Chapter 3

A Case for Including Retention Strategies in the CampusEmergency Management Plan

This qualitative study tells the stories of four students who prior to Hurricane Katrina were attending colleges and universities along the Gulf Coast. The colleges and universities had emergency plans in place; however, the plans were underdeveloped in comparison to the magnitude of Hurricane Katrina. The institutions were forced to close, and these students had decisions to make regarding the continuation of their education. Included in this resource book as a close-up view of the effects of not including a retention strategy as part of the campus emergency management plan.

Based on this study, it is clear that there were several factors that overwhelmingly affected whether a student continued his or her education at the college or university he or she was attending prior to Hurricane Katrina. These factors included the individual student’s future orientation; their connectedness or lack of connectedness to their schools and the people in them; the learning environment, which included the ability of the institution to maintain communication with the students, offer online courses, provide flexibility in courses, both at the campus when school reopened and in accepting courses that students took elsewhere during fall 2005 when the students’ home campus was closed; and the structural limitation of finances and housing.

A goal of this study was to heighten the awareness for university and college administrators of the importance of having a comprehensive campus emergency plan in place, which includes retention strategies in the event that the closure of their brick-and-mortar institution is imperative. Based on the findings of this study, recommendations for higher education administrators include being prepared to offer their courses online and to develop transitional housing arrangements should their campus be affected by a dormitory closure. However, this small study also found that when students feel that they are cared about, when they feel that they matter, they are more inclined to stay retained at an institution, disaster or not, providing that housing and finances remain unchanged.

Introduction

In August and September 2005, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck the U.S. Gulf Coast leaving long-lasting economic devastation. This natural event in conjunction with a lack of emergency preparedness on the part of the local government crippled the citizens from New Orleans, Louisiana to Biloxi, Mississippi, closed businesses and schools and left an entire region uninhabitable. Families evacuated to communities near and far, neighborhoods and communities were lost. The hurricanes and floodwaters that followed reached unprecedented heights, destroying thousands of buildings including homes, businesses, churches, and schools. In its wake, students from 10 colleges and universities in the New Orleans area found themselves cutoff from a typical college experience (Appleseed, 2006).

This qualitative study attempts to tell the stories of four students who prior to Hurricane Katrina were attending colleges and universities along the Gulf Coast. Their schools were forced to close, and they had decisions to make regarding the continuation of their education. The literature review takes a look at some student retention efforts that colleges employed (Johnson, Nolan, & Siegrist, 2006; Sumner, 2007; Tarr, Birdwhistell, & Schmehl, 2007) and also makes recommendations for creating a more comprehensive emergency and crisis plan (Mitroff, Diamond, & Alpaslan, 2006) that includes retention strategies.

Literature Review

In order to put the magnitude of the Hurricane Katrina event in perspective and understand how it affected the New Orleans education system, it is necessary to understand the environment. Appleseed conducted 350 interviews to capture a snapshot of the housing, health care, education, employment, and legal services status of the more than 1 million Katrina evacuees. Their findings provide a foundation for understanding of the challenges an educational system, college, or university faces with a catastrophic event that shut down not only a city but an entire region of the United States (Appleseed, 2006). Thousands of college students were unable to return to school for fall 2005. Nontraditional college students experiencing the loss of their homes, their livelihoods, lack of child care, and schools for their children would have their own education put on hold indefinitely. In areas such as St. Bernard Parish, where every one of the 27,000 homes was uninhabitable, students lost everything—their homes, clothes, and all possessions. The Southern Education Foundation report (2007) indicated that 2 years after the storms, 26,000 students in Louisiana still had not returned to college. Extraordinary circumstances contributed to this high attrition rate.

Dr. Theresa Perry, president of the United Teachers of New Orleans, reported (2006) that even before Katrina struck, plans were underway for what ultimately was the takeover by the state of 102 underperforming K–12 schools. What became the “Post Katrina ACT 35” authorized the state to take over these schools. Graduates from these high schools were among the enrollees of the colleges and universities in New Orleans. Extensive multilayered retention strategies for high-risk students (college freshmen with low entrance grades, lack of college prep in high school, low SES) are necessary to retain them in ordinary times.

The first year is critical to laying the foundation for a successful college experience (Habley & McCanahan, 2004; Tinto, 2004). Prior to Hurricane Katrina, the K–12 education system in New Orleans, a feeder for post-secondary schools was collapsing (Perry, 2006). Briggs (2008) interviewed Ron Maggiore, associate vice chancellor for enrollment management and dean of admissions at the University of New Orleans (UNO). Maggiore stated that 25% of the students that did not return to UNO after Hurricane Katrina were freshman and sophomores. As students become more committed and involved with their college/university, it is easier for them to be retained as students. Kuh (2005) stated that invested ties that solidify their commitment, which include their time vested in their academic programs, friends, faculty, and institutional support assist a student in staying in a particular school. If students are satisfied with the education they are receiving and the services available to them, they will stay.

Online courses can contribute to retention. Tarr et al. (2007) and Jarrell, Dennis, Jackson, and Kenney (2008) found that some schools made an attempt to continue to serve their students through the online environment, but this was difficult for schools that had not yet made preparations to convert their courses to the online platform. It was also quite challenging for students who had lost their homes and possessions. Lessons learned include the following: provide Internet access at a predetermined evacuation site and provide more training for faculty in the use of BlackBoard, move online course management to a hosted site, develop a Listserve for faculty and student contact, and provide an outline shell for uploading faculty course curriculum.

