After Katrina, Delgado Community College Slowly Climbs Back

Delgado Community College leaders have had a rough road to repairing their campus. For one thing, federal funds were allocated based on the original cost of facilities and equipment, not replacement cost. And post-Katrina building codes created more expense. Then, of course, the recession hit. And the chancellor says it's hard to compete for state funding with the big institutions. In her article for The Chronicle of Higher Education, Katherine Mangan writes:

It's a scene one might have expected months—even a year—after the 2005 hurricane, which devastated New Orleans and forced most local colleges to close for the fall semester. But this August will mark the storm's fifth anniversary, and only now is the state's oldest and largest community college able to move ahead with reconstruction.

Seventy percent of the buildings on Delgado's campus were damaged by floods and wind, and as the spring 2010 semester begins, 30 percent of the building space is still unusable. Still, students are coming in droves, looking for affordable ways to retool their skills and find work in a city that, like the college, is still in recovery mode.

"Last fall we had to turn away around 1,500 people because we couldn't turn another closet into a classroom," says the chancellor, Ron D. Wright. "That was the most distressing thing I had to do. I've never told anyone they couldn't come."

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Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring:

• March 14–16: Baltimore, MD
• March 24–26: Cambridge, MA
• April 5–7, San Diego, CA