<p>There will be a weekly drop-in group starting Tuesday 9/6 at 7:00 p.m. for any members of the Tulane community currently in the Dallas area. At our first meeting, a VP from Tulane and a Professor of Music will speak and share with us. Please join us. We will also have licensed social workers available if anyone wants to talk to a professional counselor. Jewish Family Service 5402 Arapaho Road, Dallas (between Montfort and Tollway in North Dallas) 972-437-9950</p>
<p>Wonderful, wonderful</p>
<p>My son gets back from his first day in class sometime this afternoon. I will be sure and tell him about this meeting. How wonderful! He so misses his classmates that have scattered all over the country temporarily. This is a great say to keep in touch.</p>
<p>Alongfortheride, glad your son found classes at SMU and other parents also glad your kids found classes at other colleges. Hoping for the best for your kids…</p>
<p>Dbasmom, can you give us an update on how the evening went last night? I had forgotten that one of my son’s hs teachers had given him a ticket to the student session of the Tate lecture series. The speaker was Colin Powell, so son elected to use his ticket. I’m sure he will be very interested in attending next week. Will the sessions always be on Tuesday?</p>
<p>We had a turnout of more than 40 people at last night’s “Support Group for Tulane Community in Dallas.” It was incredibly heart-warming to be in a room with people whose connection to Tulane ranged from Vice President in charge of all research programs for Tulane, a professor emeritus who now lives in Dallas (he taught for over 50 years at Tulane), a current professor from the music department, several alumni from undergrad and graduate programs (just there to support the current students and their alma mater), as well as students with so many concerns…from freshmen who had been there 2 hours, to medical students waiting to hear about their rotations, to older students wanting to know about their senior thesis to graduate magna cum laude, to people who need their transcripts for law school applications. Dr. Levy was clearly shaken, yet still maintained a marvelous sense of professionalism and authority. She was compassionate and tried to be understanding of the many concerns being addressed. We met for two hours, and everyone had a chance to speak (we sat in a huge circle). It was nice for a bunch of the kids who will be at SMU or UTD because they met each other. In fact, my son met two girls, and after the meeting he took one of them to WalMart to help her set-up the new (unfurnished) apartment that UTD had provided her that afternoon. (She’s not from Dallas)</p>
<p>While she, naturally, did not have many answers, she took down personal questions and concerns from anyone who offered them, she exchanged e-mail addresses and was writing down specific issues because she was on her way down to Houston this morning for a meeting with Scott and the other VPs. She said that she’s the only senior level of admin not in Houston (her family lives in Dallas, so she and her immediate family members are staying in Dallas).</p>
<p>They seem to have every hope and plan to open the campus for a Spring semester. She was able to work with govt officials to get a crew into NO yesterday to preserve some very specific, time-sensitive research projects underway at Tulane. She said that she’s been on three different cell phones throughout the day and night this past week, and they are working so very, very hard to address everyone’s concerns…even though (as you can read on many Tulane-oriented blogs), it may seem to some like they haven’t planned enough, etc.</p>
<p>As far as tuition…that seems like one of the most critical concerns that people have…well, that AND the concern that maybe the Tulanians are operating with rose-colored glasses…and not seeing that EVEN THOUGH Tulane may not have suffered,the city has been destroyed and can’t possibly be expected to operate well enough for students to return in Jan.</p>
<p>She assured us that they are working on the server…may be up in another week with transcripts, etc. then becoming available.</p>
<p>Chief concern has been safety of staff/faculty and then the campus.</p>
<p>Chief concern among Deans is their students, and she truly urged each student with specific concerns to contact their own Dean through the lists now available at the Tulane site.</p>
<p>If you have more specific questions about last night’s meeting, please ask.
I’m so tired. I have been working on the Katrina Relief program nonstop since last Wednesday afternoon. I’ve been involved with providing direct relief to over 1000 people in my own office building and we’re still seeing hundreds of new faces this week! For anyone not in a city that has people seeking shelter, I cannot even explain the extent of horror in the faces/lives of these courageous people. They are resilient. We are giving them supplies, food, new clothes and schools for their children. We are finding them housing and jobs already, and they are SO VERY APPRECIATIVE! If this is any indication of the type of commitment to survival the people of New Orleans have, I have NO DOUBT that Tulane and New Orleans will be revived as soon as it’s healthy and safe to do so.</p>
<p>The suppport groups for people affected by Katrina will take place every Tuesday, as long as people want them. I’m not sure how many Tulanians will attend in the future…some may…or the kids may just start to hang out on Tuesday evenings…there’s a great $ Theater (and it’s fifty-cent-Tuesdays) that the kids love to go to…Tulane Tuesdays in Texas!</p>
<p>Keep in touch, Tulanians. You’ll be back there soon!</p>
<p>Dbasmom, thanks for taking the time to update us. You deserve a rest! I hope my son will go next week. He seems very interested, and I think it would do him good. Although he’s back into school, he’s missing Tulane. Tulane Tuesdays. I like it!</p>
<p>Hopefully, we’ll see things improve greatly over the next month or so. Saw a former head of the EPA that did not paint such a bleak picture. We’ll just have to wait and pray.</p>
<p>I don’t know how to really encourage the kids to go to a “support group,” although I really feel they need it. I think that the shock and denial phase has passed at this point, and the kids are trying to adjust and play catch-up to the 2-3 weeks of classwork they’ve already missed. I know one student at SMU already dropped because he said he was so far behind that he couldn’t catch-up at this point in some of the courses. My son is taking 4 courses, and says he’s doing o.k. I think they should be encouraged to get together with other Tulane students—especially if they plan to return to Tulane, as my son insists he’ll do as soon as they’re open! </p>
<p>One comment Scott Cowen said last night was something about…This year’s Freshmen Orientation was certainly a memorable one; the class of '09 will certainly have a bond like no other university’s class of '09! </p>
<p>If not through any other means than their FACEBOOK communications, these kids need to share their experiences, feelings, plans with each other this semester!</p>
<p>Good point Dbasmom. The upperclassmen face another problem that a group can address. They miss contact with their friends,and although their friends are in other cities right now, they can make new ones during this semester of displacement.</p>
<p>Playing catch up for my son has been a lot of work as well. He’s a second year student with enough credits to be a junior, so he was still adjusting his schedule Friday and has spent this entire weekend catching up.</p>