Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881

The Daily Northwestern

39° Evanston, IL
Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881

The Daily Northwestern

Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881

The Daily Northwestern

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A NU life

A group of friends huddled in front of a laptop on Halloween night in the Public Affairs Residential College, laughing at the snappy one-liners in the new HBO series “Entourage.” Three of the students were Tulane transfer students, and one was a Weinberg freshman.

The group could have been any Northwestern students hanging out in their dorm together.

After Hurricane Katrina uprooted them from their home university, about 100 Tulane students came to NU with a common unsettling experience. But after nearly a quarter at NU and an approaching return to Tulane in January, the students said they’ve integrated into NU. They don’t think of themselves as a group sharing all of the same friends.

“It’s easy just to refer to us as Tulane students and not as individuals,” said Tulane transfer freshman Steve Lavelle.

GROUPED TOGETHER

Twenty-nine of the Tulane transfer students live in university housing, grouped together in “pockets” of vacancies, said Mark D’Arienzo, associate director of the University Housing Administration.

The majority of the Tulane students are in PARC, where Lavelle lives. The rest were placed in the International Studies Residential College, the transfer house and the freshman floor of Foster-Walker Complex, D’Arienzo said.

Administrators tried to house Tulane students together, thinking it would facilitate friendships they could take with them back to Tulane when the university reopened, said Jen Meyers, NU orientation and student transitions coordinator. That was a particular focus with the freshmen, she said.

“When they go back to Tulane, they will still have a connection with certain people who they’ll have classes with there,” Meyers said. “It’s so you don’t feel like you’re a transfer student at your own institution. You’re at least going to know someone.”

The housing placements are a big reason that some Tulane students grew closest to fellow evacuees, Lavelle said, but the number of transfer students in these dorms can make it difficult to forge friendships with NU students.

“You meet the people who are living next to you before you meet the others,” Lavelle said.

Living in Foster-Walker also can be isolating, said Tulane transfer Maureen McDonough, who lives in a hall filled with freshmen.

“It’s kind of hard to relate to them,” she said. “They’re at a totally different point in their lives.”

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Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881
A NU life