Amherst Responds to Katrina
Tameka Noel hadn’t planned to spend the fall semester at Amherst. She was looking forward to hanging out with friends, going to class and studying for MCATs during her senior year at Xavier University in Louisiana.
But when Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast at the end of August, Noel, like many others, had to change her plans. Three weeks after the storm closed Xavier for the semester, Noel found herself at Amherst, one of seven Xavier pre-med students enrolled through a program that provided tuition, room and board to students from Xavier’s distinguished pre-med program. (The Amherst program was a collaborative effort with Williams, which enrolled eight students from Xavier.) Another five students from Tulane also spent the fall semester at Amherst.
These Gulf Coast students weren’t the only members of the Amherst community who felt the impact of Katrina very personally. The family of one first-year student came to Amherst from New Orleans August 28 to drop their child off for Orientation; at the end of the weekend, they discovered that because of the storm they had no home to go back to. The college provided fall-semester housing for the family and helped the parents find employment in Amherst. The Dean of Students Office and the Office of Alumni & Parent Programs contacted Amherst families in the hardest hit areas to be sure they were safe; although many had lost property and possessions in the storm, all were safe. Amherst also reached out to faculty members displaced by Hurricane Katrina; three New Orleans professors spent the fall semester teaching or conducting research at Amherst, and their appointments may continue into the spring.
Amherst’s relief efforts went well beyond the administrative level. Students and alumni reacted immediately to organize wide-ranging assistance efforts. Amherst’s athletic teams organized a relief drive that in 24 hours gathered a rental truck full of supplies, including bottled water, clothes, diapers and toys. Just days after the hurricane, men’s lacrosse coach Tom Carmean drove the truck to Baton Rouge, where he met John Pourciau ’05, who had arranged for the supplies to be distributed at an emergency shelter. “I felt very helpless just sitting at home watching the news,” said Carmean. “I thought that with the resources Amherst had, we could probably be helpful. I knew that our students and coaches would come together to lend a hand.” A local hospital sent a supply of insulin down on the truck; doctors at a shelter in Slidell, La., were especially grateful for the donation.
Through Operation We Got Your Back(pack), Amherst students and local merchants donated more than 100 packets of school supplies to students in Mississippi and Louisiana. More than 350 students “donated meals” in Valentine during October; their skipped meals netted more than $1,400 for relief organizations. At press time, students and Town of Amherst officials were discussing the possibility of adopting a Mississippi town or school. And several student organizations are planning Interterm trips to the Gulf Coast to assist with rebuilding efforts.
Scott Laidlaw, the college’s director of community outreach, stressed the importance of a continued commitment to those affected by the storm. Although New Orleans may be drying out, he said, “I want to underscore the ongoing need. This doesn’t end when the headlines go away.”
President Anthony W. Marx also spoke to the ongoing need in his Opening Convocation Address on Sept. 5. “I believe
that the great challenge to our age lies in the question of how we are to expand the circle of our compassion, our learning and our service,” he said, “both for our own sakes and for the sake of all….Here [at Amherst], we learn the interconnectedness of what we must understand, what we must repair. We learn what each of us truly has in common with the other. That is what we are all here for: to learn from each other and to learn how to form ever more enlightened, actively compassionate, communities.”
Photo: Samuel Masinter '04