| Page 2 of 2 < |
Tenn. University Aids New Orleans School
More than a third of Louisiana's 244,600 college students were displaced by the storm, and about 20,000 fewer students attended school during the spring semester.
Ukpolo said he felt like mayor of the small city of trailers where the school has operated for a year. He estimates the total damage to the university at $60 million.
  Victor Ukpolo, left, Chancellor of Southern University of New Orleans, (SUNO) walks with President Bush's Gulf Coast Recovery Director Donald Powell, as he tours the campus on Friday, Sept. 15, 2006. More than a year after Hurricane Katrina in February 2007, Southern University at New Orleans is still operating in a temporary campus of FEMA trailers and waiting for money to rebuild. So Ukpolo turned to his former colleagues in Tennessee for assistance. Middle Tennessee State University announced Tuesday an academic partnership to help rebuild the New Orleans branch of the historically black Southern University in Baton Rouge, La. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) (Alex Brandon - AP) 
| ||||||||||||||||||||
"After Hurricane Katrina, there was some discussion to close down the school," said Ukpolo, who served as an associate vice chancellor at the Tennessee Board of Regents from 1997 to 1999 before moving to New Orleans. "Katrina is still strong in terms of its impact on people's lives."
Ukpolo said he feels blessed to get support from other educators in Tennessee, where his professional life began as a professor at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville.
"This state continues to be good to me," Ukpolo said.
___
On the Net:
Middle Tennessee State University: http:/
Southern University at New Orleans: http:/
