Following the realization that universities in the areas
directly affected by Hurricane Katrina would not be able to offer
their normal fall semester, UCLA opened its undergraduate, law and
graduate schools to students displaced from their home universities
in the Gulf Coast region.
More than 70 students have taken advantage of UCLA’s
decision, the majority of whom are undergraduates enrolled through
UCLA Extension.
The UCLA School of Law decided to accept up to 20 second- and
third-year students from the region, said law school Dean Michael
Schill.
“We weren’t running an admission process … but we
did make sure, given the information that we had, that students
were going to be academically capable,” Schill said.
Timothy Holliday, a third-year law student from Tulane
University in the heart of New Orleans, is one student who took
advantage of UCLA’s offer.
Holliday chose to attend the UCLA School of Law after enduring
the hurricane and a quick flight out of the region.
A California native, Holliday opted to stay with a professor in
New Orleans as he had the previous year when Hurricane Ivan was
poised to strike the region. But unlike Ivan, Katrina did not veer
far enough east to miss New Orleans.
“The lesson we learned is a gambler does not play the same
hand again,” Holliday said of their choice to stay in New
Orleans and take their chances.
The area in which Holliday stayed was only eight blocks from the
Tulane campus. The district survived the hurricane itself with very
little structural damage, he said.
“I walked around extensively the day after the storm had
blown out; there were vast amounts of trees down, but few windows
were blown out or roof tiles off,” he said.
But on Tuesday, when they got word that the levees had broken
and the area still might flood, Holliday decided to leave. Passing
through the less affluent areas where the streets were still filled
with people and out through the only bridge left open, Holliday
drove to Baton Rouge and flew home to Pasadena.
The people of the poorer areas did not appear to be planning on
going anywhere, Holliday said, likely either due to the lack of
transportation or money.
In the days that followed the hurricane, it became apparent that
campuses would not be able to reopen for the fall semester, and
Holliday began looking for places to continue his studies until the
spring.
With family nearby, UCLA was a logical choice.
When Holliday got to Pasadena, he received an immediate response
from UCLA’s law school regarding his interest in attending
for the fall semester, and was invited for an orientation the next
day.
“I sent an e-mail to UCLA at 2 p.m. on Labor Day and that
evening at 9 p.m. they called to say to come to orientation the
next day,” Holliday said. “It was extremely organized,
really amazing.”
By mid-September, the school enrolled 10 students from Tulane
Law.
The law school decided not to charge tuition for the students
that had already paid Tulane, so as not to place an even greater
financial burden on Tulane by having students request their tuition
back, Schill said.
Students will be required to leave UCLA and go back to Tulane
once it reopens, but Schill said he is willing to keep the students
for the spring, should it become necessary.
Numerous students who had been attending schools in Louisiana
have also enrolled in other graduate programs, and the
undergraduate school has opened up the concurrent enrollment
program through Extension to these students.
Extension is a mechanism for a non-matriculating student to take
a course for credit, said Extension Dean Robert Lapiner, and so it
gave the administration the ability to offer students enrollment
without actually admitting them to UCLA.
Such a program allowed the administration to avoid issues with
admissions and allayed fears that they would be taking students
away from their home universities, said Executive Vice Chancellor
and Provost Daniel Neuman.
Normally, enrollment for Extension begins after the first day of
school and offers classes during the day on a space available
basis, or equivalent classes at night. But the registration date
was moved up to accommodate these students.
As of mid-September there were approximately 70 students
enrolled from the Gulf Coast area, many of whom have chosen UCLA
through consultation with advisors at their home universities as
well as educational advisors at UCLA, Lapiner said.
Extension also decided to waive fees so that the
hurricane-effected universities could keep the fees they had
already collected, said John Sandbrook of the Office of the
Deans.
Last year’s completion of new residence halls Hedrick
Summit and Rieber Vista has opened up space allowing UCLA to offer
on-campus housing though it will charge the visiting students
regular prices. At press time there were 10 students signed up for
university housing, Sandbrook said.
Both the provisional status of the students as well as the fee
waiver follows the guidelines requested by the American Council on
Education.
Although schools such as Tulane are already announcing that they
anticipate being able to open for the spring term, Neuman says that
he will likely continue the program past fall if it becomes
necessary.