge the college with its counterpart for men.. (2/10/2006)

Tulane University's athletics director fights for sports programs that were suspended after Hurricane Katrina and may not be restored. (2/10/2006)

• SERVING OTHERS: The women's volleyball coach at Tulane leads her players in volunteer projects to help people in storm-ravaged New Orleans. (2/10/2006)

After 38 years of nurturing Xavier University of Louisiana, its president looks toward rebuilding the institution -- and the city he calls home. (2/10/2006)

COPING THROUGH BLOGGING: As students and employees of Tulane University get back into work and study routines, they can talk about Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath in cyberspace. (2/3/2006)

Tulane University welcomes the members of the Class of 2009 once again, even as it announces a new round of layoffs. (1/27/2006)

New Orleans campuses welcome students back to temporary housing, smaller programs, and a new spirit of determination. (1/20/2006)
Erin Keith, an architecture graduate student, moves onto the cruise ship that Tulane U. leased for housing. (Photograph by Jackson Hill, Southern Lights)

• REPORTS OF LIFE: A senior who writes for Dillard University's newspaper returns to find dangling wires, sledgehammers, and hope. (1/20/2006)
• FACULTY OVERLOAD: An associate professor at Loyola University New Orleans says her employer is not being fair to those staff members who have suffered from losses. (1/20/2006)
• HOME ON THE WAVES: Tulane University students, professors, and staff members adjust to living on a cruise ship. (1/20/2006)
• INTO THE SPOTLIGHT: Our Lady of Holy Cross College, whose campus housed rescue workers after the hurricane, is seeing a jump in undergraduate enrollment. (1/20/2006)
• TEARS AND JOY: A Loyola University New Orleans student and her parents return to the campus and reconnect with a professor who rode out the hurricane with them. (1/20/2006)
• STUDY IN DISASTER: Students from the University of Virginia learned in the classroom about Hurricane Katrina's effects, then traveled to New Orleans to lend a hand. (1/20/2006)
• HOW MANY CAME BACK: Estimates of the numbers of students and employees returning to New Orleans colleges (1/20/2006)

Floodwaters swamped the baseball field at a community college in New Orleans, but the coach was determined to save the season.(1/20/2006)

Tulane University, shut down by Hurricane Katrina, has announced a restructuring unprecedented for a major American research university, slashing its budget and eliminating many academic and athletics programs before it reopens next month. (12/19/2005)

• BIPARTISAN RECOVERY: A relief fund led by two former U.S. presidents has announced $30-million in grants to Gulf Coast colleges devastated by Hurricane Katrina. (12/19/2005)
• ANOTHER HIT: Tulane University's bond rating has been downgraded a notch by Moody's Investors Service. (12/19/2005)

To meet the needs of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, Delgado Community College is shifting its focus from the liberal arts to job training. (12/9/2005)

John Lawson, Tulane's CIO, discusses what went wrong -- and right -- with IT disaster plans during Hurricane Katrina. (12/9/2005)

• TIMELINE: Katrina and Tulane (12/9/2005)

MONEY FOR RECOVERY: The National Endowment for the Humanities announced last week the first recipients of grants to help cultural institutions, including college libraries and museums, that were damaged by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. (11/25/2005)

$227-MILLION AT STAKE: The Bush administration appears to have backed away from a proposal to help colleges that have taken in students displaced by Hurricane Katrina. (11/18/2005)

The economic effects of Hurricane Katrina continue to batter New Orleans's colleges, and several have announced major layoffs. (11/11/2005)
Xavier U. of New Orleans (above) expects the cost of recovering from Hurricane Katrina to top $90-million. (Photograph from Xavier U. of Louisiana)

HURRICANE RECOVERY EFFORT: The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has announced new grant programs to finance efforts by architecture schools and historically black colleges to help Gulf Coast communities. (11/11/2005)

Two months after Hurricane Katrina, the president of Loyola University New Orleans is traveling the country to visit displaced students, raise money, and restore hope. (11/4/2005)
The Rev. Kevin W. Wildes (above), president of Loyola U. New Orleans, speaks to displaced Loyola sophomore Lee Attaway in Philadelphia, a stop on the president's "Resurrection tour." (Photograph by Jim Graham)

Katrina is only the latest disaster that has shocked Americans into an all-too-fleeting focus on poverty, writes Alexander Keyssar, a professor of history and social policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. (11/4/2005)

STORM-TOSSED: Colleges that were damaged by Hurricane Katrina have begun to lay off employees. (11/4/2005)

WHIRLWIND WEDDING: The head of admissions at Harding University officiated at the marriage of a student and the man who rescued her from Hurricane Katrina. (11/4/2005)

• Laboratory Animals After Hurricane Katrina (11/4/2005)

Lamar University students returning to campus after Hurricane Rita find that some things are different, but many are the same. (10/28/2005)

• A TOTAL WASH: Hurricanes Katrina and Rita chased one student from college to college until he was forced to give up on the semester. (10/28/2005)