Johnson et al. (2006) reported that “focused leadership, open lines of communication, flexibility in college operations, and the involvement of a steadfast faculty and staff all united at the right moment to reopen the college” (p. 46) at Delgado Community College contributed to its retention success and ability to reopen in spring 2006. Even with 20 of its 25 buildings destroyed and a 40% loss of tuition revenue, the college was able to reopen with 60% of the spring 2005 enrollment.

Delgado Community College advises the following: identify an emergency headquarters; include prevention, protection, and mitigation strategies; create communications procedures; cultivate relationships with government officials and private foundations; provide an emergency hotline for students who are taking classes at other schools across the country so that they can speak with the registrar or faculty to confirm that the courses they are taking would transfer back to Delgado; provide online courses; and conduct classes in unconventional available space such as movie theatres and hospitals.

Delgado administrators stated that if faced with this situation again, they would additionally

• Issue laptops with wireless capabilities as the leadership team was evacuating
• Provide alternate e-mail addresses
• Supply cell phones with paging capabilities and area codes outside the region
• Select in advance a headquarters, including provisions for lodging for the emergency management team
• Secure information technology at a distant site, outside the range of a possible disaster
• Provide faculty with CDs to store course outlines, syllabi, class rosters that include the addresses, cell phone numbers, and alternate e-mail addresses of students
• Have a well-established communications protocol—preferably using the web
• Provide access for emergency and government workers to all buildings on campus
• Provide group and individual counseling immediately for students, staff, and faculty

A single causal event such as a hurricane is not enough to destroy the determination for a program to succeed (Sumner, 2007; Tarr et al., 2007). For Sumner and other faculty at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center (LSUHSC) School of Nursing in New Orleans, even a lack of a building could not deter them from using creativity and a willingness to do things differently to retain 96% of the nursing students in fall 2005. With no facility to call their own nor established clinical sites, they were able to reestablish a headquarters at the Baton Rouge campus, began a telephone call-in center and were able to get their website up and running—all critical communication facets in reaching and retaining students. The housing need was met when LSUHSC purchased a refurbished ferry and set it on the Mississippi River. Undergraduate lectures were given in a movie theater in the mornings before it opened for theater goers. Space was made available for graduate students at Southern Louisiana University on Friday nights and Saturdays. This school was able to retain its students with the dedication of the faculty, staff, and the students all in sync to accomplish their goals with a “whatever it takes” attitude.

Tarr et al. (2007) report that using creativity and having a willingness to do things differently contributed to the success of Loyola University in retaining 90% of its chemistry majors. Advising was conducted online and was key to their success. Success in using good academic advising to increase retention is supported by the study conducted by Habley and McCanahan (2004). Tinto (2004) proposes that successful retention strategies include providing academic advising interventions, learning support such as a reading, math, writing, and foreign language lab; learning communities; and programs for minorities as necessary components. Tinto (1987) theorizes that when students adapt socially on campus, they are more likely to persist with their studies. Braxton (2003) states “when students feel that someone in the institution cares about them, takes an interest in them, and pays attention to their experience, they feel they matter.” Faculty members, Irons, Carlson, Duncan, and Wallace (2007), of Lamar University, conducted a mixed methods survey capturing the students’ perspective on the impact of Hurricane Rita that supports Braxton (2003). The survey of 179 respondents containing quantitative and qualitative questions was distributed to Lamar University classes, 9 months following the evacuation. Findings included that the respondents would have liked to have more communication with faculty during the evacuation and suggested that faculty have students’ e-mail and cell phone information available in order to contact the students. Also noted was that students felt the faculty were not considerate of the student’s emotional state following this traumatic event. Kiernan (2005) and Lipka (2005) concur that communication is the most important component of a crisis plan.

Success happens more frequently with planning. Only 41% of the colleges that responded to a survey conducted by Habley and McCanahan (2004) employed a person whose primary function was to monitor retention. Retention activities cannot be conducted satisfactorily by one person with a designated title of retention officer, but rather, it should be by a team that meets on a regular basis moderated by the retention officer. Tinto (1987) states that “successful retention programs encompass virtually everything an institution does to improve the quality of student life and learning” and “retention should not be an institutional goal but rather a by-product of improved educational programs and services for students.”

Student retention is vital to the fiscal health of a college/university. Jarrell et al. (2008) state that “in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, it behooves us as educators to be proactive with our crisis management plans” (p. 14). Mitroff et al. (2006) conducted a survey of 350 colleges and universities and found that participant colleges and universities did “not follow the best-practice model of crisis management” (p. 64). Most were prepared for fires, lawsuits, and crimes, but few had broad-based crisis management plans or broad-based teams. When asked to rank the “current degree of support” (p. 65) given to crisis/management prevention along with 10 other activities or programs at their institutions, crisis/management prevention was at the bottom of the list. Mitroff et al. (2006) state that crisis management “must be viewed as a key element in the strategic governance of colleges and universities” (p. 66), and those that include an inter-departmental crisis management team that meets regularly to train for a broad range of situations will be better positioned to attend to whatever event strikes their institution.

Strategies employed by colleges to retain their students under ordinary circumstances may or may not be effective in extraordinary circumstances such as a Hurricane Katrina. No one has asked students who have been affected by the closure of their college/university following Hurricane Katrina what their institution could have done to help retain them as students. Research exists on retention and on the compilation of what constitutes an effective campus emergency management team. A study is needed to generate an understanding of effective retention strategies following extraordinary events and the effect of having a broad-based campus emergency team that meets regularly to train for a broad range of situations has on retention.

