Introduction
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUPThe English Department at Xavier University of Louisiana has had a strong relationship with the South Central Modern Language Association. It is a sustaining departmental member; several faculty have served on the board of executive officers, and it has not been unusual for at least five or six faculty from the relatively small English Department at Xavier to participate in any one SCMLA conference.
Now, after Katrina, this conference will always hold bittersweet memories for many of us. It was at the Houston 2005 SCMLA conference that faculty from the Xavier English Department met for the first time since we had been scattered across the country during that last weekend of August. Coming together in Houston from places of exile, we read our papers and poetry even though Katrina had destroyed our libraries, our research, and our homes. The Saturday night we gathered for dinner was a momentous occasion: it was the first time we were briefly reunited, but it was also the weekend when we received new contracts of employment or notices of dismissal.
It seemed fitting, therefore, that when the call for special topics was sent out for the post-Katrina 2006 SCMLA conference, Xavier faculty should organize a panel on our experiences of working in post-Katrina New Orleans. The panel was attended by many friends of the department including David McWhirter, who suggested we submit our work to South Central Review. None of the papers presented here focuses on the lives of the writers themselves despite the fact that one was homeless for almost a year; one was laid off for a semester; one lost the family home and all its contents; and one, by contrast, could delight in the daily routine of a new-born grandchild. On the contrary, each author reflects on the lives of others: the students and faculty in their care.
Tom Bonner, our department chair, chronicles the effects of Katrina on the department and attributes its survival to the academic discipline of English, "the ability to speak and write and be understood." Of course, it was Tom himself who, amid the chaos and uncertainty, created a supportive working environment that made possible our ability to continue working productively. Bonnie Noonan and Katheryn Laborde describe teaching writing during that first post-Katrina semester when students' [End Page 53] memories were still so raw and clear. Each brings a very different perspective: Bonnie as a rhetorically and theoretically grounded writer and Katheryn as a creative non-fiction writer. My essay explores the fate of adjunct faculty the year following Katrina, questions the rationale of their employment as contingent faculty, and provides suggestions for improving their conditions of service. Together these papers present a glimpse into the life of the English Department at Xavier University, its students and faculty, as we attempted to rebuild our lives as administrators, teachers, and writers in post-Katrina New Orleans.
Nicole Pepinster Greene is Associate Professor of English and Director of Composition at Xavier University of Louisiana. Her publications on Irish writers and the pedagogy of writing have appeared in Modern Irish Writers, New Hibernia Review, Working Papers in Irish Studies, and Multicultural Perspectives. She is the editor of the Journal of College Writing, and this summer Hampton Press will publish her book, co-edited with Patricia McAlexander, Basic Writing in America: A History of Nine College Programs. Her present research continues to center on the lives and writings of Edith Somerville and Martin Ross.
