As we reflect on the 20-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, we would like to recognize universities that lent a helping hand to our students in times of crisis and disaster.
When Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005, it washed away more than homes and streets. It swept away the normal life for thousands of students at Loyola. Our campus went dark, classes were suspended, and the uncertainty of education weighed heavily on many students who had already lost so much. For Loyola students, the question was terrifying. What happens to my education now?
But in that moment of crisis, Louisiana’s universities stepped up. Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge became a lifeline, enrolling hundreds of displaced Loyola students. Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, and the University of Louisiana campuses in Lafayette and Monroe also made space for our community, offering emergency enrollment, housing, and the reassurance that students’ degrees would not be another casualty caused by a disaster.
These schools did more than provide a table to sit at, they provided dignity. In the chaos of displacement, to be able to continue classes was a form of stability and hope for many. Loyola students were able to stay on track because Louisiana schools chose compassion over anything else. Professors welcomed new faces into their classrooms mid-semester. Administrators scrambled so students could register, find housing, and keep earning credits. For students who had lost so much already, this generosity was not just practical, it was healing.
And while institutions across the country, from Boston College to Georgetown to Duke, welcomed New Orleans students as well, it was our neighbors here at home who had the greatest share. LSU alone enrolled over two thousand displaced students from Katrina-affected campuses, becoming the anchor for Louisiana’s academic recovery. Smaller schools like Southeastern and Nicholls, showed an outsized commitment by making room where there was hardly any. These acts demonstrated what higher education can and should look like in moments of crisis.
For that, we owe them our deepest thanks. But gratitude and thank yous cannot end in memory alone. It is not enough to remember who helped us. We must also be prepared to carry that responsibility forward. The generosity shown to us should serve as a model for what Loyola must be ready to do if disaster strikes elsewhere. If one day it is LSU, Southeastern, or another campus forced to shut its doors, we must answer the same call they did, with the same openness and solidarity that was shown to us. Hurricane Katrina taught us many things, one being that education cannot be taken for granted. It also taught us that community, wherever it is, is what keeps education alive when everything else seems lost. That is why this thank you is more than a remembrance. It is a promise that we are the strongest when we hold the door open for one another.
