By Will Ashenmacher and Celia Downes
In an almost unprecedented show of cooperation, numerous Marquette offices responsible for welcoming new students collaborated until early this week to make preparations for students from Louisiana schools to arrive at Marquette.
Some 80 students from Tulane, Dillard, Xavier and Loyola universities, all in New Orleans, continued to arrive at Marquette over the weekend seeking refuge from their hurricane-lashed, waterlogged city. Upon arriving at Marquette, they are being welcomed by what amounts to a condensed freshman-orientation whipped up in a hurry by Marquette faculty and staff.
"It has been a very strong coordinated effort at Marquette between all the different departments," said Brigid O'Brien Miller, director of university communication. "It's certainly driven by our Jesuit mission and our need to care for whoever's in need. We wanted to do as much as possible in as short a time as possible."
Matt Kinney, a freshman from Odessa, Miss. who was supposed to attend Tulane this fall, said he was impressed by the speed with which Marquette accommodated him. Within an hour and a half of his initial call, Kinney had been accepted and had received the basics on classes and housing.
"The people at Marquette have been very flexible and amiable," Kinney said.
Upon arriving in Milwaukee, the students — all of whom are freshmen or transfer students, according to Anne Deahl, associate provost for enrollment management — will be able to put up in the residence halls. They will receive temporary Marquette identification cards pre-loaded with meals, according to Jim McMahon, dean of residence life. They will also likely to be able to register for classes over the weekend.
"Our concern is getting them admitted, getting them physically here and getting them enrolled and starting class," Deahl said. Some of the students will be able to start class as early as Tuesday, she said, but most will probably being on Wednesday or Thursday. Approximately two-thirds of the students will be enrolled in the College of Arts & Sciences, Deahl said, and the rest are primarily communication and business students. There is one engineer.
When it came to finding room for the students at residence halls, it wasn't as hard as previous years' housing issues might have suggested, according to McMahon.
"We keep very close tabs on our occupancy, so we know when there is a space," he said.
There were approximately 100 vacancies in the residence halls, so Marquette was able to assign students to age-appropriate housing. Most of the fresman students will be in freshman halls like O'Donnell and Cobeen, McMahon said, and most of the transfer students will be able to be in halls like Straz and Schroeder, which are more for sophomores.
As of Friday, only 36 of the students had confirmed that they would need on-campus housing, but the door remains open for any of the others to move in.
"The others, if they wish to, can move in," McMahon said.
One wrinkle that hasn't been ironed out is how much the students will pay to attend Marquette.
"That has yet to be determined," O'Brien Miller said. The students are officially being classified as one-semester visiting students for now.
This article was published in The Marquette Tribune on September 6, 2005.