McCluskey, an architecture major, moved into his Flather Hall room the next day with just a laptop, two suitcases and a green and white Mexican blanket. But by mid-September, using drafting supplies donated by the architecture and planning school, he was just about caught up on the work he missed during the first week and a half of classes at CUA.

McCluskey, a lanky, dark-haired 19-year-old who had planned to return to Tulane in New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina slammed the Gulf Coast at the end of August, said that the support of CUA students and staff has helped him make the adjustment to a brand-new school.

“Everyone’s being really helpful,” said McCluskey. “I’m making friends. I kind of compare it to being a freshman all over again.”

McCluskey is one of many people touched by the generosity of Catholic University in the aftermath of the storm. He is one of 11 undergraduates and four graduate students enrolled at CUA on a visiting basis until they can return to their own universities. CUA’s Columbus School of Law also accepted five students on a visiting basis.

The offices of admissions, the university center, and housing and residential services worked overtime to meet the new students’ needs.

When the admissions office staff learned that McCluskey was a friend of Matthew Lee, also a displaced Tulane architecture student, they passed that news along to the housing office, which made sure that the two young men were assigned to the same room in Flather.

The housing office also assigned Allison Balance and Jennifer Alvarez, displaced students and roommates from Loyola University in New Orleans, to the same room in Engelhard House.  

In addition, the CUA psychology department is hosting a visiting scholar, Chizuko Izawa, who taught and engaged in research for more than three decades at Tulane University. After Izawa was evacuated from New Orleans and moved in with her daughter, who lives in Washington, the psychology department offered her an office in O’Boyle Hall, said Deborah Clawson, CUA associate professor of psychology.

CUA’s Center for Planning and Information Technology created a computer account for Izawa to help her meet the submission deadline for a review paper to a scholarly journal, and to publish two original scientific articles under CUA’s banner.

CUA Reacts Quickly
Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast Monday, Aug. 29; the New Orleans levees broke Tuesday, Aug. 30, dumping a torrent of water from Lake Pontchartrain onto the city. Shortly after the levees broke, CUA began reaching out to those affected by the storm.

Jonathan Sawyer, associate vice president for student life and dean of students, and his staff were in touch with CUA students from the affected area who had moved back to campus before the storm hit and then lost contact with their families when the hurricane knocked out power in much of Louisiana and Mississippi and parts of Alabama.

Sawyer said that throughout the hectic days that followed the hurricane he and his staff focused on providing services to students “in a reflective, collaborative way.”

“Our goal was to be responsive to students,” said Sawyer, “but not to bother them if they preferred to be left alone. We’ve tried to react effectively as the situation has unfolded.”

For Harry Cradic, a CUA senior from New Orleans who wasn’t able to get in touch with his family after the storm hit, the university’s support was a godsend. “Mad props for all the people at CUA who would stop and ask me how I was doing,” said Cradic. “But they were never intrusive. It was just right.”

When Cradic finally got an e-mail from his mother two days after the hurricane flooded New Orleans, he leapt for the phone and called her at the home of an aunt in Baton Rouge, where she and the rest of the family were staying.

Through the Office of University Center, Student Programs and Events, CUA students have signed up for volunteer activities at the nearby Armed Forces Retirement Home, which took in about 400 residents from a military home in Gulfport, Miss. In addition, CUA students wrote pledges with promises of prayers and volunteer work for the hurricane victims and taped them onto display boards in the Pryzbyla Center lobby.

Rev. Kurt Pritzl, O.P., dean of the School of Philosophy, celebrates a Mass for the victims of Hurricane Katrina in Caldwell Chapel with a congregation of CUA students, faculty and staff.

On Sept. 7, Catholic University held a Day of Prayer and Communion that included prayers at the Edward J. Pryzbyla University Center in the morning, noontime Mass at Caldwell Chapel and an evening candlelight vigil at the Columbus School of Law courtyard.

In his remarks at the candlelight vigil for hurricane victims, Catholic University’s chaplain, Rev. Robert Schlageter, O.F.M., said that CUA’s responses to the disaster were prompted by faith, which “teaches us that every person who has suffered from this disaster is important to God.” 

Father Schlageter addressed approximately 300 students at the vigil who had gathered around the fountain in the law school courtyard. Prior to his talk, a soloist and choir led the students in singing as they watched images of the hurricane’s devastation projected on a large screen in the courtyard. When Father Schlageter asked for a moment of silence, the quiet was broken only by the sound of the fountain water and a helicopter flying overhead.

Calm Follows the Storm
As the floodwaters in New Orleans receded, life for CUA students affected by the hurricane began returning to normal. Now Cradic is looking ahead to winter break when he can see his family and help his father, whose Rick’s Famous Café was damaged in the storm.

And for Kyle McCluskey, who should have been at Tulane this semester, some aspects of his life at CUA are beginning to seem familiar: the food and homework.

“The food here is about the same as at Tulane,” he said. And asked recently where he expected to spend most of an upcoming weekend, he replied, “The architecture school. I’ve got a fair amount of work to do.”

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