Kevin Stearns/University Photography

Kate Schmidt '09, right, of LaCanada, Ca., and Jackie Rapp '09 of New Rochelle, N.Y., both Tulane University students who have enrolled at Cornell, study Sept. 12 in one of the High Rise 5 suites on North Campus that has been converted into a dorm room for displaced students.

More than a week after arriving in Ithaca, Tulane and Xavier students displaced by Hurricane Katrina are settling in to life at Cornell.

"Everyone that I meet is really nice," said Nancy Kim, a Tulane senior from Avon, Conn. There are still stresses - catching up on all the readings for her classes, wondering about unresolved financial issues, worrying about her flip-flops-and-T-shirts wardrobe. But her professors understand, she says, and she loves her new apartment in Collegetown - and slowly, things are falling into place.

Last week, Kim and her 140 Tulanian counterparts gathered for a whirlwind orientation meeting in Warren Hall, just a day and a half after most arrived in Ithaca after evacuating their New Orleans campus.

It was a crash course in all things Cornell: a two-hour session to absorb all the information most incoming Cornell students learn over the course of a week.

But if Tulanians are used to anything by now, it is challenge. And like psychology and linguistics major Rachel Anderson, they were grateful for the warm welcome they've received. "Cornell seems really warm and accepting," said the senior from Memphis. "Like they really wanted us here."

The students asked questions about everything from transportation to hockey tickets. They chatted with the dozens of student volunteers about clubs and activities, where to get academic help, how to use the libraries and where to find the best parties.

They spoke a little about the city they left, the things they miss and the sadness that comes with hearing about the hurricane-wrought destruction. But mostly they looked forward to a new semester in a welcoming - if temporary - new home.

Robert Barker/University Photography

Displaced Tulane University student Michael Keller '09, of Baton Rouge, La., center, participates in a design studio architecture class on the Arts Quad Sept. 12 along with visiting critic Dana Cupkova-Myers, left, and Cornell student Lester Yu '09, right.

The Tulane students first arrived Tuesday morning, Sept. 6 - some at 3 a.m., others later, following circuitous cross-country bus rides or days spent hopping between cities and sleeping in airports. One by one, the 140 students met with advisers and housing coordinators, attended their first Cornell classes, signed up for meal plans, posed for photos for their Cornell IDs and set up their e-mail accounts. By Tuesday, Sept. 13, 72 Tulane students had been housed in dorms on campus (of those, 47 are freshmen, five are sophomores, five are juniors, nine are seniors and six are graduate students), with the remaining placed in fraternities, sororities or apartments off campus. Eighty-nine had enrolled in meal plans.

Meanwhile, administrators began making plans to reach out to students at other universities in the New Orleans area. "As a member of The Leadership Alliance, Cornell University has sought information about students at historically black colleges in the affected area," said Tommy Bruce, Cornell vice president for university communications. "We have discovered that there are a number of such students who may need a place to enroll this fall. Cornell is reaching out directly to those students."

At least four students from Xavier University of Louisiana and Dillard University in New Orleans arrived on campus this week. "It's a lot to take in," said Marie Colbert, a Xavier senior who arrived in Ithaca Sept. 8 after Cornell contacted her through the Leadership Alliance. "It's a huge campus. You could fit all of Xavier into North Campus."

Colbert spent the storm at her parents' home in Natchitoches, La. Since Thursday's daylong journey to Ithaca (Natchitoches to Alexandria, La.; then flights to Memphis, Newark and Syracuse - where Patty Stark, Cornell assistant to the vice provost for diversity and faculty affairs, picked her up), Colbert has been settling into her room at Ujamaa and scrambling to catch up in her classes. Not to mention learning her way around, shopping for supplies ("I only brought the necessities; I thought I was going to be gone three days") and trying to track down her Xavier professors for the recommendations she needs to finish her medical school applications.

"I was really just looking forward to graduating, to having a normal senior year," she said. "But you never know why things happen. It's been an interesting experience. I don't know quite now how to describe it. I just really miss my school. But Cornell is great, too. Everyone has been very helpful."

Across campus, students and organizations are reaching out to help hurricane victims. Fund-raisers for the American Red Cross have raised thousands of dollars across campus and in Collegetown, and efforts will continue until at least Sept. 21.

The Cornell Store is offering $100 gift cards and free packages of school supplies to Tulane students. Tops supermarket donated an additional $1,000 of notebooks, pens and folders. This week, the Dean of Students' office set up a Web site - http://www.activities.cornell.edu/katrina - for people with items or services to donate to the displaced students. And the Student Assembly launched a Web site dedicated to Katrina relief efforts on campus. That site, at http://relief.assembly.cornell.edu/, includes a comprehensive calendar of student-led relief initiatives on campus.

"In a few weeks we're planning to have a really serious fund-raising push," said Randy Lariar, engineering representative to the Student Assembly and chair of Students Helping Students. "We're planning on a campuswide effort in mid-October; a weeklong series of events joined together under a common name and for a common cause." In the meantime, he said, students interested in organizing a relief effort can get support by e-mailing cu.relief@gmail.com.

Farther away, Cornell alumni are doing their part for Katrina victims. Children from the New Orleans area are getting cheerful craft kits this week, assembled with care by members of the Community Outreach Committee of the Cornell Club Alumni Association Board in New York. "Everybody is doing something to help," said Susan Hennessee, director of the Cornell Alumni Southwest Mountain Regional Office in Houston. Business owners are donating supplies and money; individuals are opening their homes to displaced residents, and others are planning fund-raising events. "It's just incredible," she said.

In Ithaca, 15 Cornell administrators and staff members at the Sept. 8 orientation meeting briefed Tulane students on issues from computing to counseling. Each department's representative spoke about services available - and each offered reassurance.

"We will do anything we can to help," said Cornell Information Technology senior manager Michael Swenson.

"You guys will be fine," added assistant dean of students Lisa K'Bedford. "We have a lot of resources. You just need to ask and let us know what you need."

Welcome words, especially for students like Erika Martins, a quiet junior from Kenner, La. Martins' family evacuated safely before the storm, and she thinks the damage to her house just outside New Orleans is minimal. But still, she worries.

Now, though, she is focused on her life as it is for the moment: an apartment in Collegetown, a chance to study architecture at Cornell, the prospect of adventure and change and growth.

The upheaval and uncertainty are scary, but she is upbeat.

"I have a few friends here from Tulane. Not many," she said. Then she paused and smiled a little shyly. "But I don't mind meeting new ones."