During its August 28-30 visit to New Orleans, AAUP’s Special Committee on Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans met with a group of Louisiana conference and chapter leaders on the evening of August 29.  Their successive accounts could not have been more timely.  They provided the special committee, which was to meet the next morning with top officials in public higher education, a cumulative impact regarding what the city’s faculty have had to endure. Participants in the discussions with the Special Committee on August 30, arranged through the good offices of Commissioner of Higher Education Savoie, included Chancellors Hollier of the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, Ryan of the University of New Orleans, and Ukpolo of Southern University at New Orleans.  Present with them were various regents-level, system-level, and campus-level officials.  There was general agreement that the discussions had produced a fuller understanding of respective viewpoints, that no public statements would be made at the juncture, and that informal communications should continue as the Special Committee proceeds with the preparation of its report.  The committee has invited the presidents of New Orleans private universities to engage in similar discussions.