okay, so i have to find info on my cousin through a freakin newspaper?? but oh well…
I guess she even beat my Aunt home… (they drove last week to take her there from Rochester, NY).. i guess my aunt got in a car accident in Akron Ohio.. i guess she is okay but the car isnt

Displaced college students get help
Matthew Daneman, Staff writer

(September 2, 2005) — Jackie Woodward (my cousin) was supposed to be walking across the New Orleans campus of Tulane University right about now, on her way to class on her second day as a freshman.

Instead, her education and future are up in the air.

“My whole life has been put on hold,” the Wilson Magnet High class of 2005 graduate said Thursday.

A number of Rochester-area colleges are opening their doors to college students such as Woodward who have been displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

Rochester Institute of Technology said it’s helping seven students from colleges that have been closed.

“They are asking RIT to help them maintain their progress toward completing their degrees,” spokesman Bob Finnerty said.

Both the State University College at Geneseo and Alfred University on Thursday enrolled students who had been headed to Tulane.

“Normally, we would not consider someone at this point. This is an exceptional circumstance,” said William L. Caren, Geneseo’s associate vice president for enrollment services.

Alfred and Monroe Community College said they are waiving application and late-registration fees for displaced students, and Alfred may help out with scholarships.

Officials at Hobart and William Smith Colleges said they are in discussions with hurricane-affected schools.

Colleges across the country are helping out. For example, the University of Arkansas is offering free or reduced tuition and fees for students enrolled in New Orleans-area schools for the fall semester.

MCC said it has received several calls from military reservists who have been called up to assist with disaster relief. The college said it is working with each on getting full refunds for their books and on getting them withdrawn from classes.

Hobart and William Smith Colleges put together a fundraising campaign, HWS Responds, that will involve everything from resident advisers going door-to-door in dorms to passing the hat at athletic events, with the money going to the Red Cross, said Ave Bauder, director of public service.

And at Roberts Wesleyan College, students are collecting donations for relief efforts as part of new-student orientation.

Matt Konkol, a 2005 Pittsford Mendon High graduate, is now a freshman at SUNY Geneseo instead of Tulane. He enrolled in the Livingston County college Thursday, a day after getting back from the South. He had previously been accepted by Geneseo, and decided to call the college when he heard that the University of Virginia was accepting Tulane students.

“So we figured one of the SUNY schools might be doing the same thing,” he said.

Konkol was one of three Tulane-bound New Yorkers who enrolled at Geneseo.

Woodward, 18, got to Tulane on Friday, moved in, and was promptly evacuated a day later with all the other students. She took with her a pillow, a laptop and a couple of changes of clothes, and joined the ranks of refugees spending days at Jackson State University in Jackson, Miss., and Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta before finally getting back to Rochester on Wednesday.

She is talking with the University of Rochester about taking a course or two this semester, “just for something to do.”

“I most certainly want to go back to Tulane,” she said. “I love New Orleans. I adore the city.”