Holy Thursday, Ways 36, 37, 38Today is, if you're Catholic, Holy Thursday, and if you're Episcopalian, Maundy Thursday (we discovered last night that "maundy" is a corruption of the Latin "mandatum." I'd always wondered). In both traditions, the focus is on service to the poor. In the Catholic church this is symbolized by the priest washing the parishioners' feet, a rite that I have to say makes the average American congregation MOST uncomfortable. (Usually a few people are pre-selected to participate in a token foot-sprinkling and the rest of the congregation sits it out.) In the Episcopalian tradition the focus is apparently more on distributing money, clothing, food, etc. to the poor. Well, either way, I want to get this project wound up before the triduum starts tomorrow, so welcome to the 40 Ways FINAL MAUNDY THURSDAY BLOWOUT X-TRAVAGANZA!!
Over the course of today, I will post about 5 different ways, not all in the same post. So keep checking back for the EXCITING CONCLUSION!
Continuing with our higher education theme:
Ways 36, 37, and 38: Historically Black Colleges and Universities Affected By KatrinaIs anyone out there old enough to remember those 1970s commercials by the
United Negro College Fund? I remember being disturbed by them as a child. In particular, I remember one in which a young Black man (the term 'African-American' had not yet been coined) walked alone through either a deserted plantation or an empty college campus while in the sound effects whips crack and the ghost of some evil overseer yells, "Put your back into it, boy!" Scared me greatly. Anyway, the point of the ad was that opening up higher education to African-Americans is one way of healing that history of racism, slavery, misery, and whatnot, and as their slogan always said, "a mind is a terrible thing to waste." So is a college or university, especially one that has historically been dedicated to providing African-American students with the education that the historically white universities were hoarding for all those years.
The UNCF has set up a
Hurricane Katrina Scholarship Fund to which you can contribute. The money will go to the three UNCF member schools which were hit worst by Katrina. You can, of course, donate to all of these universities directly also, and in order to cheat and inflate the count, I have made each of them a separate way:
Dillard UniversityLocated in New Orleans, Dillard is named not after the chain of department stores but after
"James Hardy Dillard, whose distinguished service in the education of African Americans in the South forms an important chapter in the history of American education." It emerged in 1930 through a merger and reorganization of a number of older institutions, including the (to me) hilariously named Straight University and Union Normal School. (I know, I know what a 'normal school' is, I just look at Straight marrying Normal and I can't not chuckle.)
Dillard was hit so bad by Katrina that they couldn't go back to their campus this spring. Instead,
they worked out a deal with Tulane (see Day 35) which allowed them to use Tulane's campus for the Spring 2006 semester while they try to rebuild their own premises. In November came the inevitable announcement of
layoffs:
"Our university was devastated by Hurricane Katrina," said President Marvalene Hughes, Ph.D. "Since this catastrophic natural disaster wreaked unparalled damage on our campus, Dillard University has done everything possible to keep all faculty and staff on its payroll -- and has done so for the past two months. Dillard did not have any operating revenue during that time, but was able to meet its payroll through other alternatives. Progress continues to be made at Dillard, and we are now finalizing arrangements to bring our students back to New Orleans in January," Dr. Hughes continued. "This institution is on a mission to turn its situation around and to return Dillard to the superior learning institution it was before the hurricane. Our efforts to secure federal and private support continue, and we will leave no stone unturned to identify the support necessary to secure Dillard’s future. This was a catastrophic event that nearly destroyed our beloved University. Despite that, we are working day and night to bring Dillard back, and we will return it to its former glory and aspire to make it even better."
These layoffs are the first personnel action affecting Dillard staff. At this time, it is unclear whether the reduction in force will be temporary as the University has been unable to identify the full effects of Hurricane Katrina on the campus. It is the University’s hope, however, that it will be able to reemploy displaced employees in the future if enrollment and other circumstances permit. Dillard is currently working with other universities to aid placement of displaced faculty.In December they got a
$500,000 grant from the
Teagle Foundation, which was established in 1944 by a Standard Oil exec who wanted to use some of his oil money to fund the liberal arts so as to improve mankind. With $400 million worth of damage to the campus and the lost revenues from the fall 2005 semester, though, it won't be enough. They are planning to reopen on their
home campus in fall 2006--but, in one of the million little signs of our growing resignation in re climate change, they have reorganized their academic calendar to avoid bringing students back to campus until after the worst of the
hurricane season is over. Anyway, if you would like to give directly to Dillard, send your dough to their
Institutional Advancement and Development office.