What follows is an excerpt of an unpublished qualitative study, factors that influence students’ decisions to return or not to return their home college or university following its closure due to Hurricane Katrina. It looks at the student perception of the factors that influenced their decisions to return, or not return, to the colleges and universities they were attending when Hurricane Katrina struck in the fall of 2005. The schools were forced to close, and students had decisions to make regarding the continuation of their education. The goal here is to listen to what students have to say regarding their immediate post-Katrina experience regarding their education, to look at the retention techniques their schools may or may not have used to retain them, to look at other factors that influenced the students’ decisions, and to provide a foundation for further study of the effect that a focus on retention in a campus emergency plan can have on retaining students after an extraordinary event.

Conceptual Framework

A college/university has to close temporarily due to a catastrophic event. Institutions whose leadership is supportive of crisis and emergency planning will be better prepared to return their campuses to its pre-event status, including preventing student attrition. There will be events that are beyond the reach of the campus administration that will affect the students’ ability to return to campus following an event. However, when an institution does all it can do to improve the quality of student life and learning (Tinto, 2004), including having solid retention strategies in place, as well as making provisions for health and safety, most students will not flee. Mitroff et al. (2006) claim that a broad-based crisis management team that meets regularly and trains for a broad range of situations will be best prepared to deal with the wide range of events that may affect the health, safety, and learning at a campus.

Method

Students who were attending colleges/universities that were affected by Hurricane Katrina were not only from the immediate area or even from across the United States, but also from countries around the globe. Kvale and Brinkman’s (2009) analogy of an interviewer/researcher is a miner, digging and chipping away until the answers that they know are there, are uncovered; however, before the mining could begin a net was cast wide. How does one locate students who were displaced from their colleges? If you want to locate college students you need to go where they go. Initial contact was made with the subjects through a Facebook interest group called Students Affected by Hurricane Katrina.

The Narratives

The students wrote free-flowing narratives in response to the main prompt: Tell me your story describing your student experience involving Hurricane Katrina. Additional prompts included the following:

• What was communication with your school like for you regarding the continuation of your education during fall 2005 following Hurricane Katrina?
• What were you thinking about as you packed your things to evacuate prior to the hurricane striking?
• What was it like when you realized the magnitude of this event?
• It is important for me as a researcher to understand something about the institutional support from your school so that I can make some comment for institutions to assist their students in the future.

Respondents

There were four student participants, three females and one male. The three females were undergraduate students; the two from University of New Orleans (UNO) were unmarried and lived on campus in the dormitories. One of the two was a freshman; the other’s academic status is unknown. The third female student was from William Carey College (WCC) in Gulfport, Mississippi. She was beginning her junior year, was married and lived in her own home 10 minutes away from campus with her husband. The one male student was an unmarried foreign exchange graduate MBA student from Turkey, attending classes at UNO.

The four individual case studies were obtained via e-mail in the form of unstructured narratives where the participants responded to a single research question: What factors influenced your decision to return (or not return) to your home institution following Hurricane Katrina?

Debbie

Debbie, a native of Louisiana, was living at home with her parents and siblings in Lafayette prior to arriving at University of New Orleans (UNO) on August 19, 2005, 10 days before Hurricane Katrina struck on August 29. Debbie had her sights set on the Ivy League schools, but finances did not permit such applications. The State of Louisiana has a program called TOPS that awards scholarships to students attending any public school in Louisiana based on the students’ high school grades. As a TOPS scholarship recipient, Debbie received full tuition money for food, textbooks, and cash every semester. Debbie was thrilled to be attending UNO. On August 26th, the Friday before the storm struck, she made a trip home to Lafayette, 2 hours west of New Orleans, for what she thought was a weekend trip. On Tuesday, August 30, when it was obvious that UNO and New Orleans would not be operational for the fall of 2005, Debbie registered at University of Louisiana, Lafayette (ULL). Debbie took one online class during the fall semester through UNO as well as attended a full load of classes at ULL. In spring 2006, she returned to UNO as a full-time student.

Debbie: I was displaced from the University of New Orleans, and I transferred to the University of Louisiana at Lafayette for one semester before returning back to UNO.

For Debbie, the impact of Hurricane Katrina was distressing. Instead of being at the school that she loved, she attended ULL for 2005 fall semester until UNO opened again in the spring of 2006. Things that worked in her favor were that she could use her TOPS scholarship at ULL and then at UNO for the spring semester; and her grandfather lived within commuting distance, which allowed her to attend classes on the UNO campus, as housing was very scarce in New Orleans in the spring of 2006.

Cathy

Cathy, an art major, was starting her junior year at William Carey University (WCC), a small Baptist college in Gulfport, Mississippi. She lived locally, in her own home, with her husband. After the hurricane, she did initially attend classes offered through her home school; however, due to the annihilation of the campus, the classes were offered at Gulfport High School. Cathy’s husband’s place of employment was also obliterated. Rather than travel 3 hours each way to and from work, he opted to seek employment out of state. He took a position in Wyoming in December 2005, and Cathy ultimately transferred to the State University of Wyoming. Many of her classes, however, did not transfer into her new degree audit. At the time of this data collection, Cathy had a 2½-year-old child, was unable to find affordable child care, which resulted in her having to drop to part-time status, and hence she lost all financial aid. At WCC, she received a full scholarship of $20,000 per year. Cathy anticipated that it would take another 3 or 4 years to complete her BFA.

