Class of 2006 Post-Katrina: Where are they now?, The

Black Collegian, Oct 2006 by Roussell, Rebecca K

Katrina: One Year After

A year ago, floodwaters upended the lives of thousands of students attending the Historically Black Colleges and Universities in New Orleans. Before the waters receded, many would find themselves homeless, and for a semester, all would be unable to return to damaged and shuttered campuses.

Looking back now a year later, many recall feeling rudderless and vulnerable, as even the institutions they relied on struggled to survive one of the greatest urban disasters America has ever witnessed.

Yet in adversity, many students discovered depths of resolve. Forced to spend part of senior year at faraway colleges, they then returned in unexpectedly high numbers to New Orleans in January 2006 to finish what they had started.

The headlines of local newspapers tally the results of their tenacity: Southern University at New Orleans awarded 321 degrees May 13. Dillard University honored 354 graduates with a traditional march down Avenue of the Oaks on July 1. And on August 12, Xavier University of Louisiana graduated 536.

Here are the stories of several who refused to surrender their dreams despite setbacks dealt to them by Hurricane Katrina.

Alvin Watts, 25

Xavier University of Louisiana

B.S. Pharmacy

Today, Alvin Watts is one step closer to becoming a licensed pharmacist. He is a pharmacy intern at a Walgreens in Baton Rouge, La., and in late August, he was preparing for the last part of his pharmacy licensure exams.

"I take the NAPLEX, which is the medications part, on Monday," said Watts, while looking over some notes for the test.

For any student, this would be an accomplishment. For Watts, it was a feat after losing everything in his Ninth Ward home to last year's floodwaters.

Watts was a pharmacy student at Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans. When the storm forced the school's administration to cancel the fall semester, he had finished with classes, but still needed to complete one year of rotations at different pharmacies to be eligible to graduate.

He went home to White Castle, La., to ride the storm out with his family.

"I could just remember seeing the whole city of New Orleans submerged," he said. With it, he worried, were his goals and four years of hard work.

As the weeks passed after the storm, he did not get any information from Xavier.

"I started calling different schools," he said, "but I still wanted to graduate from Xavier."

Eventually, an email from one of his professors lifted a weight off his shoulders.

"[I] did not have to worry," Watts said. "Different people were working hard to make sure we would graduate." Pharmacy students would receive help finding placements, for example.

Watts was able to work at a pharmacy in Natchitoches, located in central Louisiana. A hotel room was provided for him and he was able to concentrate on his work. He finished his next rotations in Gonzales, located just east of Baton Rouge, and returned for his final internship in New Orleans in March 2006. He commuted two hours every day from White Castle to complete the last rounds of his rotations. The changes in New Orleans moved him.

"It was too depressing," Watts said. "The city really did not look the same."

Though he had to bounce back and forth across Louisiana to complete his education, he persevered, and in May, he graduated from Xavier - on time.

Hurricane Katrina made Watts realize that he took things for granted on a daily basis, and realize how much he missed New Orleans.

"New Orleans was a unique place, and it still is unique," he said. "I can't compare any other place to New Orleans."

LaTanya Jackson, 25

Southern University at New Orleans (SUNO)

Masters in Social Work

LaTanya Jackson works today as a crisis counselor for Catholic Charities in New Orleans. She canvasses neighborhoods such as the Ninth Ward and East New Orleans, offering help to residents who returned to areas devastated by Katrina.

"Sometimes, they just need to know that someone is there who is willing to listen to their story," Jackson said.

When she tells her own story, it's easy to see how she would be able to relate to her clients.

As the 2005 school year began, Jackson could not have been happier. It was the school year she had been waiting for. Jackson was completing her masters degree in social work at SUNO.

"Everybody was pumped up, excited and ready to go," Jackson said. "Then Katrina struck."

Jackson and her entire family evacuated from their Marrero home in the West Bank section of New Orleans to Auburn, Ala.

They stayed there for three days, then at a hotel in Memphis, Tenn. for a week. They returned home to find minimal damage, but there were no utilities. So they went back to Memphis for another week.

The family stayed in hotel after hotel. At one point, they had to stay in a smoking room, which made Jackson's daughter, Tanjana, 2, ill with a sinus inflammation, she said.

She kept in touch with her colleagues and classmates to learn what Southern University would do about classes. The New Orleans campus temporarily closed after the hurricane, and the administration invited students to attend classes at the main campus in Baton Rouge.