Thank you, New Hampshire

It’s been a week since Harvey changed everything for Houston, Texas.

And since then, I’ve been waiting. After Katrina hit new Orleans, my university (then The University of Texas Pan American) offered enrollment to students affected by the hurricane. Since Harvey was hitting Texas, I expected that and more.

I emailed our president’s office, reminding them of what happened back in 2005. I got an email back from our Office of Emergency Preparedness, saying:

(UTRGV) has been in communication with University of Texas System... since last week. There are system-wide plans in place in the event student relocation becomes necessary.

I waited to hear what those system-wide plans were. I waited all week. All that happened at my institution was that the Atheletics department teamed with a Texas grocery store to fundraise. Hardly an institution wide response or plan.

Finally, University of Texas System Chancellor William McRaven writes this, titled, “Texans stop for no storm.”

This annoys me to no end. It feels like McRaven is taking this moment to do say, “Look how tough we are,” posturing instead of actually offering concrete plans for help.

On Twitter, the UT System account tweeted a Storyify about how institutions were helping people affected by Harvey. And this is nice, but it’s things like student organizations doing fundraising, universities offering counseling services, not institutions offering anything like what a New Hampshire university has done.

Franklin Pierce University will provide free tuition, room and board to up to 20 students for the fall semester.

That’s what I was expecting UTRGV and other UT System universities to do. But no.

Thank you, Franklin Pierce University, for doing for Texas students what Texas universities didn’t.

Related posts

Credit where it’s due

External links

New Hampshire university to take in students after Harvey
Texans stop for no storm

Picture from here.