• Hurricanes and Climate Change (10/28/2005)

Technology experts make the rounds of hurricane-swept colleges to restore connections to the Web and rebuild networks. (10/21/2005)

HARDSHIP RECOUNTED: Louisiana's colleges and universities are struggling to get back on their feet, higher-education officials told a joint meeting of two state legislative committees last week. (10/21/2005)

PROPOSED RELIEF: Most students who took out loans this fall to attend colleges that have been closed temporarily by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita would not have to repay them under a bill introduced in the House of Representatives education committee. (10/21/2005)

GUTEN TAG: German colleges have taken in students whose campuses were demolished by Hurricane Katrina. (10/21/2005)

The severity of the Gulf Coast hurricanes has taught colleges that they must gird their computer systems for disaster. (10/21/2005)

• RIPPLE EFFECT: Even a disaster on the other side of the country can disrupt a campus network. (10/14/2005)

Hurricane Katrina has reminded college administrators yet again that they must plan for emergency situations. (10/14/2005)

• TEACHING TOGETHER: Tulane and Dillard Universities, in storm-ravaged New Orleans, will reopen this spring in shared spaces. (10/14/2005)

College athletics officials share insights into disaster planning after their experiences in Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. (10/14/2005)

Sociologists are eager to study how the official responses to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita went wrong, but their findings about disasters have historically been ignored by policy makers. (10/7/2005)

Some colleges in Texas and Louisiana that were hit by Hurricane Rita do not know when they will be able to reopen or what to tell their students. (10/7/2005)

• INCHES APART: A slight difference in elevation led to vastly different fates for two neighboring universities in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. (10/7/2005)

At the annual conference of the National Association for College Admission Counseling, attendees discussed the best ways to serve students whose educations were interrupted by Hurricane Katrina. (10/7/2005)

America's egalitarianism has always been in conflict with its individualism. Katrina showed how out of balance those impulses have become, writes Lynne M. Adrian, an associate professor of American studies at the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa. (10/7/2005)

$36-MILLION: The House of Representatives has approved $36-million in additional aid for students affected by recent hurricanes, and Congress has also temporarily extended the Higher Education Act. (10/7/2005)

With decades of research destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, scientists on the Gulf Coast work to salvage what they can from their wrecked labs, and to resume their studies. (9/30/2005)

• GRANT EXTENSIONS: The federal science agencies that finance much of academic research have promised to give storm-displaced researchers time and money to get back on their feet. (9/30/2005)
• FLUTTERING HOPE: Two entomologists at the University of New Orleans set out to rescue a butterfly collection that had taken them half a lifetime of globe-trekking to assemble. (9/30/2005)
• 'CRUEL ABANDONMENT': An animal-rights group has demanded that Louisiana State University be punished for the deaths of lab animals in the chaos during and after Hurricane Katrina. (9/30/2005)

Texas Southern University adjusts to accommodate the influx of 500 students displaced by the hurricane. (9/30/2005)

• KATRINA'S TOLL: Louisiana State University estimates that the cost of rebuilding its teaching hospitals will top $750-million. (9/30/2005)

Meeting their basic needs forces many students displaced by Hurricane Katrina to put their educations on hold, while others find unexpected opportunity in the disaster. (9/30/2005)

'50-PERCENT RULE' DEBATED: The rule would be suspended, allowing students at virtual colleges to receive federal financial aid for the first time, under a hurricane-relief bill. (9/30/2005)

STUDENT AID: The Institute of International Education will provide emergency funds to Asian students in the United States to help cover their hurricane losses and relocation costs. (9/30/2005)

EMBRACING GENEROSITY: Northeastern Oklahoma A&M; College set out to raise money for victims of Hurricane Katrina, send them a symbol of hope, and break the world record for the largest group hug. Two out of three's not bad.

STORM BUDDIES: The week after Hurricane Katrina, three sophomores from Duke University finagled their way into New Orleans, where they handed out bottled water and drove victims to safety. (9/30/2005)

DISAPPOINTMENT AFTER KATRINA: Leaders of Gulf Coast colleges say federal relief proposals would do little to help them rebuild from the hurricane. (9/30/2005)

As college campuses emerge from the floodwaters in New Orleans, some look like ghost towns while others buzz with early reconstruction. For all institutions, however, prospects remain uncertain. (9/23/2005)

