New Orleans’ Camellia Grill sits quietly closed, a once popular late-night diner frequented by Tulane students for three generations, now a facade plastered with Post It notes from students begging for their familiar hot spot to reopen.

As the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina passes, students at Tulane are hoping for an increased sense of normalcy on a campus and in a city that was in ruins a year ago. Though New Orleans and Tulane University have done everything they can to make life normal for returning students, there remain nostalgic reminders of what life was like before a hurricane destroyed much of the campus and the area.

“It was an awesome little late-night diner that all the students went to for a cheeseburger at 2 a.m., and now it’s gone,” said Elliott Wiener, Bethesda native and senior business management and marketing major at Tulane, of the Grill. “There’s little sticky notes from students all over [the building] saying ‘Open up; we love you.’ It’s something I miss and all my friends miss.”

After this university opened its doors to more than 100 state residents attending Louisiana universities devastated by the storm for the fall semester, the majority of transfers to Maryland returned to their respective universities for the spring semester.

This will be the first new school year the students spend on Tulane’s campus since the hurricane hit.

“It’s really great seeing all my friends back again,” said Peter Young, a senior at Tulane and the president of the university’s undergraduate student government. “The school seems to be back on its feet, and everyone’s really excited.”

Young, who hails from Ellicott City, commuted from home to this university for the fall semester, but continued to fulfill his duties to the Tulane student government through weekly conference calls, blogs and e-mails with his colleagues.

Young said when he returned to Tulane in the spring, there were huge changes at the university, both on the campus and in the uptown area of the city in which the school is located.

“The school announced huge changes to its structure; some athletics and academic programs got cut,” Young said. “The student government spent the semester dealing with these changes, and lots of students didn’t agree with the changes.”

Many faculty members, even tenured professors, did not return to Tulane.

Tulane administration announced last December that all engineering majors except biomedical and chemical engineering would be cut, the graduate school would no longer be recognized as an administrative body and athletics programs including tennis, golf, women’s swimming and soccer and men’s track and cross country would be eliminated, according to a Dec. 9, 2005 article in the New Orleans Times-Picayune. It also reported that 230 faculty members would be laid off.

“Many professors have left, which is sad. There was a turnover in faculty and now there are a lot of new, young, untenured professors,” Wiener said.

Faculty members at Tulane were not the only people who did not return to the city after evacuating last fall. Only about half of the city’s 460,000 pre-storm population returned, leaving much of the city desolate.

“You drive out of the campus, you see abandoned and gutted housing, burnt-out cars,” Wiener said. “It’s gloomy and almost eerie.”

Matt Abend, a senior accounting major at Tulane from Rockville, said when he returned in the spring, everything on the campus and in the surrounding area was back to normal for the most part, but the city as a whole still needs a lot of work.

“Some places we used to go to weren’t open then and many still aren’t open,” Abend said. “When we came back, the street lights were out, and the National Guard was roaming around a little. The process has been slow, but more and more things are coming back.”

To pay the expenses of finding housing at this campus, many transfers received money from the government to use for rental assistance. Students whose belongings were destroyed by the storm, however, could apply for money from FEMA to compensate for damages.

“I was given about $2,300 specifically for rental assistance, which covered my rent for the semester almost exactly,” said Nick Berg, a senior economics and history major at Tulane from Kensington, Md. “I was also given $2,000 from FEMA for evacuation costs which covered the little stuff, but I didn’t go on a shopping spree at Best Buy with it or anything.”

Abend said most students used the money they received from FEMA for new clothes and appliances and rent for apartments, “but nothing like plasma TVs.”

Although the transfers said the majority of the students were just happy to be back in the spring, there was also a huge sense of frustration with the city because many things weren’t working.

“The spring semester was different from other semesters; there were a lot of inconveniences,” said Ariel Cross, a senior biology major at Tulane from Potomac. “Stores were closed, it took an hour to get seated in restaurants, it was harder to get mail. Little things we take for granted were harder to do.”

Although the city’s streetcar system was down last year and some parts of the system still aren’t working this year, the transfers said the university and the city tried to make things as normal as they could for the returning students. Young said all the bars around the campus were open even before the other services were running in the spring.

“Students all came back a lot stronger because we had all been through the same thing, and we still party just as hard,” Cross said.

Despite receiving criticism about the appropriateness of hosting a Mardi Gras so soon after the disaster, New Orleans went ahead with the festival last February, which students said was the best one ever.

“There were less people, less tourists, at Mardi Gras, and it wasn’t as crowded as it usually was,” Abend said. “But the parades were great, it was a great time and it was pretty much the same as it always was.”

According to Young, there is now a public service requirement for incoming freshmen at the university, an action spawned by the huge community service efforts put forth by returning students in the spring hoping to expedite the city’s return to pre-hurricane condition.

“Community service was huge last semester, and I think it will continue this year and in years to come,” Young said.

Although it was hard for the students to be moved to different schools for the semester, the transfers said they were exuberant to be back last semester and are even more excited to be back for the fall.

“The students here are very optimistic for the future, especially since we were able to bounce back earlier than other parts of the city,” Cross said.

While happy to be back at Tulane, the transfers all agreed they would miss the Maryland basketball and football games.

“I love the Terrapins. I love the school spirit there,” Cross said.

Wiener said he would also miss the school spirit at the university, something he feels Tulane lacks in some respects because it is a small private school.

“I used to see college movies on TV and wonder, ‘Am I missing out on real college, on the big state school experience?'” Wiener said. “Going to the games was really awesome; it was awesome being unified for a Saturday morning football game, but it also made me appreciate and miss Tulane that much more.”

While the students were grateful to this university for hosting them for the semester, they were relieved and overjoyed to return to the campus they call home.

“I had an all right time at Maryland. I made an attempt to hang out and have a good time,” Abend said. “It was just hard being thrown in a new place, and although it was uncomfortable, I made the best of it.”

“Maryland is a great school,” Young added. “I am thankful that they could help me, but the whole time I was there, the only thing I could think about was how much I wanted to get back to Tulane.”

Contact reporter Kelly Whittaker at whittakerdbk@gmail.com.