Bronx University Enrolls New Orleans Students

NEW YORK — After hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, over 1,000 were killed and millions were displaced. No one was left unaffected, including college students.

Currently, 104 college students from the New Orleans area are enrolled at Fordham University, a Jesuit school in the Bronx.

Fordham is providing education and boarding for the students free of charge, allowing their student loans and tuition payments to continue being sent to their devastated schools in New Orleans—the majority from Loyola University and Tulane University.

“We’re not making money off there misfortune,” said Fordham spokesperson Michael Larkin. “The main purpose is to allow the students to maintain and continue their education while their home universities become operational.”

At a hurricane relief concert, Rosa Asciolla, a visiting sophomore from Loyola, told the crowd she was scared when she was forced to leave behind her apartment and most of her belongings and flee to Houston. She said her mother, a Fordham alumna, called her in Houston with good-news: She would not have to miss an entire semester because she could register for fall classes at Fordham. Loyola, like Fordham University, is a religious school related to the Jesuit order of priests.

“People at Fordham have been so welcoming,” Asciolla said. “I am so grateful to the Jesuit community.”

On Oct. 24, Loyola president Kevin Wildes visited Fordham University and met with displaced Loyola students to assure them that the Loyola New Orleans would be open again for the spring semester. Classes are to begin on January 9.

“Very little of the campus was damaged, just minor damage to the roof,” said Kristine Lelong, spokesperson for Loyola University.

President Wildes has also been raising funds to get Layola staff back on their feet. “Sixty percent of employees lost their homes. We made a commitment to pay their salaries through the end of the year,” said Lelong. “Right now we have raised about half a million.”

Founded in 1841, Fordham is the Jesuit University of New York, offering education enriched by the Jesuit tradition to approximately 15,800 students in its five undergraduate colleges and its six graduate and professional schools. It has residential campuses in the Bronx, Manhattan and Tarrytown.