Jessica Gomez spent much of her first month at Regis University moping because Hurricane Katrina wrecked her dream of going to college in New Orleans.
She got over it. In fact, she’s enrolled for spring semester at the Denver sister school of her first choice, Loyola University.
Gomez, 18, is one of at least 30 students who are sticking with colleges in Colorado after the hurricane brought them here in September. Many are freshmen who never formed an attachment to their Louisiana schools, and some are unsure about returning to a city where neighborhoods are in shambles.
Gomez, of Denver, was at Loyola for only two days when she fled to Houston with a bag packed for a weekend trip. Her father gathered the rest of her belongings from her dorm room when he volunteered for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Rain had seeped through the windows of the 11th-floor room, and mold was growing on a corkboard.
“I wouldn’t want to go back to that,” Gomez said. “I’m worried about the air quality and everything.”
But plenty of students are willing to return.
Thirty of the 40 students who came to the University of Denver this quarter are returning to Tulane, Loyola, Xavier and the University of New Orleans, DU officials said. In a not-too-subtle show of loyalty this fall, students walked around campus wearing T-shirts that said, “I still go to Tulane.”
Of the 150 hurricane-region students who ended up at the University of Colorado at Boulder, 16 have enrolled for next semester, said CU-Boulder registrar Barbara Todd.
Those returning to New Orleans feel a sense of loyalty to their schools, and some see it as an adventure.
“There is sort of a feeling of solidarity that my class is going to have,” said Ted Long, who plans to return to Loyola in January after spending a semester at Regis in Denver. “In terms of Loyola history, my class will have some stories to tell.”
Loyola expects at least 70 percent of its students to return, said its president, the Rev. Kevin Wildes. He traveled to Denver and several other cities to encourage students to come back.
“I don’t think it’s going to damage the education provided at all,” he said. “We’ve retained our faculty. It’s not so much the reputation of Loyola – I’m more concerned about the reputation of the city.”
Of the 30 Loyola students at Regis, 26 are returning to New Orleans, said Regis spokeswoman Kristen Blessman. Three of the 12 hurricane-region students at Colorado State University have enrolled for next semester, CSU said.
Kyle Gordon and Trevor Lyons grew up together in Chicago and planned to attend colleges next door to each other in New Orleans. Instead, they ended up in Boulder.
Now they’re splitting up.
Lyons said he owes it to himself to give Tulane a shot after he spent a year researching schools and picked that one. Also, he wants to help rejuvenate the city.
Gordon, who was supposed to go to Loyola, is staying at CU-Boulder.
“I’m not trying to go back and rebuild anything,” he said. “I’m just trying to get a college education in a safe environment.”
Staff writer Jennifer Brown can be reached at 303-820-1593 or jenbrown@denverpost.com.
