WACO, Texas (ABP) — Several Baptist-related institutions of higher learning are among those opening their doors to the thousands of college and graduate-school students displaced from New Orleans-area schools.
Many of the schools are waiving tuition and fees for students who were already enrolled at institutions closed by the hurricane, as well as assisting with housing, food and school supplies.
Among them is Baylor University in Waco, Texas. As of the evening of Sept. 7, school officials said Baylor had already enrolled 25 undergraduate students from nine institutions in the devastated Gulf region. Those students include eight from the historically African-American Xavier University in New Orleans, as well as six from the city's prestigious Tulane University.
One of the students, according to Baylor officials, was enrolled at Southern University, but was evacuated from her home in New Orleans to a shelter at Seventh and James Baptist Church in Waco.
Another student, displaced from Holy Cross College in New Orleans, enrolled at Baylor's nursing school in Dallas.
Meeting all the outside-the-classroom needs of the displaced students has been difficult, but also inspiring, according to a Baylor administrator.
“It's been amazing,” said Karin Klinger, the school's assistant student-activities director. “I've received hundreds of messages from people who would call offering a bike to a student needing transportation, faculty members and students offering their homes to house, feed, clothe and take care of students, apartment complexes making a financial donation to help these students buy books. In every situation, some Baylor individual has stepped up and said, 'Let me help.'”
Gardner-Webb University in Boiling Springs, N.C., is also opening its doors and dormitories to displaced students. Spokesman Noel Manning said the school has offered to waive tuition for students who had already made financial arrangements with their home institutions, as well as work toward finding housing for such students.
“Currently, we have two who are here, who are already in classes,” Manning said Sept. 8. “We have two more undergraduates — one who is coming tomorrow, another who's coming on Monday — to check us out.
He said the school would be “keeping the door open until next Friday” for new enrollees from the stricken area. Joining classes any later than that, he said, would make it virtually impossible for most students to catch up.
In perhaps the clearest show of generosity, the divinity schools at both Baylor and Gardner-Webb have offered to accommodate students displaced from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.
The school, located in east-central New Orleans, is now underwater. It also is one of the six official Southern Baptist Convention-supported seminaries whose slow takeover by fundamentalists in the early '90s inspired moderates to establish their own theological schools — such as Baylor's George W. Truett Theological Seminary and Gardner-Webb's M. Christopher White School of Divinity.
Although New Orleans Seminary has re-opened offices at one of its satellite campuses near Atlanta, Baylor and Gardner-Webb officials have offered to accommodate any students who do not wish to continue their classes at an extension center.
Grear Howard, Truett's director of student services, said several New Orleans Seminary students had sent inquiries in response to the offer, and one had already enrolled at the school.
Manning, the Gardner-Webb spokesman, said school officials told their counterparts at the New Orleans school, “If you have students who need help, we'll be glad to help.”
According to the SBC's news service, New Orleans Seminary officials hope to reopen the school's main campus by the Spring 2006 semester.