Trudy Haley, displaced University of New Orleans student, told Chancellor Sean O’Keefe on Wednesday she thinks the University is not doing enough to help displaced students affected by Hurricane Katrina.
O’Keefe met with students who mostly spoke about financial aid concerns at the final Chat with the Chancellor of the fall semester in the business courtyard of CEBA on Wednesday afternoon.
Haley presented O’Keefe with a contract that would mandate deferment of all fees due for displaced students, create monthly meetings between University administrators and displaced students and “immediately terminate any and all demands, threats and deadlines that predictably would place undue and overwhelming distress on displaced students.”
Haley said displaced students have received an underfunded relief and stressful and unreasonable deadlines for fees.
“At first, we were universally told that all fees would be waived and that public and private institutions would be there to provide us with vital aid,” Haley said. “As the window of media attention and public awareness to our plight has waned, so has much of the support promised us by LSU.”
Haley said displaced students were misled by the University and demanded O’Keefe’s immediate signing of the contract.
O’Keefe told her the Hurricane Katrina-Rita Student Relief Fund would be able to help any displaced student in need of financial aid at the University after state and federal funding is exhausted.
Haley said the Office of Student Aid and Scholarships told her there was not enough money in the SRF to cover all displaced students.
“Either you’re contradicting the people in Financial Aid or you have no idea what’s going on,” Haley said to O’Keefe.
O’Keefe did not sign the contract, but promised her a meeting with a University official that would address all of her concerns.
“We have been cast from our homes and schools, washed ashore at LSU and then handed a bill for the rescue,” Haley said in the contract.
Haley organized a meeting of displaced students Tuesday night joined by representatives from the Bursar’s Office and the Office of Student Aid and Scholarships to answer questions about financial aid.
This meeting was prompted by an e-mail issued Nov. 11 to displaced students living in residence halls that required housing fees to be paid by Nov. 23.
“LSU gave us 12 days to pay a bill that we were not ready for,” Haley said.
Chinyere Nwabugwu, electrical engineering senior from Nigeria, expressed her concern about the underfunding for international students on campus as well.
O’Keefe told her it was a challenging situation because international students are not eligible for TOPS or the Pell Grant, so they have to look for federal funding.
Steven Lamborn, general studies freshman and U.S. Army veteran, said he had completed the paperwork for Louisiana residency in March 2004 before he had been deployed to Iraq, but he was now being denied in-state tuition by the University.
“The G.I. bill pays for an education,” Lamborn said. “Unfortunately it does not pay for a good education.”
Lamborn has to pay the out-of-state tuition.
After speaking with O’Keefe, Lamborn said he did not think anything was going to be done.
Yuri Laurov, a displaced UNO student, said he was also concerned about his outstanding fee bills the University.
O’Keefe told him to set up a meeting with the Office of Student Aid and Scholarships.
Laurov said O’Keefe did give him hope.