Miami, FL: Barry University, just on the outskirts of Miami, will play host to a new class this semester: 320 medical students from Grenada, whose campus is being used as relief center for the devastated island nation. The second-year med students from St. George's University had their educations abruptly halted Sept. 7, when Hurricane Ivan blew through as a Category 4 storm. On Wednesday, the students attended class for the first time in three weeks inside Thompson Hall, the university's just vacated former student center. ''We've just picked up right where we left off,'' said Jeff Johnston, associate dean of curriculum for St. George's. ``Our goal is to provide the same quality of education up here, even though we don't have the same facilities as we would have had in Grenada.'' The accommodations are certainly not elegant. As many as 150 students were clustered Wednesday afternoon in groups of 10 or 12 around rectangular tables in a blandly institutional former dining hall, peering at slides of diseased cells on laptop computers and straining to hear St. George's professors over the maddening murmur that filled the room. But no one complained. ''We're in our fourth term, as second-year medical students,'' said student Olivier de Raet of Belgium by way of Potomac, Md. ``If we don't finish the term by Christmas, it would mean we would not be able to take our medical boards next summer. By not finishing the semester, we'd have to postpone our [third-year clinical rotations] in the United States and postpone our graduations a whole year.'' Within a week of Ivan's strike, St. George's chancellor Charles Modica -- who happens to be vice chairman of Barry's board of trustees -- approached Barry about borrowing a campus site. ''Thank God we had Thompson Hall available, as we've just completed our new Student Union,'' said Sister Peggy Albert, Barry's executive vice president and chair of the task force handling the St. George's arrangements. ``We had all that space upstairs in our old cafeteria, and so we turned it into a huge lecture hall.'' When Ivan struck Grenada, its winds clocked at more than 130 mph, the relatively new campus sustained only minor damage -- some broken windows and lots of dislodged roof tiles. Students and university staff expected classes to resume within days. 'At first they said, `By Monday, we'll resume classes,' '' recalled de Raet, a member of the St. George's student government who served on its relocation task force. 'A lot of people started saying, `What are you talking about? This island is completely destroyed.' '' The storm destroyed the residences of many students, faculty and staff who lived off-campus. Furthermore, the campus -- because it was largely intact -- became a staging area for relief efforts directed to other parts of the devastated island. Relief and reconstruction personnel were even placed in residence halls. ''During that time, we didn't know where we would study, so we were pretty anxious,'' said Clarisse Glen of Toronto, who anticipates a career in gastroenterology or nephrology. ``That period was pretty unsettling.'' Barry University is one of several alternate teaching venues arranged by St. George's administrators: First-year medical students were sent to classrooms on Long Island. Veterinary students are now attending classes at North Carolina State, Purdue and Kansas State universities. Twenty more St. George's master's in public health students will arrive next week. Most of Barry's contributions are in-kind, such as campus space, Albert said. No Barry professors are teaching St. George's students. The school sent its own staff. Three local hotels are providing rooms for students and faculty who can't find lodging through friends or family in South Florida. This isn't the first time St. George's has had to relocate students. A bloody 1983 coup that left Grenadian Prime Minister Maurice Bishop and three cabinet members dead triggered a U.S. invasion intended to rescue as many as 1,000 American medical students -- at St. George's. The campus closed for about three months, and classes were moved to Long Island, New Jersey and Barbados. Although St. George's medical students represent some 80 nations, about 80 percent are from the United States. For them, the transition back to the States was not so striking -- although it did have some benefits. SOURCE: CARIBUPDATE.COM