Cathy: I was going to school full time at William Carey University on the coast, also right off Highway 90 in Gulfport. I was going to graduate with my BFA in 1 year. I am thinking it’ll take approximately another 3–4 years, which means it will have taken around 8–9 years to get my BFA instead of graduating (in) December 2006 like what was originally planned before the storm hit.

Hurricane Katrina had a profound effect on Cathy’s life. Not only was it necessary to leave her family and friends in Mississippi so that her husband could find employment, but the impact on her education was enormous. Since she no longer had a full scholarship, she could only attend college attended part time because she could not afford child care, and many of her courses did not transfer to the State University of Wyoming.

Gail

There is limited information regarding the third participant, Gail. She only responded to the initial inquiry on Facebook seeking student participants. Her limited information has been retained in the study as it does add to the body of knowledge. Gail was a UNO student when Hurricane Katrina struck. She was living in an apartment and lost everything she owned.

Gail: I finished college in a quite interesting way (first tried to stay and finish in New Orleans, but that wasn’t possible so I did a National Student Exchange Program) and am now living in Los Angeles, California.

Henry

Henry was the only graduate student in the study; he was an international exchange student from the University of Innsbruck, Austria, with the intention of studying at the University of New Orleans for 1 year. At the time Katrina struck, he had been living on campus for 2 weeks. He and a new friend evacuated to the home of the friend’s parents in New Iberia, Louisiana. Henry stayed there for 2 weeks before transferring to Georgia State University (GSU) for the 2005 fall semester. He attempted to return to UNO for the 2006 spring semester but was unable to find affordable housing. He was finally able to secure another student exchange program at the University of Bogazici in Istanbul, Turkey, and then went on to study international economics in Austria.

Henry: About me, I have been studying international economics in Austria. During Hurricane Katrina, I was an MBA student at the University of New Orleans with a Joint Study Program between the University of Innsbruck and University of New Orleans for 1 year.

Because of Hurricane Katrina, Henry was unable to study in America for 1 year as he had intended. However, he was able to attend MBA classes at Georgia State University (GSU), and because of funding provided by GSU to those affected by the hurricane, Henry paid no tuition for the 2005 fall semester. He was able to complete a study abroad program in Istanbul. Communications with the student president of the MBA program at UNO supported the correspondence from Henry.

Emerging Themes

A decision was made to analyze and code the cumulative data from each individual and then cross analyze to compare the differences and the similarities between the cases. The narratives were initially coded for attachment with their home school, communication during and after the hurricane with their home school, detachment from home school, detachment from school enrolled in while home school was closed, e-learning as it pertained to their home school, financial aspects of tuition pre- and post-Katrina, personal financial situation, housing pre- and post-Katrina, personal motivation, faculty influence, and flexibility of the institutions.

As the codes were formulated into categories, four themes (theories) emerged. The themes are (1) future orientation, (2) connectedness to people and place, (3) learning environment, and (4) structural influences. “The development of categories, properties, and tentative hypotheses through the constant comparative method is a process whereby the data gradually evolve into a core of emerging theory” (Merriam, 1998, p. 191).

Future Orientation

Future orientation is defined by the participants as what they intended to accomplish with or without the storm and/or the assistance of their home school. This includes their personal motivation and what they intended to do with their completed degree. The term home school refers to the college or university that the participants were attending when Hurricane Katrina struck on August 29, 2005. All four of the participants had a determination to complete college. None of them dropped out. Debbie attended ULL for 2005 fall semester and returned to UNO to complete her bachelor’s degree; Cathy was still in an undergraduate BFA program at the end of this study; Gail completed her degree through the National Student Exchange Program; and Henry completed his MBA through the University of Innsbruk. Both Debbie and Cathy mentioned a desire to attend graduate school. Debbie intends to complete a doctorate degree as her aspiration is to become a clinical psychologist.

Debbie: The main thing that kept me interested in UNO had little to do with how they handled the situation. Rather, what kept me interested was simply my interest. The amazing thing is that I planned to graduate in 3 years, and even with all the confusion and disaster that occurred, I still graduated in 3 years. My own personal motivation is mostly to blame.

Henry: I went to Atlanta and proceeded with my education at the Georgia State University in Atlanta. I could not complete my 1-year education in the United States. What I want to add is that after I returned to Austria, I arranged another Student Exchange Program at the University of Bogazici in Istanbul in Turkey.

Connectedness to People and Place

Connectedness is defined by the participants as attachment with their home school. In this section, focus is on the disconnect some of these participants had with either their home school and/or the school that they located to following the closure of their home school. It is by analyzing the connection and disconnection that brings clarity to what helped a student to return to their home school.

Two of the four participants, Debbie and Cathy, had formed attachments to their home schools prior to the storm. Debbie was only at UNO for a week before Katrina. She wrote of her attachment to the school, but she also wrote of her love of the city of New Orleans. Her writing states her love of how UNO struggled and tried its best in the midst of this crisis, and with a lack of resources. She mentions several times that she loves UNO.

Debbie: I liked New Orleans a lot for starters, and I think that’s why I went there in the first place, but once I got there I was instantly attached. The teachers are amazing; each of them loves their job, and it shows.

