In Memoriam
After the Hurricane, a Silver Lining
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| Christine Costley's New Orleans home was submerged in floodwater for more than three weeks. Now, she must either rebuild an elevated structure or leave the area. |
Christopher Albright's mellow voice is peppered with a
"Katrina cough" from breathing pervasive mold. The 1960 Beloit alumnus and 40-year Louisiana resident plans to sell his suburban New Orleans townhouse, which escaped flooding from the levee breaches but was hammered by Katrina's hurricane-force winds. The roof ultimately gave way, just in time for Rita's driving rain, which collapsed his first- and second-story ceilings.
Christine Costley'77 lost every material thing in her Lakeview neighborhood home. Nearly six months after the flood, her place is uninhabitable after being immersed up to its attic for 3.5 weeks. Among the interior jumble of soggy furniture, photographs, and moldering odds and ends was a painful reminder of the history she's lost: a ruined 206-year-old Louisiana armoire, its doors akimbo. It once stood in her family's plantation house.
In the flooding of New Orleans, both Albright and Costley lost their jobs. Their homes are wrecked. They fled the city with beloved dogs and a few days' clothing, only to find out that resuming their former lives would be impossible.
They've never met, but their stories are like those of so many others who endured the Gulf Coast hurricanes last year only to face the daunting challenge of reinventing themselves.
It is anyone's guess how many Beloiters have been affected by one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history. News from Gulf Coast alumni trickles into the College, often in the form of cryptic requests for diploma copies and address changes.
For his part, Albright says he is finished with living in New Orleans, although he still commutes into the city to host his long-time radio program on Sunday mornings. WTUL-FM, the city's oldest radio station, was off the air from August through January, but its equipment and music collection survived. At press time, it was operating from a makeshift site in a coffee house.
After New Orleans was shut down by the flood, Albright couldn't even make contact with his full-time employer, the Jefferson Parish Council on Aging, so he set out with his two dogs to relocate. He is convinced that another New Orleans flood is inevitable, given what he describes as the corruption surrounding levee maintenance, coastline erosion, and a flagrant disregard for protecting natural flood barriers.
He was fortunate to have his graduate-school digs to return to, a piece of property he purchased years ago in Baton Rouge, with a small house and an apartment above a garage, where he now lives.
Albright also found a new job in short order with Catholic Community Services as a social services case worker. Now, he helps evacuees find resources and relocate.
"I'm not a Catholic, but nobody seems to mind,"
Albright says. "I feel really blessed that I found this job. My mantra is that I'm doing well by doing good."
Costley, on the other hand, is temporarily living in Waynesville, N.C. She had worked for New Orleans Fish House, a retail and wholesale fish supplier, developing and marketing a frozen seafood line for Chef Emeril Lagasse. But that was pre-Katrina.
Her evacuation odyssey marks a dividing line between life then and now. Costley can easily recount the details of her several harrowing attempts to leave the city: She finally joined family 200 miles north of New Orleans, where an 85-year-old aunt and others had decamped to a lake house. Without electricity or cell phones, they huddled together in a car each night listening to the "confusion and horror"
unfolding on a New Orleans radio station.
Five times since Katrina, Costley has returned to her Lakeview home, entering the city the first time illegally, her rubber boots, respiratory mask, and gloves in tow. With the help of volunteers from her church, she has managed to strip her home down to a shell. She is undecided about whether she'll rebuild a raised structure or start over elsewhere.
"New Orleanians are resilient, and we love our city. It is a very hard place to leave," she says.
But life has changed. "Nothing works as normal. Lines are longer, pot holes are deeper, people are fragile, supplies are limited, traffic is horrendous ... tempers flare, and unusual kindness flows," she says.
Costley says she is evaluating opportunities and waiting to see where life will take her next.
"All of a sudden you see the world with a different perspective,"
she says. "Your slate is wiped clean, and there is nothing to tie you down. It is a renewal of life itself in spirit and soul."
— Susan Kasten
Beloit's Sixth President, Architect of the Beloit Plan, dies at 88
| Beloit College Archives |
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| Miller Upton served as Beloit's president from 1954 to 1975. |
Miller Upton, who served Beloit College for 21 years as its sixth president and was one of the nation's most articulate proponents of private liberal arts colleges, died on Dec. 19, 2005, at his home in Fontana, Wis. He was 88.
Upton's remarkably long tenure at Beloit was characterized by a series of far-reaching curricular changes, the most progressive of which was the nationally celebrated and widely imitated Beloit Plan of year-round education.
As the architect of the experimental plan—which required field terms and placed an emphasis on international programs, interdisciplinary majors, and experiential learning—Upton in many ways shaped Beloit's educational focus today.
Upton was a nationally known educator and recognized expert in the academic specialties of business administration, finance, and money and banking, and served as a member of many national committees and governmental commissions in his field. He was the recipient of 11 honorary degrees and numerous other academic distinctions.
He was a strong libertarian thinker who wrote about and contemplated the role of civic institutions in a free society.
A 1938 Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Tulane University, the New Orleans native became president of Beloit College in 1954 and served in that post until 1975. He arrived at Beloit from Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., where he was dean of the School of Business and Public Administration. Prior to that, he taught at Washington and Northwestern universities and Lake Forest College. He held an M.B.A. degree from Harvard University and a Ph.D. from Northwestern University.
"I will bring to the task [of the presidency] one trait for which I neither apologize nor accept a secondary position to any of your foregoing presidents," Upton said in his inaugural address. "This trait is an evangelistic zeal concerning the importance of formal education in general and the type of undergraduate education in particular for which Beloit College has always stood."
Beloit's World Outlook Program, precursor to today's International Education program, was initiated in 1960 under Upton's leadership to coordinate study abroad opportunities and expand students' world view. Morse Library, Chamberlin Hall, the Neese Performing Arts Complex, and several residence halls were built during Upton's tenure.
During Upton's first visit to campus, he witnessed the worst fire in College history on a December night in 1953, when Eaton Chapel was nearly destroyed, the target of arson. Upton later said he was deeply impressed by the attitude of students and the cooperation and helpfulness of townspeople during the emergency. He cited both as important factors in influencing him to accept the presidency two weeks later. His inauguration the following year was the first event held in the Chapel after extensive renovations to the 1891 structure were completed following the fire.
Upton is survived by his wife, June, and three sons: Randall'66, of Delavan, Wis., Thomas'69, of Independence, Ky., and Richard'73, of Richmond, Va.
Beloit College is establishing the Miller Upton Programs to honor its sixth president. The Upton Programs consist of a high-profile forum, a chair in the economics department, and scholarships and other programs that directly benefit students. For more on the Upton Programs, click here.
