169 Mutha Nature can close campuses

Destruction on Campus Brings End to Semester

By SARAH WHEATON

Instead of cramming for finals, students at the South’s oldest historically black college were cramming their belongings into hastily bought tubs from Wal-Mart after a tornado forced an abrupt departure from their dormitories and, in some cases, an early end to their college years.
The whirlwind churned up uncertainty at Shaw University, in Raleigh, N.C., as some students wondered whether they would be able to graduate in the short term and others tried to fathom how the college would rebuild.
One of the tornadoes that tore through Wake County on Saturday was actually at a weak point when it lashed together fallen trees in front of Shaw’s modernist bell tower, blew the roof off the student center and rendered two of the four dormitories uninhabitable.
“It literally looked like a scene out of Hurricane Katrina,” said Aeriel Sanders, an English major.
Officials decided to close Shaw indefinitely. The university, a private Baptist institution, was founded in 1865.
Veterans and observers of school closings praised Shaw’s president, Irma McClaurin, for quick decision-making and expressed confidence that the university would survive.
Some students cheered the early vacation. But the news prompted more anxiety for others. Some seniors were upset that they would not have the opportunity to improve their grade point averages with final exams and projects. Others wondered whether to apply for graduate school or participate in commencement, which was still scheduled for May 7.
But anxiety began to subside by Monday afternoon as professors began responding to e-mail, and the university said it was putting together a Web site to help students contact instructors.
Shaw officials were still assessing the damage Monday, and it remained unclear when classes would resume.
“The decision is expected to be made within a week about how summer school will be conducted,” Sherri Fillingham, a communications official, said in an e-mail. “Then we rebuild.”
Scott S. Cowen, the president of Tulane University, said Shaw’s situation was “like déjà vu.” Mr. Cowen saw Tulane, in New Orleans, through its five-month closing after Hurricane Katrina, which was followed by a sweeping overhaul.
“When you have an event like this happen, you have to think, ‘Can we come back the way we were before, or is there a new future for us?’ ” Mr. Cowen said.
Shaw’s devastation came just a year after a $31 million loan to refinance the university’s debt forestalled a financial crisis.
Students, who protested in recent years to demand better dining and living conditions, saw an opportunity for major improvements, especially at the Willie E. Gary Student Center.
“I’d rather see it be rebuilt from scratch so it can be more state of the art, because it’s kind of old,” said Jason Royal, a senior business management major. “We wanted more up-to-date equipment like we were seeing at other schools.”