Dillard University students have filled the lobby of the The Hilton New Orleans Riverside hotel, turning the bar into a study zone, the restaurant into a noisy cafeteria and the second floor ballroom into dozens of classrooms sectioned off by large partitions.

Instead of tourists, students walk by the hotel’s upscale antique stores with notebooks and pens these days. A sign in the hotel lobby reads: “Welcome Home, Dillard Students.” The university has relocated its classes and living quarters to the Hilton after Dillard’s campus was severely damaged by Hurricane Katrina.

Dillard students have since realized they are far from home.

Like other New Orleans area universities, Dillard was forced to close for the fall semester after its campus in Gentilly suffered $400 million of wind and water damage, as well as the loss of three buildings to a fire on its 55-acre campus.

In November, Dillard laid off 202 of its 344 employees – nearly 59 percent – but retained all tenured faculty. They also announced they were entering into a consortium with Tulane, Loyola and Xavier universities for the spring 2006 semester, which is comprised of two 13-week sessions, the first beginning Jan. 9, 2006.

HOME AWAY FROM HOME

Since then, students have begun their spring semester, which has expanded to include classes at the World Trade Center at the foot of Canal Street and at the Hilton, where many students also live. Pre-Katrina enrollment at Dillard was 2,200; 1,084 have returned, and 784 are living at the Hilton.

Dillard and the Hilton have attempted to make a comfortable arrangement for students living at the hotel. Two students are assigned to a room with amenities such as housekeeping, double-sized beds and cable television that they wouldn’t normally have in the dorms on campus. Students, however, cannot have essential dorm room items such as refrigerators and microwaves in their rooms. In addition, students living at the Hilton are forced to pay more for room and board than they would for a dorm room at Dillard.

“I’m close to my classes,” said Kevin Barns, business freshman, “but everything is cluttered and uneasy.”

Hotel living seems to have its ups and its downs with Dillard students.

“It’s crowded and boring, there are no student activities for us to participate in,” said Britte Adams, political science freshman, “but they’re (Dillard) doing the best they can.” On the other hand, Alicia McArthur, accounting freshman, said that the Hilton provided “better living. I get my own bathroom and a bigger bed than in a dorm room.”

A major problem, students said, has been the food arrangements. While the Hilton provides students with three meals a day, these meals follow a consistent menu, meaning students have a set meal for every day of the week. For students who choose to find their own food, their options are expensive. Several students said that room service started at $10 a meal and that finding cheap food in the French Quarter is next to impossible.

Parking is another problem, students said. Juniors and seniors were allowed to enter a lottery for parking permits in the Hilton parking lot for $60 a month. Freshmen and sophomores with cars have to find their own parking, which has resulted in numerous parking tickets.

‘WE ARE SURVIVORS’

Students are coping with the arrangements the best they can. But Dillard academic adviser and teacher Kimberly Moorehead said that some have been more successful academically than others.

“It’s easy for students to get sidetracked here. We’re so close to the casinos and Bourbon Street and (students) have access to cable TV. It’s easy to get to class here, but it depends on the student. Some are driven, and some are just here to see what happens,” she said. Kevin Bastian, a student support services counselor at Dillard, thinks students are better off emotionally than they originally expected them to be. Students have “not been wallowing in misery over the last six months. They experience regular problems with relationships and things like that, but it is not as dramatic as originally expected. We are survivors,” Bastian said.

This situation has been difficult for faculty, as well. Academic advising positions have been reduced from seven people to two because of Dillard’s faculty cuts.

“It’s difficult to advise students when we don’t have the same number of people working and we don’t have everybody’s transcripts,” Moorehead said.

Moorehead said that Dillard has had trouble getting students’ transcripts due to discrepancies with other schools and running advising offices out of the hotel.

MONEY MATTERS

Since the spring semester began, 50 faculty members have been rehired. Maureen Larkins, director of communications at Dillard, said that the number of faculty rehired would continue to rise based on future student enrollment.

Demolition and reconstruction of damaged buildings on Dillard’s campus began approximately two weeks after the storm and is being financed primarily through the university’s insurance. The majority of Dillard students and faculty remain optimistic about the future.

“This institution is on a mission to turn its situation around and to return Dillard to the superior learning institution it was before the hurricane,” said Dillard University President Marvalene Hughes, Ph.D., in a statement. “Our efforts to secure federal and private support continue, and we will leave no stone unturned to identify the support necessary to secure Dillard’s future. This was a catastrophic event that nearly destroyed our beloved university. Despite that, we are working day and night to bring Dillard back, and we will return it to its former glory and aspire to make it even better.”

Lizze Gibson, urban studies and public policy sophomore, expressed other concerns about her future at Dillard, particularly those having to do with financial assistance and quality of life at Dillard.

“What will happen to my independence and stability because of this situation (if so many changes are occurring),” Gibson said. “Will I be able to benefit from this university like I have in the past?”

LIVING LABORATORY

Despite the circumstances, the curriculum for Dillard students has not undergone much change since the storm. Students are still required to do 120 hours of community service work, as they were expected to do in previous years. They have also been asked to work on a Katrina project, designed by Dillard Provost Betty Parker Smith, who calls it a Katrina Recovery Initiative. Students also have the option of doing academic work, such as a sociological study of Gentilly community members whose lives have been affected by the hurricane, an art project or working with a non-profit group to gut houses and do construction in the Gentilly area. “(Smith’s) vision was that the world would be coming down to New Orleans to study us, so why don’t we study ourselves,” Bastian said.

While this semester has not been an ideal one for Dillard, the majority of the students have one common sentiment: They miss their home.

“I can’t wait to get back to Dillard,” said Faren Pitts, biology freshman. “There’s nothing like campus.”

Laurén Bienvenue can be reached at [email protected].

Dillard University students attend a math class in a makeshift classroom at the Hilton New Orleans Riverside on Poydras Street. Dillard´s campus in Gentilly sustained $400 million in wind, water and fire damages and is in the process of being restored and rebuilt.