Xavier University of New OrleansAs their website indicates, Xavier is unique: it's
"America 's only historically Black and Catholic university, as well as the only college founded by an American Saint (Katharine Drexel)." There's a little
history over here, which I admire for its elegant and diplomatic summation of what must have been a long and occasionally difficult shift in the institution's priorities and power structure:
The Sisters {of the order that originally founded the university} remain a vital presence on campus today, providing much-needed staffing and some financial assistance, but today Xavier is governed by a bi-racial Board of Trustees. Xavier's president, Dr. Norman C. Francis, himself a Xavier graduate, is a nationally-recognized leader in higher education.
Even with its special mission to serve the Black, Catholic community Xavier's doors have always been open to qualified students of any race or creed. In fact today, more than 50 percent of Xavier's students are of other religious affiliations, and close to 10 percent are of other races.Something I admire a damn sight less is the website itself, which like too many university websites is unnecessarily difficult to navigate. I recommend starting with the
site map instead of the homepage if you want to poke around. It's only through the site map, for instance, that I found their
Katrina story, which is definitely a doozy. Their entire campus was underwater at one point. On their
news page you Big Dog fans can get your Clinton pix fix, since he came to visit the campus in December 2005. The Bush-Clinton Katrina fund, you see, has earmarked $30 million for affected universities, including Xavier. The Big Dog is thus doing something--in marked contrast to FEMA, which naturally has been mostly useless:
"Meanwhile, tremendous fiscal challenges still face the University, which has had to pre-fund substantially all of the expensive reconstruction costs required to reopen the campus in January – last estimated at nearly $50-million. To date Xavier has received no substantial funds from FEMA, and only a partial settlement from insurance. While Federal help is expected at some point, in the meantime, Xavier has borrowed money to pay for repairs."THAT's not good. Neither is the
Times-Picayune's description of Xavier's version of the layoffs chapter of this story:
"Xavier University announced Friday that financial distress brought on by Hurricane Katrina is forcing the nationally respected Catholic institution to terminate or place on leave 318 staff members and 89 faculty.
The cuts represent 58 percent of Xavier's staff and 36 percent of its faculty, and signal the inability of longtime President Norman Francis to secure federal or private aid that would avert major layoffs. Gov. Kathleen Blanco recently named Francis co-chair of a state hurricane recovery advisory panel.
"There is no precedent of any kind for anything like this," said Xavier spokesman Warren Bell. "But you can't keep spending money you literally don't have."This is why places like Xavier need help. Someplace like Harvard or Yale could ride this out due to their gifuckingnormous endowments, which barring a 1929-style stock market crash will always be enough to tide them over in case of emergency. A place like Dillard or Xavier, which does not have a safety net that wide and deep, loses a whole semester of tuition to a disaster like this and literally cannot make payroll. And that is particularly distressing when you consider that Xavier has what appears to be an outstanding
pre-med program which according to their site is #1 in placing African-American students into medical school. Places like Xavier are a vital link in the chain that eventually links first-generation college students to the professions, and ultimately helps undo the insidious and intractable economic segregation that is the sedimented residue of our country's history of racism.
You can help by finding the
Giving to Xavier page (please, XULA website designers, if you're reading this, consider putting a button on the homepage that takes you straight to the donation page, cause not everyone is going to hunt for it like I did), which tells you where to send your check to Xavier's Hurricane Relief Fund.
Tougaloo CollegeLocated in Jackson, Mississippi,
Tougaloo College was founded by the
American Missionary Association, which also founded the schools that eventually became Dillard, as well as other historically Black colleges and universities like Howard and Fisk. An archival project they've done with Brown University called
Freedom Now! will tell you more about the history. Tougaloo was
damaged by Katrina, though the impact does not seem to have been as total and devastating as at Dillard and Xavier. Still, repairing all of that is going to cost, and Tougaloo has many qualities to recommend it, including the fact that
"Tougaloo College is one of the top five producers of female graduates with degrees in physics and one of the top twenty institutions in the nation whose graduates earn their PhDs in the sciences." Women are still horrendously underrepresented in the 'hard sciences' and if Tougaloo is managing to buck that trend then it should be encouraged. If you want to give, click on the bright blue "Give Today!" button (their development people are happy to
explain what they plan to do with the money.) You see what I mean, Xavier? How handy it would be if YOU guys had a click-through donation button
right on your hompeage!.
C ya,
The Plaid Adder
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