Cathy was starting her junior year and lived locally in her own home with her husband. She too had no thoughts of transferring to another school. Her attachment to William Cary College (WCC), her classmates, her teachers was evidenced by her joining them just days after the storm to clean up the art lab. Cathy received a phone call from a fellow student asking if she could assist with cleaning up the art classrooms and labs.

Cathy: The professors were also there at the cleanup of the art complex, and we were able to discuss some things then, such as if art classes would resume or not. As evening approached, there were more tears as people realized friends and teachers were without homes. We made time to meet and discuss what to do about the rest of the trimester, as well as contact information for fellow students that were still missing.

When she arrived at the campus, she worked with other students and faculty members in clearing debris as well as removing mold-covered drywall from the walls of the sculpture room. Cathy was very attached to her campus community and talked a lot about her sorrow for the destruction of the campus and the homes of her classmates. She expressed compassion for her teacher whose art tools were destroyed. She worried that he would never be able to get past this tragedy and return to his art.

Cathy: Professor Jeff lived in a tent for several weeks. Doc lost all his tools, his beautiful mesquite stumps, and various stones of alabaster and marble, as his studio was completely underwater, and the flooding of the bayou reached up to 3 feet in the second floor of his house. He hasn’t done any art since.

Both Debbie and Cathy spent time talking about the faculty and their commitment to the students and to the learning environment. Debbie stated that the UNO faculty members were interested in teaching and in providing the best education for their students. Both Debbie and Cathy had been contacted by their schools regarding the state of the school and what steps were being put into place to assist them in the continuation of their education.

Debbie: I wish I could remember more about how they communicated with us during the fall, and what they did in the spring that welcomed back so many more students, but I don’t think I could remember if I tried. …All I know is that I checked my e-mail every day, and they were actually pretty good at keeping everyone updated.

Cathy: Margot from Student Services contacted me and told me that most classes would be resuming at the Gulfport High School.

Henry mentions that UNO had no idea where he was until he contacted them. It was only after that connection was made by Henry that he received additional information regarding the happenings of UNO.

Henry: UNO did not know where I was before I contacted the Austrian Center based on the UNO campus. …After I contacted them, I was asked to return to UNO after finishing my 2005 fall semester for the 2006 spring semester.

Debbie recalls that all communication was handled via e-mail and was current, keeping the community apprised of its progress regarding reopening. I am not sure why the experiences of Debbie and Henry at UNO were so different. Henry was a foreign exchange graduate student, and Debbie was a domestic undergraduate student, but one would think that the application process that includes collecting personal contact information would have included phone numbers and e-mail addresses whether a domestic or international student. Since Debbie did not recall the date that UNO contacted her nor did Henry recall the date that he contacted UNO, it could be possible that Henry contacted UNO prior to the time when Debbie was contacted by UNO. Keep in mind that the university was not fully staffed due to the situation and needed time to organize its resources before contacting students and making public statements as to the “next-steps.”

Detachment is defined as a lack of attachment to school and those within the campus community. All mention of ULL from Debbie was with words of detachment. She was not open to being at ULL. Her perception was that the teachers there did not care and that the classes were not helpful. She thought that they just wanted to capture her as a student without listening to what it was that she wanted.

Debbie: Before the hurricane I had no intention of ever going to ULL, and while I was there I had no intention of staying there. The teachers were apathetic to their jobs, which was the polar opposite of what I had seen in only 5 days at UNO… I loved UNO; I hated ULL; it was pretty simple.

There was never a thought that Debbie would stay at ULL for more than the 2005 fall semester. She talks about how unhelpful ULL was in assisting her in selecting courses that would work for her in her transfer back to UNO.

Debbie: ULL was so unhelpful…they told me I had to take a …math class (because it was required for all of THEIR programs), which did not help me at all with anything at UNO, and I later discovered that the math class that I needed was available; they simply failed to tell me about it. They put me in the next English class but wouldn’t allow me to take the honors version (what I needed because I was in the honors program at UNO) because I had not tested into their honors program.

The transfer to the University of Wyoming has not been easy for Cathy. They were not flexible with transferring in courses that she had taken at WCC, and she states that by the time she completes her BFA it will have taken her 8–9 years to complete the degree.

Cathy: I must say that transferring from a private Baptist college to a state university has been the biggest pain. I am still having problems getting classes and credits accepted.

Both Debbie and Cathy use words that reflect that they felt that the schools they transferred to did not care about them as individuals or take into account what they had been through. Because of this, they had a difficult time “connecting” with ULL and University of Wisconsin, respectively.

Gail and Henry did not talk about any attachment to UNO, their home school for the 2005 fall semester. Henry talked about the fellow student with whom he evacuated with to the family home. He also mentioned the MBA president who was helpful, but there was no attachment noted in his writing. His writings indicated that he had a goal of completing a student exchange program, not that he had to be a student at UNO. He found another student exchange program at the University of Bogazici in Istanbul, Turkey, and then went on to international economics in Austria.

Henry: What I want to add is that after I returned to Austria, I arranged another Student Exchange Program at the University of Bogazici in Istanbul in Turkey, where you can attend the classes in English. Turkey is my country of origin.

For Henry, while UNO was his home school for the 2005 fall semester, his true home school was the University of Innsbruk, Austria. This may have factored into his inability to connect to UNO. Gail’s short correspondence lacked any sense of attachment to UNO, or to anyone at the school.

Learning Environment

Learning environment is defined by the administrative and faculty activities that took place at the campus immediately before, during, and following the hurricane. It includes communication, facility availability, e-learning, course availability, faculty influence, and flexibility of the institutions.

