Stone Center Graduate Affairs: Post-Katrina Information

Do you have a story to tell about being evacuated from New Orleans, surviving
Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, or about the relocation process?

Would you like to bear witness regarding your experiences to a sensitive,
professionally trained interviewer, or do you know anyone in these categories
who would like to participate in the Hurricane Katrina Documentation Project?

I am currently working for a project called, "The Saddest Days: Katrina’s
Aftermath and Impact on the New Orleans African (American) Community". It is a
project of the Benjamin Hooks Institute for Social Change at the University of
Memphis attempting to give voice to the thousands of African Americans who have
been displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Through oral interviews, stories of
evacuation and abandonment, heroism and terror, prejudice and generosity,
displacement and rebuilding, will be told. Information gathered during
interviews will be included in a human rights report, a book, and a community
dance performance.

Participation in this study will remain confidential, and names of participants
will not be mentioned in any public documents. We will keep notes and tapes
from the interviews but names will not be stored with that information. We will
send a transcript of the interview to each participant, at his or her request.

If you know of anyone in the Houston or Austin area that would be willing to
share a story, please contact Cynthia Garza at 832-741-2995, cgarza@tulane.edu.

Your help in contacting New Orleanians in the Houston area is greatly
appreciated,
Cynthia Garza


***If you or potential participants have any questions about this research or
know of anyone in cities outside those mentioned that would like to
participate, please contact Dr. D’Ann Penner at the Benjamin Hooks Institute
for Social Change headquarters in Memphis, TN (dpenner@memphis.edu,
901-678-3974 or 901-219-0507).

To All Prospective LAST Graduate Students:

Please be advised that the Stone Center and the Graduate School are accepting applications for Fall 2006 admissions. We would like all prospective applicants to know that we envision as vibrant a program in the 06-07 academic year as we have had in past years.

Please know that you can now contact the Graduate Advisor, Jimmy Huck, directly at his Tulane email address: jhuck@tulane.edu.

Also, you can begin the application process at once by visiting the Tulane Graduate School's Admissions/Application Webpage to learn more about the application process and to even begin your online application.

We look forward to hearing from you and to receiving your applications. Please be in touch if there is anything we can do for you.

Sincerely,
Jimmy Huck
Assistant Director and Graduate Advisor

Hi, folks - Just a reminder that if you are planning to write a thesis in the upcoming Spring/Lagniappe sessions, you should be working on a prospectus and submitting it to me soon, if you have not already done so. You should also be working on committee members and your thesis director. Let me know if you have any questions.

Also, just to give a brief update on my situation: my living conditions are constantly improving. I still lack natural gas service and so have no hot water, but I am only waiting on Entergy as I have done all I need to do on my end. I also have central air conditioning so I don't have to sleep with a fan blowing on me and I can close my windows to the noise and dust from the outside.

I trust you are all well and that things are progressing smoothly for you in your studies or research wherever you find yourself.

Stay in touch.

Available immediately! Spacious home in uptown New Orleans - AREA/HOUSE NEVER FLOODED! SUBLET - Fully furnished room available until early January. Room includes bed, 2 dressers, TV, VCR, desk, lamps, stereo, blinds and curtains. Shared areas include 1.5 baths, living room, dining room, kitchen (all fully furnished also). There is also a porch and a balcony. Driveway parking.

House is located on street with open bars, laundromat, restaurant, etc. Very pleasant area of town. Close to Tulane/Loyola campuses.

Cost is rent ($450) plus utilities (~$75/month). Current roommate is a male graduate student. Seeking only responsible subletters who will pay their rent/utilities and respect the belongings in the house and the available room. A deposit of $450 is required, which will be returned at the end of the sublet term.

We are also seeking a second subletter or permanent roommate beginning in November. Maple at Cherokee

Pictures available here.

Interested parties should contact Staphanie Clark at stephamina@yahoo.com. Thanks!

Today, my electricity was restored. Should you opt to stay here temporarily, you will at least be staying in a place that has made one big step towards modern convenience again. Still don't have hot water or A/C, though, so keep that in mind as well. Stay tuned and in touch.

Saludos!

First, let me note that the Stone Center's official, pre-Katrina website is now back up and running. We will have to update the website in order to reflect post-Katrina realities, but detailed information on the Stone Center and its programs can still be found there. Also, it's just nice to check it out for a dose of encouragement that forward progress is, indeed, being made.

