An Interview with Andre Perry

This interview was conducted on December 2, 2007, in Suite Jazz on Frenchmen and Decatur, New Orleans, Louisiana.

ROWELL: What have you detected as the effects of Hurricane Katrina and the flooding on your campus, the University of New Orleans? I'm talking about the physical, fiscal, and operational impacts.

PERRY: The most noticeable and heartfelt impact would have to be the loss of human resources. The post-Katrina student population dropped to about 60% of our pre-Katrina numbers. We went from approximately 17,500 to 11,000—sometimes less. As you probably know, more than a third of a public university's revenue comes from tuition. We lost about 14 million dollars. Therefore the University had to make dramatic cuts, which resulted in about a 10 to 15 % reduction in expenditures.

We did not make cuts evenly across all departments. Our administration performed strategic trimming which is controversial in many ways because it meant that we were going to tactically lay off, fire, and/or furlong faculty members. The power of tenure lost its strength. Because of the University's economic distress, the administration filed for economic exigency which simply means that we had to abandon our tenure rules. Obviously, that dealt a blow to faculty morale. We were just shaken. We lost students and faculty.

Decisions to release long-standing members of the academic community in the post Katrina era had to be incredibly difficult. We lost so much from the storm. Losing rank and professional identity was salt in an un-healed wound.

Administrators made decisions differently. Higher education lives off a shared governance model where faculty, the administration, and the board of operate in conjunction with each other. Because we evacuated to other areas, the administration had to really take a war room decision-making approach where fewer people make decisions for the whole. We're still recovering from that mode of operation and break in decision-making culture. So the loss students and faculty was probably the most profound. Changes in the physical structures were minimal—a third of the campus received water. The University did incur damage because we were the drop site for people who were being rescued via helicopter. The real irreparable harm comes from the loss of students and faculty, the human resources that will only come back when the city rebounds.

ROWELL: Were faculty and staff members receiving salaries during their absence?

PERRY: Yes, yes.

ROWELL: Did the state provide those salaries?

PERRY: Yes, the state provided, and so we continued to receive salaries throughout the period when we were not teaching. Many school systems did not pay their employees, or after a few weeks many of the payments stopped. So they did what they could to pay us, which you know is a tremendous accomplishment because they could easily have made the decision to save money in lieu of the downward loss of tuition dollars.

ROWELL: How has the University been able to make up for this deficit? Did the state offer money to cover the deficit?

PERRY: Yes, the state did have bail out, but because of the loss of students and the loss of faculty we're just operating at a smaller scale, and so as we rebuild, we have an iterative approach to getting faculty back or hiring faculty and that should be paced along with the number of students that come back to the University.

ROWELL: Would you talk now about as what you see as the collective psyche of your university—the collective psyche of the faculty, the collective psyche of the students, of the staff, and of the administration? How are these groups addressing the tragedy of the hurricane and its aftermath?

PERRY: I think we were at a high because we worked so hard immediately after the storm that we were at this huge high. We developed a high level of camaraderie, a lot of energy. However, a lot of that energy has waned over time and we're starting to fatigue a little bit. However, I believe the folks who are here are committed to the University and so...