College students scramble to find spots elsewhere

Friday, Sept. 2, 2005 | 10:49 a.m.

STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

Colleges and universities nationwide, many of them swamped by calls from anxious parents, are opening doors -- at least temporarily -- to students displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

The storm disrupted the start of school for an estimated 75,000 to 100,000 students enrolled at more than 30 colleges in the New Orleans area, said Terry Hartle of the Washington-based American Council on Education.

"I'm pretty upset," said Steven Oved, 19, who was to begin his sophomore year at Tulane University but is now looking into enrolling at either Rutgers University in Newark or Columbia University in New York, near his parents. "All of sudden, you have a very, very short time to decide where you want to go."

Universities hit by the storm also are reeling.

Loyola administrators have rented office space in Alexandria, La., created a weblog and are setting up a toll-free number, she said. Dillard University President Marvalene Hughes has set up an office in Atlanta. Tulane, meanwhile, plans to move admissions to Richmond,Va.

Several Mississippi universities, including Alcorn State and Jackson State, remained closed Thursday, but some, including the University of Mississippi in Oxford and Delta State in Cleveland, had resumed classes.

Institutions from Massachusetts to Washington state were hearing from parents seeking a spot for a son or daughter now without a school.

UNLV and UNR officials said they are working to place Nevadans enrolled in schools on the Gulf Coast.

Both universities have received numerous calls from students who now find that their colleges underwater, officials said.

UNLV will be enrolling displaced Nevadans on a temporary basis, and taking other students in specialty programs such as hospitality and law, spokeswoman Hilarie Grey said.

The Boyd School of Law has received phone calls to take students from both Tulane and Loyola schools of law, and the Harrah College of Hotel Administration has received calls to accept students from the hospitality program at the University of New Orleans, Grey said.

Coming home to Nevada for school will be an option for Shannon Mayo, who started classes Aug. 22 at the University of New Orleans.

Mayo, a 19-year-old sophomore, said she was at work Saturday morning when a roommate called to tell her the area around her apartment was being evacuated.

Mayo said she rode with a friend about 40 miles north to ride out the storm in Covington, La. But when that city was being evacuated, she and her friend headed west to Houston, 335 miles away.

She's with her aunt there and planning to fly home to Nevada and her parents in Empire, a small town south of Gerlach about 100 miles north of Reno.

"I'm thinking it's probably a good time to transfer," she told the Reno Gazette-Journal. "I'm still trying to get my head on straight."