Yet as all three colleges reopened in January, the message echoed by many students, faculty and administrators was this: One storm will not put an end to traditions and loyalties. Their energy now must be on overcoming obstacles and rebuilding for the future, they said.

• Before Katrina, senior Kelly Griffin's main worry was writing enough newspaper articles to fill her portfolio and meet the mass communication program's graduation requirements at Dillard University. Now she's worried that she might not graduate as scheduled.
   
• Professor Igwe Udeh, dean of the College of Business at Southern University-New Orleans, was gearing up to guide the business program toward accreditation. Now, five months after Katrina, he contends with cuts in academic programs and faculty.
   
• Norman Francis, president of Xavier University of Louisiana, has often said one of the school's missions has been to educate any African American student who aspired to higher education. Now, he is pressed to find a way to keep Xavier financially afloat.

"It's important for us to be here, and I feel so good" that so many students and faculty "are ready to bring back to New Orleans what has been cherished," Francis said as students returned to a campus still in recovery.

It is this demonstration of resolve that has the city of New Orleans reveling in the return of its six four- year colleges. If the number of returning students anticipated by each institution is realized, collegians will push the city's population past the 160,000 mark –- and back to nearly a third of its level before Katrina.

Dillard reported 50 percent of its students came back; Xavier, 76 percent; Tulane, 88 percent; Loyola, 88.5 percent; University of New Orleans, 70.5 percent; and Southern, 37.5 percent.

"We've done everything we can possibly do to prepare for their return, having spent the last three or four months making sure utilities to each of the campuses have been restored, as well as clearing streets around in the immediate vicinity of each school," Mayor Ray Nagin said during a brief stop in the Hilton New Orleans Riverside hotel, Dillard's home for now. "We look forward to the energy and excitement that students bring with them, because it all fits into what a vibrant city needs."

Hurdles

The students' homecoming has been heralded as pivotal to the revival of New Orleans' economic infrastructure. Meanwhile, the universities have to figure out how to do the same for themselves.

For Francis and other university administrators, the most immediate concerns are finding money to rebuild the campuses and overcoming setbacks, including damaged facilities and equipment and deep staffing cuts. The U.S. Department of Education and several corporations recently pledged aid, but the need is overwhelming.

Added together, damage estimates at the three historically black schools spiral past a billion dollars. Lakefront schools Dillard and Southern estimated recovery expenses at $500 million and $600 million, respectively. Xavier, farther from Lake Ponchartrain, incurred an estimated $35 million in damages.

"The greatest challenge we're going to face as a private institution with a little endowment is resources," Francis said. Dillard and Xavier each have endowments exceeding $50 million, but large portions of those funds are restricted to scholarships. Francis said he was confident that help would come from foundations and corporate gifts.

"We're going to get the investments that we need to rebuild because people will see that we had the courage to come back and continue to do things that are important for New Orleans," Francis said.

Xavier has returned to its uptown campus, where Francis estimated $20 million already has been spent to repair damage. However, there is a shortage of office space and dormitory rooms, as the first floors of some buildings are still unusable.

Southern's New Orleans campus also is not ready to welcome students. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has promised to provide the state school with trailers and mobile units near the lakefront campus. But school officials don't expect the campus to be ready until the end of February. Until then, 400 students and faculty members are living at the downtown Marriott and holding classes in Sophie B. Wright Middle School.

Dillard will not able to return to its campus this spring because of flood damage to every building and the loss of dormitories to fire. It has temporarily moved its campus to the Hilton New Orleans Riverside.

"For all of us, this has been a long, challenging and very difficult journey, but it is one that we would do all over again because Dillard is worth saving and will be saved," said Marvalene Hughes, president of Dillard. "We are not on our home campus, but for over 50 percent of our students to return makes a statement about the presence of Dillard in the lives of our students. Now that [we] are home and in a very comfortable environment, we have work to do."

Making adjustments

In order to remain solvent, the universities have made drastic changes. Southern-New Orleans, for example, eliminated 19 programs. At some schools, sports programs have been suspended and course offerings slimmed down. Schools have overhauled academic plans, lengthening classes by as much 25 minutes in order to squeeze in two semesters before fall.

"I had to cut nine of my 22 faculty members," said Udeh of Southern-New Orleans business school. "That was a very sad thing to see, as people that had been at the university so long no longer had jobs."

His plans before Katrina included reorganizing the school in hopes of obtaining accreditation. Now, he and faculty members are scrambling to create curricula for three new majors. They are frustrated by limited access to computers and departmental records, Udeh said.

Any gaps in course offerings caused by cutbacks might be resolved through a partnership formed by New Orleans' private four-year colleges. Tulane and Loyola, both in the Garden District and comparatively unscathed by Katrina, are to share office space with Dillard and Xavier. Students may take lab classes and use facilities at any school in the consortium.

"Tulane lost a couple hundred million [dollars,] but we reached out to Dillard and Xavier because their campuses were pretty much wiped out, and Loyola joined in," said Lester Lefton, Tulane provost and senior vice president for academic affairs. "We are the city's four largest private schools, and we should be doing any and everything we can to help each other because we share common interests."

So far, a few dozen students have applied to take classes at other schools. That's a positive sign, Lefton said. He attributes that to "many school enrollments coming back stronger than expected."

Serving the community

Morale is high, said Cortez Watkins, Dillard's student government president. Leaders from several schools have held joint meetings, and see their priority as helping foster a sense of normalcy. Plans are being made for familiar events and for community service projects.

"The main thing now is that we have to make sure that this environment is conducive for the students, because these have been through some rough times," said Watkins, a senior physics major from Memphis. "Although we've been uprooted from our comfort zone, in this time of rebirth and regeneration, Dillard's motto – 'ex fide fortis' [‘From confidence, to courage'] – still applies."

The rough times continue for some returning students. Some lost homes and possessions but remain dedicated even while facing possible obstacles to graduation.

"I've lost everything I have, right down to my clips," said Kelly Griffin, a senior mass communication major and New Orleans native whose home was flooded. Her immediate worry was replacing the newspaper articles that made up her portfolio. Dillard's Courtbouillon student newspaper, where she had been a reporter, is not publishing. She feared she might not graduate on schedule.

"I didn't want to come back here to face the reality caused by Katrina, or have to struggle with its aftereffects," Griffin said. She considered transferring to Howard University, where she finished the fall semester, she said. In the end, she decided, it was a matter of principle: "My heart is at Dillard. This is where I've shed blood, sweat and tears for the last four years -- not Howard."

Returning students will examine the hurricane and its ramifications in some of their new coursework and get involved to help the city recover.

Since long before Katrina, Dillard students have had to complete 120 hours of volunteer work as a graduation requirement "because we felt we owed it to our ancestors and to the community that we share to give back," said Dewain Lee, Dillard's interim associate dean for career services. "Now that we've gone through this devastation, we feel that it's more important, and I think our students understand why we do this now."

Regina McCutcheon intends to stay to help rebuild the city after she graduates, she said. The senior biology pre-med student from Baton Rouge said she wants to attend Tulane's medical school to become a pediatrician. She spent the fall at Louisiana State University and came back, she said, because she appreciates the value of her training at Xavier, the nation's top producer of African American pre-med students.

"There is no other place like Xavier University and when I tell you students want to come back to continue their education," McCutcheon said, "it's because they refuse to graduate with anything less than a Xavier degree."

*Photos by Shawn Chollette

Shawn Chollette is a senior engineering major at Louisiana Tech University and a writer for The Gramblinite.

Nikki Bannister is a senior at Southern University.