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Weathering the
Storms
By Bruce Dries
 Four
days into its global study-abroad voyage, the Semester at Sea cruise
ship MV Explorer was struck by a fifty-foot wave. The
Explorer, with close to nine hundred students, faculty, and
family members, had been in rough seas since leaving Canada for
Japan and South Korea. The wave struck the ship broadside shortly
before dawn, starting an electrical fire that destroyed nearly
two-thirds of the bridge and shut down navigation, radar, and most
of the communications systems.
Traveling on the
ship with his family was Dane Foust, a 1983 graduate of IUP’s
Student Affairs in Higher Education (SAHE) program and dean of
students at Mount Aloysius College. On this voyage, he was director
of Student Life.
The
seagoing
college had been hammered by waves all night, and most of the
students chose to sit in the ship’s hallways as the rolling waves
made it too dangerous to be in their cabins. Foust walked the halls
throughout the night, doing his best to reassure the students. When
the giant wave slammed against the ship, everyone was suddenly
tossed about. Windows were broken, and three of the ship’s four
engines were damaged. Foust made his way to the infirmary to help
get things in order so the doctors could care for the injured.
 “The
engines were able to be restarted half an hour after the wave
struck, although the ship’s computer systems were still down,” said
Foust. The damaged ship diverted to Hawaii, arriving four days
later. Foust spent those days counseling students traumatized by the
experience, working to keep them calm and focused.
“Because the
incident happened so early in the voyage, it brought us together as
a group in a way that many other trips wouldn’t have,” he said. “We
spent a lot of time in student counseling, working with the
counselors already on board.”
They never did
get to Japan or Korea, but made the best out their unexpected
ten-day stay on the island.
“We put together
a program to explore the culture and history of the islands,” said
Foust. Classes continued to be taught on the ship while it was under
repair. A flight was added to the itinerary, sending everyone to new
destinations in China and Vietnam. The repaired Explorer
finally caught up to them, and the round-the-world trip resumed.
 Foust
pointed out that SAHE gives plenty of training and planning for
crisis intervention. Normally, it’s assumed that the crisis will be
short-term, with resources arriving quickly. “The training is for
short-term response—getting things established, what do we need to
do immediately, who do we need to call to take care of the
situation,” said Foust. “This situation stretched out for days, and
there was no help. You usually don’t anticipate that kind of
emergency situation.”
Another storm
tested the mettle of Kevin Bailey ’90, assistant vice president for
Student Affairs at Tulane University in New Orleans. Hurricane
Katrina struck on the university’s freshman move-in day.
 Bailey
and his wife evacuated to Montgomery, Ala., for a week, and Tulane’s
students were scattered to other colleges, including Georgia Tech in
Atlanta. In the storm’s wake, Bailey was asked to go to Atlanta,
following several hundred students who were re-evacuated there
either to enroll at other schools or to try getting home for the
semester.
From September
through November, Bailey was separated from his wife, who visited
her family in Cleveland and then picked up her previous job in
Pennsylvania. During that time, he worked with about 250 Tulane
students, temporarily enrolling them at Georgia Tech and other
schools and assisting in problem-solving for the displaced students.
The challenge was not only to look after their safety and basic
needs, but also to continue the higher goal of maintaining the
education process.
Bailey helped his
students register for classes and get set up in off-campus housing.
Making those connections was a full-time job. In cities or
institutions where at least a hundred students were enrolled for the
fall, meetings were set up where either the president, vice
president for Student Affairs, or the provost would meet with other
administrators and community representatives to voice concerns and
hammer out solutions.
 “Georgia
Tech helped make the visiting students feel at home. They were very
supportive,” said Bailey. To help ease the stress, the college
provided students with gift cards to local stores and invited them
to “watch parties” at restaurants during the football games.
In the end, 93
percent of Tulane’s students returned to campus in the Fall. Any
attrition was mainly in the first-year students who were forced to
move in and move out on the same day. Most had not developed a
connection to Tulane. But many upperclass students who were staying
at other institutions took it upon themselves to talk with the
freshmen about why they should go back to Tulane.
“They talked
about ‘this is what Tulane means to me, these are the things that
would have happened during the fall semester that we may be missing,
but this is what will happen in the spring,’” said Bailey. “Those
students did a tremendous job of trying to paint a nice picture from
their perspective as to why they decided to go back to Tulane and
why the others should, too.”
Closed for the
first time since the Civil War, Tulane University’s emergency plan
received the ultimate test. Most of the first floors of residence
halls and office buildings had severe water damage. Restoration,
though expensive, proceeded quickly. “The campus looks as good as
ever,” said Bailey.
In such unique
circumstances, attitude matters as much as training. “When dealing
with realities of the moment, the basic needs of safety and security
must be handled first,” said Ron Lunardini, chairperson of IUP’s
department of Student Affairs in Higher Education. The higher goals
inherent in teaching take a temporary backseat to helping students
deal with the new environment.
“Tulane had a
plan,” said Bailey. “But there’s only so far that a plan can take
you. Katrina refined my experience as a crisis manager.” |
