Hurricane Katrina destroyed lives but also gave a new, positive experience to one ASU student.
For Christopher Jackson, who graduated this month with a bachelor’s in communications, moving to Arizona to attend ASU was the best option after Hurricane Katrina destroyed his home and damaged his old college.
“ASU made it a whole lot easier,” said Jackson, than if he had chosen to attend another institution .
ASU covered Jackson’s room and board for the first year, and he received grants for his education throughout his college career. Jackson was also given some toiletries and vouchers for books.
“One of the first nights I was [at ASU], a couple students came and knocked on my door and they gave me a…[small ASU] blanket,” Jackson said.
The warnings for Hurricane Katrina started on Aug. 23, 2005.
“They weren’t 100 percent sure if it was going to make a direct hit on New Orleans, but that’s when we started hearing warnings,” Jackson said.
On Aug. 27, Hurricane Katrina increased to a Category 3 hurricane, and that night Jackson decided to leave with his family from his home in eastern New Orleans.
“I was working at a hospital and my supervisor didn’t have a plan for the hospital for what would happen if the hurricane made landfall,” said Jackson, who worked as a patient transporter.
He evacuated to Ferriday, La., which is in the northeast part of the state.
On Aug. 28, New Orleans residents were ordered to evacuate by the mayor.
When Jackson saw the water enveloping New Orleans on the television the next day, he knew he couldn’t go back home.
“Life was going to change at that point,” he said.
Later that week, Jackson said he started hearing news about different schools and cities accepting transfer students, including ASU, University of Nevada, Las Vegas and the University of Rhode Island.
“I called ASU and they waived everything and they asked me, ‘how soon can [you] make it?’” he said.
The other two schools still required application fees, so Jackson decided on ASU and left for Arizona on Sept. 5.
Jackson said his experiences at ASU ended up helping him in the long run.
“Coming to ASU gave me an opportunity to strike out on my own for the first time,” he said. “I had to really grow up then.”
When he was attending Xavier University of Louisiana, he was starting his third year in sociology and history, but he decided to change his major to communications when he came to ASU.
Jackson said he wanted to work on his oratory and research skills, and the requirements for an ASU history degree were too time consuming.
“It was a little daunting because in total it took me seven years to … get a bachelor’s degree when it should’ve taken four,” Jackson said.
He also left everything but a suitcase full of clothes, and his mother is still trying to build her new household.
“I wouldn’t change anything,” Jackson said. “It happened for a reason.”
He plans to attend law school to focus on corporate securities, small business law and contracts, and has applied to ASU and a few other universities.
He’s currently unemployed and looking for a bank job to help his situation, and he plans to stay in Arizona for at least another year.
“I would like a job in the finance industry or corporate consulting,” Jackson said. “If those careers don’t pan out, I will always be able to go back and practice law.”
Todd Stricherz, the director of first year programs for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, was Jackson’s adviser at ASU.
“I was one of the people in our office who helped the Katrina victims when they were transferring to ASU,” Stricherz said.
Like other victims, Jackson had a lot of adjusting to do, he said.
“Obviously that’s got to be pretty stressful because he was going into his [third] year at Xavier and the storm hit at the beginning of the year, so he was just completely displaced,” Sticherz said.
Besides school issues, there is the emotional stress involved for victims, he said.
“They were in shock,” Stricherz said, considering they were uprooted unexpectedly, separated from their families and moving to other states.
In addition to being a couple weeks behind in school, Jackson was also without any family for about a month at the beginning of the school year.
His mother and younger brother eventually relocated to Arizona to be with him, a unique case for a college transfer affected by Katrina.
“His support system moved here with him, so I think that was a big part of his success,” Stricherz said.
On May 12 of this year, Jackson received $700 from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences as part of the Len and Rena Gordon Spunky award, a prize given to graduating students.
“The requirement is [that the award is] presented to a student who has shown spunk in overcoming obstacles to succeed as an undergraduate,” said Sara Lyness, the assistant director for pre-professional advising in the college, and a person who interviewed Jackson for the award.
There were no applications from other students who had gone through a similar situation, she said.
“I think the challenges that he overcame in transferring here after Hurricane Katrina made him the best candidate for the award,” Lyness said.
Reach the reporter at reweaver@asu.edu
