The devastation on the Gulf Coast has forced many college students to switch universities mid-semester, and a program developed by two campus organizations is working to make the transition as smooth as possible for students choosing to relocate to Starkville.
The organizations, the Philosophy and Religion Club and the Holmes Cultural Diversity Center, are working together on an interactive welcoming program called Befriend a New Dog, or BAND.
Last week mass e-mails were sent out, and the organizers of BAND held an interest meeting for all current Bulldogs willing to donate their time to displaced students.
Mississippi State University is currently hosting 54 misplaced students, and the number of volunteers signed up after the BAND interest meeting was much higher than expected, Trisha Phillips, advisor to the Philosophy and Religion Club and instructor in the department of philosophy and religion, said.
“We’ve had an overwhelming number of student volunteers sign up,” Phillips said. “Initially , we were hoping to get enough volunteers to have one per displaced student…We’ve got at least two volunteers to every evacuee.”
“It’s really important for our students to get involved in this. We’re known as the people’s university. Let’s show them why,” Unz said.
Plans are in motion for the volunteers and displaced students to meet and be placed into orientation groups, Phillips said.
“We’re considering groups, maybe four MSU students and two displaced students. We’ll have our students show the new students around campus and explain Moneymate, the computer systems, the best restaurants . . . and the night life. We might try to put together some social activities to provide something to do and people to meet,” Phillips said.
“They [displaced students] haven’t had Orientation. Many students have no idea how Moneymate or WebCT work. We take all this knowledge for granted,” Unz said.
The Holmes Cultural Diversity Center and the department of philosophy and religion are also co-sponsoring a three-part forum to cover topics related to Katrina and other disasters.
The aftermath of Katrina has left many in the MSU community with questions concerning religion and both natural and man-made disasters, director of the Holmes Cultural Diversity Center Aretha Jones-Cook said.
“I had received quite a few questions from evacuees I could not answer. I thought if we had a forum we could provide speakers with the expertise to answer these questions … that our students had dealing with Rita, Katrina and other natural and man-made disasters around the world,” Jones-Cook said.
The first forum, titled Katrina and God’s Role, took place yesterday. The remaining two forums are on the impact of victims of man-made disasters versus the impact of natural disasters and coping and volunteerism.
Each forum will have a panel made up of evacuees and experts from fields including emergency management, grief counseling, meteorology and religion, administrative secretary for the department of philosophy and religion Cindy Henderson said.
“We will have professionals from Starkville who are involved in the disaster. The local FEMA director will address the chain of local command. Students will learn how the Red Cross goes into action to help get relief to those in need,” Henderson said.
For information call Cindy Henderson at 325-2382.