close window 
Chicago GSB welcomed 13 students from MBA programs at Tulane University and the University of New Orleans who were evacuated because Hurricane Katrina hit August 29.
Posting an offer of help on the home page over Labor Day weekend, Chicago GSB joined other top business schools in the U.S. as well as other professional schools at the University of Chicago to offer enrollment to hurricane victims working on their masters degrees, according to Kristine Mackey, associate dean for Evening and Weekend Programs. While 48 students expressed interest, the GSB agreed to provide fall quarter enrollment to 13 visiting exchange students. Those who were admitted sent a resume and academic history, then were interviewed by GSB staff who ascertained they would fit with the classroom experience academically and personally, Mackey said.
Several faculty made anonymous donations of textbooks, Barnes & Noble gift cards that could be used at the University of Chicago Book Store, and memory sticks worth about $100 each for the students’ computers, Mackey said.
Students found housing through the university’s community service center; some, like Marie Scantlebury, a second-year student enrolled in Tulane University’s Executive MBA Program were offered space in a university staff member’s home for the quarter. At Chicago, she was struck by the diversity of people and programs. “New Orleans is dominated by the petrochemical and communications industries, but here, there’s a taste of everything,” she said. “I was also struck by the diversity of people—the countries they come from and their educational backgrounds.” A consultant, Scantlebury said she was glad of the chance to “network with everyone under the sun” at the GSB.
Johnny Williams, who is working on a master’s degree in finance at Tulane, said Chicago GSB’s registration process was more complicated, but that he found the coursework and even the texts “very similar.”
Given that the students had only three weeks to find another school, get accepted, and move to a new city before starting classes, the New Orleans students have demonstrated one particular skill set in a unique way. “I don’t know what could exhibit our resiliency more than this,” Willliams said.
—Patty Houlihan
Read more about the outreach by universities to Katrina students.