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Saturday, March 18. Posted by President Lawrence Schall.
It’s odd to have the first blog from New Orleans come from me
but there’s one and only one reason – I am getting ready to go to
bed at 10:00 p.m. and the 26 Oglethorpe students who I have the
privilege to be with are just getting started. We are in Camp
Algiers, the base the National Guard set up last year. There’s maybe
three hundred cots in our large tent (there are five other such
habitats). Lots and lots of college kids here, from schools all over
the country. Hey, it’s Spring Break and they sure seem to be having
fun. Do I feel old or what? They tell me I’m the first university
president to grace Camp Algiers. That’s a first I’m proud of.
 Upon
arrival, the staffer in charge asked our group if we wanted to split
into boy’s and girl’s groups for sleeping and just as I was about to
begin formulating a response in my head, the OU 26 answered in
unison: we’ll stay together. I have a feeling that’s how this week
will go – we will be together AND I will have little to say.
We left campus this morning just past eight a.m. and now, 14
hours later, I could blog you to death with all I have to say (or is
that flog?). I’ll keep it to my top ten:
1. I have the best job in the world. It has been a complete and
total joy to spend the day with this amazing group of young men and
women.
2. The folks running Camp Algiers are the most efficient team I
have ever seen (I am guessing FEMA does not have anything to do with
this enterprise). From the check-in, to the accommodations, to the
food and on and on, they have turned this into a science.
3. Bev Hoffman, who helped inspire this trip and arrange much of
it with great help from our team in the Career Planning office, has
hit a home-run. It’s all working.
4. We drove down in two vans to the coast and then west from
Biloxi and the devastation there was jaw-dropping. Everything, and I
mean everything, is gone, for miles and miles. I am sure it will all
get re-built. At the moment, with the next hurricane season around
the corner, that seems awfully foolish.
5. As we drove into East New Orleans along Route 10, the sense of
amazement at the damage changed to despair. I’m not sure what I
thought. Goodness knows I watched hours and hours of television
reports, but the vastness of the utter devastation caught me by
surprise. It goes on forever. Hundreds of thousands of empty homes
in ruin. The city is gone.
6. I know Mardi Gras happened and Jazz Fest is around the corner,
and the business district still appears intact, but what about all
the people who lived here?
7. We met tonight with Father Mike who walked us through our
week, each day beginning at eight a.m. clearing out homes that
belong to people who are either too poor or too elderly (and without
insurance) to even get started on the process of rehabilitating
their home. Our host is Catholic Charities and their goal is to
restore 2000 homes. They have now emptied 200. That’s our job. We
might prepare five homes this week for renovation, tearing out
plaster walls and ceilings, removing floors, pulling out rotted
kitchens and baths. Nothing glorious about it. Father Mike calls it
God’s work.
8. While New Orleans will come back in some fashion, I keep
thinking that no amount of money or effort will really fix this now.
How did we let this happen? I won’t wade too deep into political
discourse, but it’s hard to see all this and not know that the
American system just did not work. People can debate why it didn’t
work and what the answer for the future is, but I don’t see how
anyone could hold this city up, before or after the storm, as an
example of what America does best.
9. Learning comes in many forms and I know that our students will
return to campus both wiser and more inspired. I wish there were
1000 of us here.
10. Every one of our students cannot wait to get to work, to rise
up and get going. The hard part will be finding a way to get the OU
26 to pace themselves. Making a difference is a life’s work.
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