The failures of Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts began long before the chance that a Category Four or Five hurricane would strike New Orleans. They continued with an inadequate evacuation plan and culminated in a relief program hampered by lack of planning, supplies and manpower and a breakdown in communications.

In an effort to understand some of the complex societal issues that surfaced with Hurricane Katrina, the faculty leadership of the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity (CSRE) has organized a class entitled “Confronting Katrina — Race, Class, and Disaster in American Society.” According to the course syllabus, the goal of this class is to explore matters of race and class disadvantage that were laid bare by the hurricane and its consequences.

“The idea for the ‘Confronting Katrina: Race, Class, and Disaster in America’ course grew out of our regular Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity leadership meeting,” said Sociology Prof. Larry Bobo. “The faculty involved, which includes Professors Al Camarillo, Hazel Markus, Paula Moya, Matt Snipp, Dorothy Steele and myself, believed that CCSRE is unusually well-equipped and indeed positively obligated to speak to the issues raised by events in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.”

This one-time only course provides one unit of credit and is open to undergraduate and graduate students. The class is taught by various faculty affiliated with CSRE; the first class took place Oct. 10 in Braun Hall. The panel was moderated by Sociology Prof. Matt Snipp with Bobo, History Prof. Al Camarillo and Political Science Prof. Luis Fraga speaking on various issues.

The course will be organized around four panel presentations scheduled for Monday evenings during the autumn quarter, featuring panelists from a wide variety of fields. The course is comprised of sessions taught by Stanford faculty and distinguished outside guests.

According to Bobo, the themes for each of the four sessions are as follows: (1) The Foundations of Neglect; (2) Media, Culture, and the Politics of Representation: Viewing a Racialized Disaster; (3) Organizations as the Solution and the Problem; and (4) Lessons from Katrina.

“For us it was not a question of whether to treat recent events as a learning opportunity,” Bobo said. “But what venue would provide the best platform for engaging our students, fellow faculty and staff and the larger community. We collectively brainstormed to design the course and immediately began the work of putting it together.”

Several students attending the lecture were taken aback by the wealth of information presented by the panelists.

“It was impressive to see how the three panelists amassed such a great amount of information in the limited time they had,” said sophomore Maribel Diaz, who is enrolled in the course. “I thought the graphs of the poverty concentration in New Orleans during Professor Larry Bobo’s lecture were striking. It really put things into perspective.”

The first session addressed some key foundations of the neglect seen in the wake of Katrina. Demographic, sociological, historical and political underpinnings of what was wrong were discussed. The class ended in a question-and-answer session during which audience members tried to gain a clearer view of what should be done in the future.

“We were delighted with Provost [John] Etchemendy’s almost instantaneous decision to provide support for staging the course and that Charlie Junkerman from Continuing Studies responded immediately with support as well,” Bobo said.

Confronting Katrina is co-sponsored by Stanford Continuing Studies, the Office of the Provost, the Program in African and African American Studies and the Institute for Research in the Social Sciences.

“As a resident of the Gulf Coast, I’ve experienced many tropical storms and floods, but never a natural disaster as severe as a hurricane,” said sophomore Olga Medina who is also enrolled in Confronting Katrina. “After witnessing the effects of Katrina from my hometown, I sympathized with the people of New Orleans, especially those who did not have a means to evacuate before the storm hit the area. I decided to enroll in the course, because it provides students with an opportunity to understand the role that the University community in general plays in response efforts.”