Tulane Student Begins Classes at UNTHSC
Chad Massey may have to miss the UNT Health Science Center’s White Coat and Convocation ceremony at the Will Rogers Auditorium on Sept. 23, but he hadn’t really planned on attending it anyway.
It was just a few days ago that he actually became a temporary health science center student, and it wasn’t until last night that he attended his first class. His classmates were having a test, but Massey will be able to make the test up. He’s a student from Tulane University’s School of Public Health, one of five current Tulane students enrolled on a temporary basis in the health science center’s School of Public Health.
“My wife and I had been in New Orleans about a month when we had to leave,” Massey said. “Orientation for classes was scheduled the Monday that Hurricane Katrina made landfall, and classes were scheduled to start on Thursday.”
Instead, Massey and his wife, Andrea, made their way to Center, Texas, where they took shelter from Hurricane Katrina with his wife’s parents. They left New Orleans on the Saturday at 7:30 p.m. before Katrina made landfall.
“My wife had worked all day and we were looking for a gap in the traffic,” Massey said. “The time we left turned out to be perfect.”
After staying in Center for about a week, the newlyweds, who were married in May, came to Colleyville. Massey’s wife was able to transfer to a Southlake location, and Massey himself was able to start his first semester at the UNT Health Science Center.
“We have turned out to be extremely lucky,” Massey said. “We’re not hurting, and there are so many people who are.”
When Tulane reopens, Massey and his wife plan to return to New Orleans and their neighborhood, since he will be studying Tropical Medicine, a specialty at Tulane that isn’t available at the health science center. Their house sustained no damage in the storm and the ensuing flood, but Massey had planned to return to New Orleans on Sept. 23, the day of UNT Health Science Center’s White Coat Ceremony, to retrieve his 3-foot long bald python.
“I’ve had him since he was a baby,” Massey said. “We took our three cats, but we left him because we knew he’d be okay for a while.”
A native of Okemah, Okla., Massey is familiar with the Dallas- Fort Worth metroplex, since, he graduated from the University of Texas at Dallas with a bachelor’s degree. But he was still amazed at how well things worked to get him back into college to pursue his dreams of working in a developing country on parasitology.
“Everybody’s been just fantastic,” he said. “I just want to thank everybody at the school, because everybody’s been so great.”