Second, I am now back in my home in New Orleans. And though my family is settled in Virginia for the remainder of the Fall Semester, I plan to make my New Orleans home my base of operations. This means I will be here most of the time over the next three months, occasionally making trips to Virginia to be with my family. This also means that I have a house with plenty of room for short-term temporary stays if any of you need a place to stay this fall while you check out New Orleans and check on your things.

I have essentially three bedrooms and can probably accommodate up to 4 people at any one particular time in my home. If people don't mind sharing bed space or crashing on floors in sleeping bags, I can probably accommodate a few more at any one particular time.

Currently, I still do not have electricity. But my home has been inspected and approved by the City of New Orleans for electrical service reconnect. Entergy has received notice that I am ready to receive power and should have my meter spinning within a week (I imagine). In any case, I have a small generator which is enough to power some lights and fans at night, if necessary. Even once I get electricity and natural gas service restored, I will probably not have AC or a working hot water heater for another few weeks or so until I can get the units replaced. So if you do take me up on my offer, know that you will most likely be "roughing it" during your stay. But the offer is out there and I welcome any of you who might want to take advantage of it.

I live a short 5 minutes from campus by car and I have a small pick-up truck that I can use to help transport you to and from the airport or around the City, and which I can use to help you cart any stuff you might want or need to move from your apartments into storage. I also have limited storage space in my first floor area for you to keep your things if need be. I will do whatever I can to help you as you plan your re-entry, and that includes helping you clean out your refrigerators, hauling trash out to the curbside, and setting you up with whatever cleaning supplies I might have. [I currently have a good stock of respirators and a nice collection of gloves of all sorts.] And no matter what, my home can always be a place to stop by to have a cold drink (or a stiff one, if necessary!), get something to eat, or just pass the time visiting. As long as I am here, I will keep an open door policy for any LAST graduate students. Just give me some prior notice of your arrival or visit so that I can either make sure to be here or let you know if I will be away traveling.

You have my multiple emails, but please try now to use my Tulane email to communicate with me: jhuck@tulane.edu. You can also call me by phone at 504-390-1680 (cell) and/or 504-861-3915 (home). My home address is 2719 Pine Street (zip code 70125) and I am about three blocks off Carrollton on the Tulane University side of the Street between Walmsley Ave. and Broad Street.

Good luck, be in touch, and I look forward to seeing you soon.

Please be advised that Tulane University webmail is now operational. If you had a Tulane technology account already set up (i.e. if you had a XXX@tulane.edu email account set up), you can now use your Tulane email account.

If you need to communicate with me by email, please make every effort now to use my Tulane account: jhuck@tulane.edu.

Please be assured that if you still send mail to any of my other non-Tulane email accounts, I will get it. But try to make the transition back to using the Tulane email account. Thanks.

I have whittled down our main contacts list to a smaller list that includes only LAST graduate students. In this list you can find not only more detailed contact information but also some information on the specific locations and whereabouts of your fellow graduate student colleagues.

You can access this list by clicking here; but I have also posted a link to this list in the left sidebar so that you can have access to it when this posting scrolls off the blog.

If you notice any gaps in the information on yourself or on anyone else, please let me know so that I can update the list accordingly.

Click here to view some pictures of Jones Hall, La Cueva, and the Cuban and Caribbean Studies Institute.

A recent graduate of the Master's Program in Latin American Studies at Tulane, who now works for Amnesty International in Washington, DC, wrote me the following email regarding internship opportunities:

Hi, Jimmy,

I hope you are well, and am glad that you have weathered the storm safely. I just thought that I would offer this up:

I am currently acting as Internship Coordinator in the Capitol Hill office of Amnesty International. It so happens that, even this late in the game, we have room for 3-4 full or part time interns. It is an unpaid position, so it may be a difficult transition for any displaced student, but I thought I would put it out there. Graduate students are preferred, and this might be a feasible "Plan B" for the semester. Internships available are in 1) Domestic Human Rights Program; 2) New Media (Spanish speakers preferred) and 3) National Training Program.

Please reply to me either at this email address [monikagerhart@sbcglobal.net] or through the office at (202) 544-0200, ext. 231.

Could you post this for me, please? Thanks, Jimmy! Best wishes and still thinking of you all.

Yours, Monika