Students in New Orleans

The City that Care Forgot

Since 2007, Macaulay has sent a team of students to New Orleans with Professor Ted Henken and Dr. Deborah Gardner. Their course, New Orleans: The City that Care Forgot, is an interdisciplinary honors which is loved by students in engineering, education, sociology, anthropology, history, and many other disciplines. It is taught from historical, cultural, and sociological perspectives. The course revisits the week of August 29, 2005, when Hurricane Katrina devastated the city of New Orleans and the wider Gulf Coast region. It focuses on how human inaction transformed a natural disaster into an ongoing socioeconomic, political, and humanitarian catastrophe. The goal is to understand what unfolded during those days and during the subsequent weeks and months, linking those events to the city's storied past and still uncertain future. Incorporated in the course is an Alternative Break Service Program. Students participate in a week-long trip to New Orleans, during which students engage in a collective rebuilding effort. A series of guided city tours help students better understand the peculiar "geographies"" unique to the city of New Orleans, including geological, engineering, socioeconomic, racial/ethnic, historical, and cultural elements. Students visit levees and hear about their construction from an engineer, as well as the wetlands.

Each month, Macaulay Scholars Council organizes a service project. Working with several organizations, such as New York Food Bank, City Year, and New York Cares, Macaulay has a fine tradition of Scholars in Service. Upcoming projects are always announced in Macaulay Monday. Plan on being a part of MLK Service Day on Martin Luther King Day and Spring into Service during spring break.

Since 2007, Macaulay Honors College has offered service programs during the winter, spring and summer breaks. These programs allow students to work on critical national and international needs, as they travel and bond with their peers. Students have worked on affordable housing efforts with Habitat for Humanity in places such as Chimaltenango, Guatemala; Eagle Butte, South Dakota, and New Orleans, Louisiana. Students are also working on anti-malaria efforts in Accra, Ghana. During one of your college years, plan on being part of an alternative break program.