When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans a year ago, universities across the country quickly responded to the plight of the higher-education institutions in the Crescent City, whose campuses were inundated with floodwater.

Students enrolled at Xavier, Dillard, Loyola, Tulane, Southern University at New Orleans and other New Orleans campuses were welcomed at schools in many other states, including Southern Methodist University and Baylor University. Some of the guest campuses even waived tuition for the semester.

Since then, the New Orleans schools have struggled to rebuild. And well below the radar, where so much unsung good will occurs, individuals and institutions have continued to help these schools with their recoveries.

The University of Texas and University of Idaho supplied Tulane's microbiology department with a new set of bacteria because the school's old supply was destroyed by the hurricane.

Southern University, whose library was destroyed by flooding, received donated books from Tufts University, Swarthmore College, Lehigh University and the University of Missouri through a program coordinated by the American Library Association.

Foreign governments contributed a combined $30 million, which was distributed by the U.S. Department of Education to the New Orleans universities to pay for new equipment and instruction.

Jon D. Hlafter, Princeton University's architect, said he met with a Dillard University task force last spring to help develop a five-year plan to restore the campus. Princeton and Brown University have reached out to Dillard specifically because Brown's president, Ruth Simmons, is a former vice provost at Princeton and a Dillard alumna.

Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., let its fellow Jesuit school, Loyola, use Georgetown's phone-a-thon room and callers last fall and covered the cost so Loyola could conduct its Katrina Relief Fund, which raised $3.3 million.

Tulane received donations from a wide range of groups, including $750 from the Princeton Alumni Class of 1958, $24,000 from Nogoya University in Japan, and $40,000 from the University of Southern California.

Many of the Katrina relief projects were spearheaded by small groups of students or individual faculty members. But what of the institutions themselves? It appears some seemingly obvious opportunities for good will went unfulfilled.

For instance, SMU has a strong and obvious Methodist history and affiliation. Dillard, a historically black university that has struggled to cover about $500 million in storm repairs, has a Methodist history itself. In 1869, the Freedman's Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church - a precursor of the United Methodist Church - established Union Normal School, which eventually became New Orleans University. In 1930, it merged with Straight College (founded by the American Missionary Association of the Congregational Church) to form Dillard.

While Dillard's endowment is a relatively meager $45 million, SMU's is $1 billion. Why didn't SMU, as an institution, make a significant financial contribution to Dillard after Katrina, given their shared Methodist roots?

Another example: Drexel University in Philadelphia was founded by Anthony J. Drexel in 1891, the same year his niece, Mother Katherine Drexel, founded an order of Catholic nuns dedicated to serving African-Americans and American Indians. She created schools for both groups, including Xavier University in New Orleans.

Drexel University officials jumped on the school's historic connection with the Drexel family when Mother Drexel was canonized a saint in 2000. In fact, during an interfaith celebration in Philadelphia just before Mother Drexel's canonization, Drexel president Constantine Papadakis called on the audience to emulate her dedication to the poor and the neglected.

But when Mother Drexel's Xavier was in need after Katrina, where was Drexel University? Drexel has a $500 million endowment; Xavier about $37 million, and has had to raid the endowment and arrange for other bridge loans to pay for an estimated $50 million in Katrina-related repairs.

Universities often talk to their students about the importance of community, of giving back, of being good citizens. In the response to Katrina, it seems the students and faculty, as individuals, heard that message loud and clear and reached out to the beleaguered schools in New Orleans.

But some universities, as institutions, should take a moment to reflect on why they didn't respond in a financially dramatic way to their peer institutions in the Crescent City.

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