Alabama’s Baptist schools take in students in need

Jenna Ard said she’s seen the best and the worst of humanity — all in one week.
   
On Sept. 7, she started classes as a new student at Samford University’s Cumberland School of Law — just days after being rescued by helicopter from a sea of looters, shooters and floodwaters in the heart of New Orleans.
   
“I was terrified,” said Ard, a second-year law student at New Orleans’ Loyola University who decided Aug. 29 to stay in the city and ride out Hurricane Katrina doing homework and studying with friends at Tulane University’s School of Medicine. “People started coming from around the area with guns and tried to break into the building, shooting out the windows. We slept on the floor and barricaded the doors with furniture.”
   
Four days later, she flew out of the city on a Black Hawk helicopter, heartbroken at the scene she saw below. Stranded residents signaled with flashlights, fires burned unhindered and — the most frightening of all — gunmen firing at the helicopter. “I was visibly shaking and crying,” Ard said.
   
Now the visual shows nothing of the sort — she is hanging out with friends and doing homework but this time, safely miles away from disaster. “Everyone at Samford has been absolutely amazing and has made it so easy on me,” Ard said. “I called Cumberland and they found me a place to stay immediately and told me not to worry, just to come.”
   
According to Samford President Thomas E. Corts, “y’all come” has been Samford’s invitation to students displaced by Katrina. “We are telling them, ‘If you would like to come, we are glad to have you,’” he said.
   
Alumni have donated money for books, helped meet the new Samford students’ housing and transportation needs and held get-togethers and cookouts for them, said John Carroll, Cumberland’s dean. At press time, Samford had taken 9 students into its undergraduate program, 11 more into Cumberland School of Law and one into Beeson Divinity School. The undergraduates were previously enrolled at the University of New Orleans, Dillard University and Xavier University, all located in New Orleans. The law students are students from Loyola and Tulane, and the divinity student is from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.
   
“To be admitted into the Cumberland School of Law, the students must be from an accredited law school and be in good standing,” Carroll said. “But because there is absolutely no access to the records at their schools, we are basically taking their word for it.”
   
At the McWhorter School of Pharmacy, the faculty is working with the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) to admit fourth-year students for rotations, said Bruce Foster, McWhorter’s director of pharmacy admissions and external relations.
   
Those students, along with the other displaced students accepted temporarily will remain as enrolled students of their former schools — they will simply take their classes from Samford in preparation for when their schools resume their academic schedules.
   
And as more displaced students are still working their way through Samford’s doors, Corts said they are doing “the best we can to get them settled.”
   
The University of Mobile (UM) also pushed its registration deadline back to Sept. 9 to accommodate such students. As of press time, one evacuee had been enrolled in UM’s undergraduate program.
   
“We are urging all students who have been affected by Hurricane Katrina to stay focused on their educational goals and stay in school,” said UM President Mark Foley. “We welcome displaced students to our campus.”
   
Though no hurricane evacuees have enrolled at Judson College, Michael Brooks, assistant to the president for public relations at Judson, said the school would welcome such students. “We have not had anyone come our way yet, but I know we would work with them to help them get settled,” he said.