Tulane student wants to stay here

When the evacuation warnings began in New Orleans, Courtney Murphy packed her valuables and… When the evacuation warnings began in New Orleans, Courtney Murphy packed her valuables and two cats into her car and headed to North Carolina.

Expecting another quick break like the one she got during Hurricane Ivan in 2004, she decided not to make the 18-hour drive home to Pennsylvania, and instead stayed with family friends.

In Katrina’s wake, Murphy – a 2003 Pitt graduate and currently a second-year Tulane University law student – finished the drive home and has been at Pitt in the months since.

As Tulane re-assembles itself after the hurricane, the university is requesting that its students return in January, but Murphy wants to stay at Pitt.

“To have to go back seems like it would be a disappointment,” Murphy said.

With the appeal of family being close, coupled with the familiarity of Pitt and the city, she is attempting to find a way to stay.

But Deputy Dean of Tulane Law Gary Roberts is trying to remind students like Murphy that they are still Tulane students.

“We need our students or we don’t have an institution,” he said, “because you don’t have a university if you don’t have students who are populating your student body.”

Tulane has cancelled all faculty sabbatical leaves and many professors will be teaching three courses. But the student population will undoubtedly be smaller.

“Everybody is, to a greater or lesser extent, gone through an extremely traumatic experience,” Roberts said. “And we’re not going to be whole for awhile.”

Going back to New Orleans may mean going back to damaged property, and Roberts said he understands it will be potentially very inconvenient and expensive for students. Many other students are expressing concerns similar to Murphy’s.

An apartment with a partially collapsed ceiling awaits Murphy in New Orleans. She is currently paying two rents while she lives with a friend in Pittsburgh.

But the fact remains that Murphy is still enrolled at Tulane.

“All we’re saying is that if a student wants to get a Tulane law degree, they must complete six semesters at Tulane Law School,” Roberts said.

After Hurricane Katrina, Tulane Law School established an agreement with universities throughout the country, including Pitt, that the displaced students could register and take their classes. These students, like Murphy, continue to pay Tulane tuition and earn Tulane credits.

At this point, Murphy’s options include returning to Tulane, withdrawing and re-applying to Pitt’s law school or attempting to qualify for Tulane requirements for visiting away. The strict requirements for visiting away are usually implemented when students are dealing with illness or death.

“We don’t regard the fact that the student is comfortable where they are as an issue,” Roberts said.

Pitt Law School does not accept spring transfers, so even if Murphy decided to withdraw from Tulane – thereby forfeiting the credits she earned this semester at Pitt – there is no guarantee that she would be offered a chance to stay.

“If Tulane would allow her to stay, there would have to be policy changes, too,” said Charmaine McCall, assistant dean of admissions at Pitt Law School. “And I’m not sure the Law School can do that at this point.”

The fact that Murphy is just one student makes the situation a difficult one, McCall said. This is the first time that Pitt Law has had to deal with a situation like this, and there was no policy formulated to deal with individual students. So McCall said that they have to look back to the initial agreement made after Katrina hit.

“When this originally happened and we agreed to take any Tulane or Loyola students, it was under the condition that they would be a guest student until Tulane was recuperated,” she said. “So when Tulane Law School was ready to take back the students it was understood that the students would go back.”

Pitt Law School has also received a message from Tulane Law requesting that students not be accepted as transfer students.

“I know [Murphy] has been enjoying her stay here, so I feel for her,” McCall said.

Murphy sees withdrawing in attempt to transfer as a “questionable solution,” because she would have wasted a semester. She also said that had the hurricane not hit, she would still be at Tulane.

She applied and was accepted to Pitt Law School upon graduation, as a theater arts major, in 2003, but decided to move to New Orleans to try a change of scenery.

“At 22, you’re more mobile than you ever will be in your life,” she said.

But New Orleans quickly lost its appeal.

“If I have to go back I will,” Murphy said, explaining that being a law student is very similar in both places – life revolves around constant work, reading and going to class.

“And I completely understand why Tulane wants and needs students to come back,” she said. “I know that I represent $32,000 to them.”

Both students’ tuition and presence at Tulane in January are not only critical to the university, but to the community of New Orleans, explained Roberts.

“It would be really an enormous tragedy if one of the highest institutions of higher learning in the United States went under because of this,” he said.