Cathy received a phone call from an administrative office to let her know that classes would resume the third week of September 2005, at Gulfport High School. The damage at WCC was extensive with many buildings completely destroyed and others deemed an unsafe environment in which to hold classes. Cathy mentions that she and the other students were tearing down mold-covered walls.

Cathy: About a foot of water had gotten into the back studios, more in the front sculpture building and foundry. I helped remove the lower drywall from the walls of the sculpture room, as they were completely covered with mold.

There was no mention by Cathy of any courses being offered online at WCC; however, they were able to reopen at Gulfport High School just 3 weeks following the storm. When classes resumed at Gulfport High School, Cathy found that none of her art classes were to be offered.

Cathy: …Art classes were canceled for the term. I wound up taking my health and my world civilization class. My ceramics and sculpture classes did not continue. I still think back on it and know that if the storm hadn’t hit, I would be working on my MFA right now instead of slowly attempting to finish by BFA.

Cathy thought that WCC not offering art classes for the 2005 fall semester would set her back at least one semester once WCC was back to full order for the following fall. Communication for Debbie was through the online environment. She states that she checked her e-mail daily for updates. Debbie, who prior to Katrina, was a communications major, found that she would need to change her major as the communications department had collapsed. She then switched her major to psychology.

Debbie: Because of the hurricane, many teachers had to be laid off, and many programs were shut down, communications being one of them, leaving me with no major and forcing me to make a quick decision about the direction I wanted to go in my life…. It just took a hurricane to show me that psychology is exactly what I wanted to study.

Debbie registered for an online course through UNO during the 2005 fall semester in addition to attending classroom-based courses at ULL. In the 2005 fall semester, after Katrina, she was registered to take French III through the UNO online environment. The class was canceled and she was put into French IV, even though French III was a prerequisite for French. She states that UNO was the first to reopen with online classes and then the first to open its doors in the spring of 2005. Debbie was not sure how many online courses were offered prior to Katrina at UNO, but she feels that there were more offered for the 2005 fall semester and the 2006 spring semester in an effort to retain students, especially since housing was not available in the New Orleans area.

Debbie: The Internet side of UNO remained open and available throughout the hurricane semester…. I know plenty of people who remained as full-time UNO students through online classes that semester, and some continued to do this during the spring semester if they could not yet return…. I do not know how many were offered prior to my enrollment, but after the hurricane they were forced to continue offering many of their classes online in order to save money and desperately hold onto as many displaced students as they could.

Debbie expressed that UNO offered her flexibility, which she felt made it easy to return; first with the online classes and then with a flexible schedule.

Debbie: They made it easy to come back and jump right back into the routine, and they left room for change, and restructure.

When she returned to UNO, they worked with her regarding transferring in the classes that she had taken at ULL and did not penalize her for courses that she had taken at ULL but rather found flexible ways to transfer those classes back into her UNO degree audit.

Neither Gail nor Henry made mention of any courses offered via the online environment, and both attended UNO as did Debbie.

For both Debbie and Cathy, when they initially returned to their home schools, UNO and WCC, respectively, they both found that their schools were forced to cut out certain courses, either due to a lack of students, lack of faculty, or lack of a facility. For Cathy, that ultimately did not factor into her completion goal since she had to relocate to Wyoming due to her husband’s job relocation because of Hurricane Katrina.

Structural Influences

Structural influences are defined by the limitations that were unable to be altered by the college/university due to overwhelming circumstances that were beyond the scope of capabilities of the individual institutions such as the lack of housing in the broader New Orleans area and the financial impact of the hurricane on the personal finances and economics of the area. It also includes any references made to tuition and scholarships. Finances are described by the participants as any financial aspects of tuition pre and post-Katrina and any reference to how the hurricane impacted their lives financially.

Cathy did not complete her 2005 fall semester at WCC at the Gulfport High School location. While her home withheld the storm with minor damage, the facility that housed her husband’s place of business was completely destroyed. His employer had another facility 3 hours away. Rather than face that commute, he sought employment elsewhere, and ultimately took a position in Wyoming. Cathy and her husband left Gulfport, Mississippi, on November 30, 2005 for Wyoming. While at WCC, she was receiving a full-time student annual scholarship of $20,000. At the University of Wyoming she returned as a part-time student and received no financial aid. She had a 2½-year-old child and could not afford child care, so she could not attend full time, so she received no aid. Cathy stated that the University of Wyoming had done little to help her. She received no Katrina-related scholarship or grant. It was her understanding that other colleges/universities offered such scholarships/grants for other students who were victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Cathy: I was offered no Katrina-related scholarship or grant like other schools (from what I heard) were doing for displaced students. This means I’m paying for a state university out of pocket when I had a $20,000 scholarship to William Carey University.

Debbie was the recipient of a TOPS scholarship and was planning on using it for the 2005 fall semester at UNO. TOPS is a scholarship program that covers tuition, housing, books, and personal expenses for scholastically gifted high school students who are attending a public university in New Orleans. Her tuition was paid for at UNO and ULL, with the exception of the 2005 fall semester when she took the online UNO class as well as classes at ULL. The source of her frustration regarding the online course not being covered was that she was given incorrect information. When she registered for classes at ULL after Katrina struck, her TOPS scholarship was then used for tuition at ULL. Debbie, however, was also taking an online course through UNO. She was told by everyone she asked that TOPS would cover this unique situation. She was told, yes, that TOPS was making exceptions to their ruling that a student could only take classes at one institution per semester. Three years later, Debbie received a bill from UNO for the online course for which TOPS had declined tuition payment.