• A YEAR WISER: Two medical schools in the Caribbean put to use the lessons they learned in the 2004 hurricane season. (9/23/2005)
• COST OF RECOVERY: To repair damage to their campuses, Mississippi colleges face estimated expenses of nearly $675-million. (9/23/2005)
• DEVASTATING ASSESSMENT: Southern University at New Orleans may have to rebuild from scratch. (9/23/2005)
• HANDS-ON EXPERIENCE: Medical students from New Orleans are doing vital work in Houston and Baton Rouge, La., but their schools wonder if they will return. (9/23/2005)
• LOBBYING FOR HELP: Higher-education officials have gone to Capitol Hill to ask Senate aides to keep in mind the colleges hurt by the hurricane. (9/23/2005)
• LOST AND GAINED: Excerpts from an online discussion with Scott S. Cowen, president of Tulane University (9/23/2005)
• TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE: An experimental communication system is helping emergency officials stay connected. (9/23/2005)
• HELPING HANDS: Oberlin College and Brown and Princeton Universities are seeking donations for Dillard University. (9/23/2005)
• SEARCHES HALTED: The State University of New York at Buffalo has suspended four searches and will instead offer four temporary spots to displaced administrators. (9/23/2005)
• NO 'ATHLETIC LOOTING': The NCAA says athletes who transfer because of Hurricane Katrina will nonetheless have to sit out from sports for a year. (9/23/2005)
• GIFT TO BROWN: A donor gives $5-million to Brown University so that it can aid hurricane victims. (9/23/2005)
• NEH OFFERS $1-MILLION: The agency will aid cultural institutions affected by Katrina. (9/23/2005)

With no revenue coming in and expenses mounting, storm-closed colleges are trying to hold on to their employees, with or without paychecks, and looking for ways to reopen. (9/23/2005)

Institutions seek out their scattered faculty members and try to re-establish them in a semblance of teaching and research. (9/23/2005)

Foreign students at shuttered colleges must deal with additional complications: finding new academic homes quickly enough to avoid visa violations. (9/23/2005)

Updated information on the effects of the hurricane at colleges on the Gulf Coast (9/23/2005)

Katrina was a natural disaster, in that denial, underappreciation of the public sector, and blind faith in the free market seem to come naturally to us, writes Ted Steinberg, a professor of history and law at Case Western Reserve University. (9/23/2005)

Cool consideration of likelihood is the reasonable course -- until something really awful happens, writes Carlin Romano, critic at large of The Chronicle. (9/23/2005)

Shaken by the storm, dozens of colleges on the Gulf Coast begin to grasp the damage done and the tasks ahead. (9/16/2005)

• SOUTHERN COMFORTS: A community-college freshman returns to her dormitory and is relieved to find her laptop, Louisiana hot sauce, and SpongeBob pillow. (9/16/2005)
• WHAT ABOUT OUR EDUCATION? Two medical students thought they'd wait it out. They were eventually evacuated and now are wondering what will happen next. (9/16/2005)
• COOKING UP A STORM: The Roman Catholic nuns at Xavier University of Louisiana knew what to do when Katrina approached. (9/16/2005)
• CANCELLATIONS: A list of conferences that will be moved from New Orleans. (9/16/2005)
• A SINGULAR OUTPOURING: Americans are donating to hurricane relief at an unprecedented pace, but will that last? (9/16/2005)

The storm affected dozens of colleges in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, leaving some unable to reopen while others prepared to accept displaced students. (9/16/2005)

Tulane has canceled its fall semester as officials try to put the university back on its feet from a command post in Houston, 350 miles from New Orleans. (9/16/2005)

Colleges in the United States and abroad have opened their doors to an estimated 100,000 displaced students. But with the offers of admission come tight deadlines and logistical challenges. (9/16/2005)

Dillard University's president scrambles to raise money, as well as spirits, to help save the historically black university. (9/16/2005)

Librarians are worried about the fate of books and research collections in flooded areas. (9/16/2005)

Sean Duffy fled Loyola University New Orleans before the hurricane and spent time in a shelter and with friends before reaching home. (9/16/2005)

A climatologist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology once doubted that global warming was making hurricanes worse. After more research, he has changed his mind. (9/16/2005)

The Internet was a crucial tool of communications in the storm's aftermath. (9/16/2005)

• RESOURCES ON THE WEB: A list of sites to help students and institutions affected by the hurricane. (9/16/2005)
• FREE ONLINE COURSES: A group of universities in several states is putting together a collection of 400 online courses that will be offered free to students whose educations have been disrupted by Hurricane Katrina. (9/16/2005)

Bill Lavender, director of a writing program at the University of New Orleans, describes his escape from the flooded city. (9/16/2005)

The storm has led David D. Perlmutter, a professor at Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge, to realize the importance of sympathy in the classroom. (9/16/2005)

Colleges should work with their surrounding communities to prepare for regional emergencies, writes Michael A. MacDowell, president of College Misericordia. (9/9/2005)

A Chronicle columnist wrote three years ago about dire forecasts for New Orleans (4/26/2002)

From The Chronicle of Philanthropy

More than $1.4-billion raised for Katrina charities as donations for hurricane relief slow (9/28/2005)

President Bush signs new tax breaks to stimulate giving to relief groups (9/26/2005)

Giving to hurricane causes surpasses $1.2-billion (9/22/2005)

House and Senate pass new giving tax breaks (9/22/2005)

Companies and foundations pledge $408-million in hurricane relief (9/20/2005)

Red Cross says it needs $2-billion for Katrina response (9/19/2005)