UNO is intact and making a consistent comeback, while the neighborhoods around the university are still blighted and experiencing a slower comeback than anticipated. It’s sinking in slowly that the recovery of New Orleans is taking much longer than we all thought just a year ago. While UNO is physically in great shape, the university is still struggling due to a slower return of students than projected. 17,000+ students that attended UNO prior to Katrina, while 11,700 students are currently enrolled. The university thereformake painful financial adjustments.

Center Austria’s programs are showing an encouraging comeback. In August 19 students from the University of Innsbruck enrolled at UNO. 6 new students will join us for the spring semester. We will welcome them with a crawfish boil. For the year we are thus matching the 2/3 post-Katrina enrollment of the university.Given the university’s new focus on recruitment of international students, the enrollment of University of Innsbruck
students continues to be a model for international recruitment at UNO. This is only possible as a result of both the strong “word-of-mouth marketing” through alumni/ae in Innsbruck and the exceptional service that Austria staffing, advising , and “mothering” of Innsbruck students while at UNO. We have demonstrated that international recruitment can only be successful with this type of individual mentoring of students, which makes them feel comfortable and at home on campus.

Christian Carlson is teaching German as this year’s “Fulbright” lecturer – we are proud that UNO hosts the only Fulbrighter this year in a New Orleans area university. Martin Heintel, a geographer from the University of Vienna, is teaching regional studies as this year’s Marshall Plan Chair. We are very grateful to all our Austrian visitors for the confidence they have shown in the resilience of our university and the city in the
post-Katrina environment. They have displayed the same sense of adventure and grit that New Orleanians are demonstrated every day in the reconstruction of their beloved city. We are confident that they have not regretted coming here to observe disaster recovery and rebirth in action. We thanked them with a festive Christmas Party. CA’s other programs have continued without interruption. Our “Academic Year Abroad” program in Innsbruck has made it through Katrina and beyond. The hard work of our resident director Margaret Davidson and the financial post-Katrina support of benefactors such as the ERP-Fonds of Vienna, the City of Innsbruck, as well as the Länder Tirol, Vorarlberg and Südtirol, was crucial in keeping this program going. The University of Graz has generously accepted 4 UNO “Katrina” students during the fall term of 2006 free of charge. We would like to thank Roberta Maierhofer and Doris Knasar for making this possible.

Volume XV of Contemporary Austrian Studies was just published and a new series Transatlantica launched with the StudienVerlag in Innsbruck. Two Innsbruck artists were displaying their fine art at UNO’s Fine Arts gallery this October. We had a highly successful “Satchmo Meets Amadeus” symposium with spectacular concerts and the photo exhibit of Michel P. Smith pictures “Before the Storm” in early October at the Salzburg State Museum. We would like to thank Reinhold Wagnleitner of the University of Salzburg and WolfgangPillinger of the Mozarteum for their hard work in putting these events together. It sent a strong message about New Orleans’s exceptional position as a music capital of the world to the many visitors present.

We are blessed with devoted friends, colleagues and partners in Austria. We would like to thank them all for their outstanding support and faith in our city and university. Happy Holidays! May 2007 encourage us to believe in a brighter future as the sad memories of Katrina slowly slip into the past.

Sincerely Yours,
Guenter Bischof

Reinhold Wagnleitner (Ed.), Satchmo Meets Amadeus (Innsbruck, Wien, Bozen: Studienverlag, 2006)

The essays were written by renowned experts in the history of European and American music, African American culture, international cultural encounters, the political, economic, and cultural histories of New Orleans, Salzburg and Vienna, the political exploitation of music during the eras of National Socialism and the Cold War, and the economic utilization of art by music and tourism industries. All authors  present their theses at the conference, "Satchmo Meets Amadeus", which took place in Salzburg, Austria this past fall.

Austrian students and Center Austria staff  came together for a group photo as the Fall 2006 semester draws to a close.

Austrian visitors enjoy turkey, sweet potatoes, mirliton and pecan pie on the Bischof porch in Larose. On left side from front to back: Christian Carlsen (Fulbright lecturer in German), Martin Frick (Political science student and Center Austria fellow), Guenter Bischof and wife Melanie Boulet. On right side from front to back: Martin Heintel (Austrian Marshall Plan Chair 2006-7) and partner Helga, Anna Brzezinska and Michael Leitner (LSU Geography Department).

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UNO student Joy Clark (above) is spending a free post-Katrina semester at the University of Graz. She is enjoying the sights of her new home town.  Center Austria sends best wishes!

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Thoughts and Observations by an “Outsider” by Marion Wieser From October 14th till October 29th, I visited New Orleans and my host mom Diane from the 2003 Austria Student Program. Back then, Diane made me feel at home in her house instantly, her hospitality and kindness made me really feel welcomed and we stayed in contact ever since. So, when coming to the US in July 2006, I already planned to visit her in New Orleans. I knew from her e-mails and from TV and internet that her house in Gentilly was flooded and severely damaged when the levees broke on August 29th, 2006. The water in Diane’s neighbourhood stood seven feet high.

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Mike Smith's  Foto Exhibit "Vor dem Sturm-The Soul of New Orleans will be on diplay at Salzburg's Museum Carolino Augusteum until the end of December, 2006. The exhibit's opening was part of the Satchmo Meets Amadeus Conference.

From left: Simon Ringler, Claudio L’Altrella, Werner Gander

Three students from the South Tirol and Graduates of Civil Engineering of LFU Innsbruck recently finished their Master of Science degrees from the College of Engineering at UNO.

All three worked with Prof. Emeritus Marty Tittlebaum in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. They finished their course work before Katrina and returned to the city to defend their theses recently and finished their studies.

Center Austria congratulates them!

Works by Jerry Sieg, Professor of Music at UNO and long term faculty member of the UNO Summer School, along with his UNO composition class, will be performed in this concert  at the Innsbruck Conservatory on November 6, 2006.