Debbie: When Hurricane Katrina hit, I transferred to ULL and signed up for 15 hours and also took the one online class with UNO. Before I did this, I asked several people whether or not TOPS would cover this unique situation. I was told by everyone that I asked, probably for lack of a better answer, yes. They told me TOPS was making exceptions for everyone that was affected by the hurricane, and that my semester would be covered. Apparently, however, TOPS thinks that it’s okay to change their minds about what they want to pay for 3 years after the fact. I was just billed for $923 for the one online class that I took with UNO. The reason is TOPS took back that money because they “cannot” pay for more than one university per student per semester. Thank you TOPS.

Henry did not pay tuition for the fall; he received a full tuition waiver from GSU for 2005 fall semester.

Henry: I got a tuition waiver; I did not have to pay any tuition fee for the 2005 fall semester.

Housing is defined by pre- and post-Katrina housing and how it affected the education of the participants. Following Hurricane Katrina, the City of New Orleans was uninhabitable for a number of months. In some places it has yet to return to its pre-Katrina state, and for some areas it never will. The city was a ghost town except for disaster workers, and some business and home owners returning to assess the damage to their properties. In many sections of the city, mold and mildew had destroyed whatever the floodwaters and winds did not. Remediation included extensive demolition and rebuilding.

For each of the students who had attended UNO, the lack of housing was an issue. Due to the water damage and mold, not only were the academic buildings unavailable but also the dormitories as well as off-campus housing in the immediate area was not possible. The housing situation affected not only the student population but also the residential as well as business communities of New Orleans. FEMA was providing housing trailers in the vicinity, and Debbie talked about the anticipation of FEMA trailers to replace student housing. That never became a reality. When UNO resumed some of its classroom learning in the spring of 2006, housing remained an issue.

Debbie: There was nowhere to live, and every option that FEMA provided was a dead end. They said they would find a hotel for me to stay in, and they didn’t. They said that they would put FEMA trailers on campus for us to stay in, but they didn’t. Fortunately, I had a relative who lived not too far away, so I was able to commute, but I’m sure there were more students who would have returned to UNO if they would have had a place to live. My grandfather lived about 40–50 minutes away from campus, give or take traffic.

Debbie’s grandfather lived within commuting distance of UNO. Had he not, it is uncertain of how she would have continued her education at UNO for 2006 spring semester.

Henry stated that housing was the only reason that he did not return to UNO. After his fall semester at GSU, he was contacted by UNO that school was open and he could return to classes. He contacted the Austrian Center at UNO and was told that the dorm where he was previously situated was condemned and there was no other housing alternative. He therefore made the decision, based on this information to return to his home school, the University of Innsbruck in Austria. He then applied for another student exchange program at the University of Bogazici in Istanbul, Turkey.

Gail too stated that the only reason that she did not continue at UNO was due to housing. She ultimately relocated to California through the National Student Exchange Program and completed her undergraduate education.

Cathy was the only student participant for whom housing was not an issue. Her home in D’Iberville, Mississippi, sustained damage but was in a repairable state. Cathy was unable to continue at WCC, as mentioned previously, due to the destruction of the building that housed her husband’s employer’s place of business, which resulted in their moving to Wyoming and the continuance of her studies at the University of Wyoming.

Discussion

Based on this study, it is clear that there were several factors that overwhelmingly affected whether a student continued their education at their home institution. Those factors included the individual student’s future orientation; their connectedness or lack of connectedness to their schools and the people in them; the learning environment, which included the ability of the institution to keep up communication with the students, offer online courses, provide flexibility in courses, both at the campus when school reopened and in accepting courses that students took elsewhere during the 2005 fall semester when the home school was closed; and the structural limitations of finances and housing.

The students in this study came with the recognition that they needed to complete a college degree. Their personal motivation was intact. Trying to make sense of why some stayed at their home school rather than transfer to any other school in the country is the challenge of this analysis. When students feel that they matter, that their school is interested in connecting with them, they will be more inclined to stay. Two of the four, Henry, and Gail, easily made transitions to schools other than their home schools following Katrina. Their writing painted a picture of detachment. For Henry, he spoke about the lack of communication. Henry was detached from UNO and because of this was able to quickly adjust to Georgia State University where he spent the 2005 fall semester and then for spring 2006 moved on to the University of Bogazici. Gail’s short correspondence lacked any sense of attachment to UNO, but rather spoke of her detachment to UNO. She found a college program in Los Angeles, California, through the National Student Exchange program and moved on.

Perhaps we can conclude that rather than deal with the issues surrounding reopening a college/university following a catastrophic event such as Hurricane Katrina, for those who are not feeling connected, it is easier to transfer to a new school, especially if you felt that the school was lax in reaching out to the students following the traumatic event. As for students whose writing spoke of a love for the people and place, Debbie and Cathy, we could conclude it would be very difficult to pick up and go elsewhere. This was evidenced by Debbie’s stories about ULL. There was nothing that anyone at ULL could have done that would have made her happy. Consistent with Schuh and Laanan’s findings (2006), “by leaving their college in New Orleans, the students are leaving what has become familiar and they are moving to a college not of their choosing. They will need to feel someone at the new college cares about them and is welcoming them to their new surroundings” (p. 93). Cathy had friends and professors who she held close to her heart at William Carey College. The transfer to the University of Wyoming was not easy for Cathy. She mentioned how the school had not extended themselves to understand her personal situation. They had not been at all accommodating. Cathy was already detached from the University of Wyoming. These findings are consistent with Braxton (2003) “when students feel that someone in the institution cares about them, takes an interest in them, and pays attention to their experience, they feel they matter” (p. 324).

