 Hannah Simon works with a child in the kids' activities tent at a music festival. (Photo provided)
As important as rebuilding homes in the still devastated city is, 13 from Bowling Green State University and the University of Michigan traveled to New Orleans with another goal - to help rebuild the educational system.
The venture was the first project of the newly formed chapter of Arts Enterprise on campus.
The Arts Enterprise links those studying to go into business with studying to be musicians, dancers and artists, and both those sides of that equation come into play during the New Orleans trip.
The team, undergraduate and graduate students and BGSU bassoon teacher Dr. Nathaniel Zeisler, worked with New Orleans Outreach, a project that provides enrichment programs to the charter schools that replaced the public school system in the wake of Katrina. Arts Enterprise's task was to study those programs and report on what works and what can be improved.
New Orleans schools, already among the worst before Katrina, were devastated by the hurricane. The charter schools, he said, put their focus on remedial classes and bringing students up to national standards. That leaves little time during the school day for the arts.
New Orleans Outreach works with school to fill that gap. "That's where we felt we could have an impact," Zeisler said.
The Arts Enterprise group traveled to seven schools in Orleans Parish and observed classes and interviewed students, teachers, parents and administrators.
Chris Genteel, an MBA student from Michigan and one of the founders with Zeisler of Arts Enterprise two years ago, is "very well versed in consulting," Zeisler said. Two Michigan students are still in the city, he said, pulling all that "rich data" together.
Students gathered that information spending four to five hours in the schools. While the goal is to help education in New Orleans improve, the trip had an immediate effect on the volunteers.
"What I heard from many students is they had hoped to find answers to a lot of problems in the city," Zeisler said. "They left with more questions which to me means the trip was a success."
Sarah Griffith, a graduate student in public administration, said the devastation the group witnessed in the lower Ninth Ward shocked her beyond words.
The once thriving neighborhood is now an overgrown prairie. "I don't think there's a whole lot you can say about it."
But Zeisler said he and Genteel wanted to go beyond showing the students the devastation. They wanted to expose them to the rich culture of a place he called "a national treasure, an amazing, amazing place."
"I'd never been in a place where you could hear outstanding music any night of the week," Griffith said.
And she's willing to go back. "I fell in love with the place."
The arts can help the city's rebuilding, said Kristen Hoverman, a flute performance major at BGSU. The arts give students a way to develop their creativity and give them their own voice, and that energy feeds into the city's revitalization effort.
"They can bring that creativity to anything they do," she said. It may be the arts, but it also could be technology and business. "In 20 years from now it'll be interesting to see how these kids grow up and influence New Orleans."
Griffith said she was struck by "how appreciative" students were of the programs offered them.
Asked what could be improved about the programs, which are mostly after school, they would answer that they wished they could be offered every day.
"They really need something else in their lives than the standard 9 to 3 school hours," she said.
Hoverman said she was inspired by seeing the way the teaching artists interact with the students. "It showed me the importance of creativity in the classroom," she said. "These kids obviously have a lot to deal with ... being in a place where politics are a hot button and class and race are big issues."
New Orleans Outreach officials felt the work was worthwhile enough that they want to engage the Arts Enterprise team for a similar project next summer.
Still Zeisler is aware of the magnitude of the work to be done, and not only in New Orleans.
Originally he and Genteel considered doing a project in Detroit, a city like New Orleans that has festering problems with race, class and politics as well as a vibrant musical culture. But it turned out easier to engage people in New Orleans.
Still the needs in Detroit and other cities are as pressing as those in New Orleans. All that separates them, Zeisler said, is the experience of a devastating natural disaster.
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