Texas Baptist universities open doors

Posted: 9/16/05

Texas Baptist universities open doors

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

Texas Baptist universities responded to Hurricane Katrina by mobilizing campus communities for service, opening enrollment to displaced students and making resources available to evacuees from Louisiana and Mississippi.

East Texas Baptist University provided lodging in eight married housing apartments for employees of an evacuated South Louisiana nursing home.

The employees and their families traveled with their patients, who were placed in a Longview nursing home.

ETBU collected an offering in chapel services to buy gasoline cards and gift cards for evacuees and provided a pancake breakfast for people housed in a Red Cross shelter at the Marshall Civic Center. Students also helped the staff at a local public housing complex prepare 13 empty units for immediate occupancy.

Dallas Baptist University students volunteered to set up and staff a shelter for displaced families at nearby First Baptist Church in Duncanville and helped personnel at Mount Lebanon Baptist En-campment meet the needs of evacuees.

DBU also collected funds for Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans and its members. Fred Luter is pastor at Franklin Avenue, and his son, Chip, is a junior at DBU.

Baylor University Student Govern-ment set up “Paws for a Cause” as an avenue for students, faculty, staff and alumni to contribute to hurricane relief efforts of Texas Baptist Men and Buckner Baptist Benevolences.

Baylor Alumni “Steppin' Out” groups throughout Texas also organized hurricane response efforts ranging from job placement to emergency relief.

Baylor opened its student life center to provide showers and towels for displaced people lodged in a shelter at nearby Seventh & James Baptist Church; Truett Theological Seminary served as the campus collection site for bottled water, diapers, cereal bars and other items needed in emergency shelters; and the university's Mayborn Museum Complex became the collection site for backpacks filled with school supplies for displaced children.

Hardin-Simmons University collected offerings in chapel services for Texas Baptist Men disaster relief efforts, and the campus bookstore collected cash donations for the Red Cross.

Hardin-Simmons' Baptist Student Ministries collected linens, toiletries and baby-care items for evacuees, as well as cash donations for disaster relief.

Staff from Wayland Baptist Univer-sity's San Antonio campus enlisted volunteers, and students provided administrative and clerical help at an operations center for evacuees with special needs, spearheaded by Baptist Child & Family Services.

Students and staff from Baptist University of the Americas also volunteered in shelters operated by Baptist Child & Family Services.

Several campus ministry groups made plans for disaster recovery and reconstruction trips to storm-affected areas.

DBU, ETBU, Hardin-Simmons Uni-versity, Howard Payne University, Houston Baptist University, the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor and Wayland Baptist University accepted transfer students who had been enrolled at universities in Hurricane Katrina's path.

Schools waived application fees, extended registration deadlines and made other accommodations for the incoming transfer students.

Due to a record freshman class, Baylor University was unable to accept first-year students but enrolled sophomore, junior and senior undergraduates on a space-available basis. The university enrolled more than two-dozen undergraduate transfer students who had been displaced by the hurricane.

Baylor's Truett Theological Seminary offered to accept transfer students from New Orleans Baptist Theological Semi-nary, and Baylor's law school agreed to accept law students from Loyola University and Tulane University.

Karin Klinger, assistant director of student activities at Baylor, placed six students in on-campus housing and received numerous calls from people offering to open their homes or apartments to displaced students.

Baylor's student activities department created an “adopt a displaced student” program, and about 15 student organizations volunteered to help new students learn their way around campus.

The university's counseling services department started a support group for students who have family or friends affected by the hurricane, and transfer students especially were encouraged to participate.

Baylor's Louise Herrington School of Nursing in Dallas provided health care for evacuees sheltered at Reunion Arena, enrolled a displaced nursing student from New Orleans and collected donations for relief efforts. The nursing school allowed faculty to substitute one week of volunteer work for one week of required clinical work.