When looking for a meta-analysis for structural limitations one could issue that for those who could overcome the housing issue, retention at their home school would be an easy task, provided that the financial situation of the individual was being taken care of, even when presented with a loss of educational departments, faculty, and facilities. Schools such as UNO who were able to offer online courses fared better than those who were unable to keep students retained through online courses. Jones, Das, and Huggins (2008) qualify this finding with their statement, “Many institutions decided to offer online course instruction in an effort to keep currently enrolled students. There is no doubt the use of technology had an impact on student retention” (p. 173).

Debbie, who prior to Katrina was a communications major, found that she needed to change her major as the communications department had collapsed. That did not present a huge problem for Debbie; she switched her major to psychology, switching to a school that offered communications was not even a thought that Debbie considered. For Cathy, even when her major art courses were not being offered due to the destruction of the art lab in the fall of 2005, she had no intention of transferring to another school. Cathy spoke of the camaraderie she felt with her fellow students and faculty members as they attempted to clean their school. Yet because of her husband’s employment situation, Cathy did ultimately need to transfer schools.

None of these students experienced a financial situation that prevented them from continuing with their education. For Debbie, she continued to receive her TOPS scholarship. For Cathy, the transfer from WCC to the University of Wyoming had a negative impact on her, but she was still able to attend school. It had proved to be stressful and costly due to the fact that she had a child, could not afford child care, and did not receive any scholarship money. Henry fared best with regard to tuition. As a foreign student, he did not qualify for any student loans, yet he did receive a full tuition waiver from GSU for the 2005 fall semester.

While each of these factors affected student retention, it appears that housing had the greatest affect on the students attending UNO. Henry clearly states that if he was able to find housing, he would have stayed at UNO; Gail also makes a similar claim. Even Debbie would not have been able to return for the spring 2006 semester if it had not been for her grandfather living within commuting distance from UNO. The students in the study were not unique to being affected by the lack of housing. Jones et al. (2008) state that “housing shortages will continue to be a monumental barrier” (p. 173).

As a side note—Cathy mentioned that she and other students and faculty were removing mold-covered drywall from the walls of the sculpture room. Mold exposure has been known to cause serious health consequences including respiratory and neurological problems. While that speaks volumes for the sense of community and attachment, it also screams loudly at the physical dangers that these people placed themselves. All colleges/universities need to have a remediation plan in place and to vocalize the proper procedures for faculty, staff, and students following an event that involves flooding and mold. This will prevent well-meaning students, faculty, and staff from putting themselves in physical danger. By not addressing this issue, a college/university opens up an opportunity for future action by the community members.

Conclusion

The primary goal of this study, to explore the experiences of a small group of students who due to the closure of their colleges and universities following Hurricane Katrina had their life plans altered, was met. The secondary goal of this study was to heighten the awareness for university and college administrators to the importance of having a comprehensive campus emergency plan in place that includes retention strategies in the event that the closure of their brick-and-mortar institutions is imperative. It is my hope that this research will be used as a resource for college/university administrators who may be faced with such a future extraordinary event.

This study of four students is too small to make any generalizations except regarding housing, since it affected each of the four students. While colleges/universities had emergency plans in place, it was clear that the plans were underdeveloped in comparison to the magnitude of Hurricane Katrina. When institutions are forced to close due to extreme conditions, students may be unable to continue their education at these institutions for some period of time. Based on the findings of this study, recommendations for higher education administrators is to be prepared to offer courses online and to develop transitional housing arrangements should the campus be affected by a dormitory closure. A more comprehensive study could include interviews with administrators from UNO to get their impression of how the housing situation was handled and what they could have done, if anything, given the widespread housing shortage in the entire city of New Orleans following the hurricane.

Because student retention is vital to the fiscal health of a college/university, it is imperative that emergency plans include retention strategies. In addition to reporting the financial and enrollment impacts, administration of affected institutions need to develop action plans for student retention. Institutions need to start taking seriously the federal government’s warnings regarding understanding the risks associated with hazards that can affect the campuses and develop action plans not just emergency management plans written for the sake of having a written document. Institutions need to be talking with their counterparts at other schools and becoming familiar with the resources available to them through such organizations as FEMA, and National Center for Higher Education Risk Management (NCHERM). FEMA’s Action Guide for Emergency Management at Institutions of Higher Education (2009) is a good starting point.

Regarding student finances and transfer evaluation, schools need to look at each student case individually and not make blanket rulings that treat everyone with the same pen stroke. There are unique situations that occur during catastrophic disasters where the students would be better served if colleges could use flexibility when making decisions. But perhaps the most important lesson learned is one that transcends all settings. It is that people need to feel that they matter. The stories of these students reflected that they felt good about themselves and their schools when they were connected to people there, when they felt that they mattered. My recommendation is to offer professional development training programs for staff and faculty that include sensitivity training so that all community members recognize that their behavior, the way they speak to and act toward students, affects the way students feel about the institution. When students feel that they are cared about, when they feel that they matter, they are more inclined to stay at an institution, disaster or not, providing that housing and finances remain unchanged.

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