Today marks the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, an event that had a profound impact upon a group of students and administrators whose lives have changed most because of the storm.
The University continues to aid students from the Gulf Coast by providing social and financial support, Dean of Students Penny Rue said.
"Dean Lampkin is offering a gathering in her pavilion [tonight] for students who were affected by Katrina and I think the Student Financial Services Office continues to be sensitive to the financial needs of those students," Rue said.
One such New Orleans native continuing to cope with the aftermath of the storm is third-year College student Jessica White.
"My dad lost his business ... it was destroyed in the storm, the land was commandeered by the Corps of Engineers and for nine months he was out of a job," White said. "It's hard to be away from home right now because I know how much pain people are still in. ... You can look at their faces and they're beaten up."
University students affected by Katrina have created a sense of community in response to the storm, White said.
"We're a very close-knit group," she said. "Conversation always goes back to the storm--'How's your family? How's your house?'"
White said she is concerned about her city's national perception but looks forward to rebuilding.
"It's hard to see people judging our city," she said. "It's bruised up but it's alive."
In addition to the students already in attendance at the University when Katrina hit, nearly 130 visiting Gulf students, many of them freshmen, came to Virginia from Louisiana-area schools last fall, Dean of Admissions John Blackburn said.
"Almost all of our students were from Tulane, Loyola, a fair number of them from a community college and one student from Xavier," Blackburn said.
Of those visiting students, almost all returned to their universities for the following semester, Blackburn said.
"When the time came for possible transfer we admitted one and one student was permitted to stay," he said. "Most of the students who came here were in their freshmen year ... so they were not eligible to be considered for transfer."
Tulane senior Mike Finger, who attended the University as a visiting student for the fall semester of last year, noted that he enjoyed the experience of coming to Charlottesville.
"I thought that Charlottesville was a little small but I liked the sort of civil culture that existed there--people keeping themselves to a high standard, which you don't get a lot of in New Orleans," Finger said. "I applied to transfer to U.Va. but my grades from Tulane weren't good enough."
Tulane admissions intern and junior Jonathan Brouk said of the Tulane students who evacuated to other universities after the storm, 93 percent returned to Tulane.
Finger said it was a difficult transition returning as a student to the destruction still present in New Orleans.
"It was tough [coming back], a lot of people got really sad ... in this hollow shell of a city," Finger said. "Even today it's still mostly level except for the upscale parts. ... They are sort of living in the ruins of the storm."
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