When all was said and done, the future of Tulane University had been hashed out in a Houston hotel room.
After Hurricane Katrina pushed through New Orleans in late August, Tulane's top brass joined the parade of bumper-to-bumper cars that headed for Texas.
Tulane's hospital and two-thirds of its campus were now under water. More than 12,000 students were dispersed throughout the country.
Amid thoughts of lost family members and wrecked homes, administrators knew they had to start from scratch.
So, how do you begin to rebuild a university? Tulane administrators started with the bedrock basics.
During their first meeting, President Scott Cowen went around the conference room table and hugged each member of his skeleton team.
"We had to look at making some very hard decisions," recalls James MacLaren, associate provost and a member of the select group that set out to Camp Houston.
Strecker remembers the uncertain period well.
"We were just thinking, what can we salvage-how can we right this ship?" he says. "Whatever had to be done, we did."
The process was a day-to-day, elbow-to-elbow effort. Every morning, the group would write down three objectives. Basic things, like getting mail, establishing web connections and making payroll.
"A lot of things were done with pen and paper, because that's all we had," Strecker remembers. "Titles were out the window."
Every night, the group would regroup as pieces of an immense puzzle gradually came together again.
Administrators decided to refocus attention and resources on what they believed to be Tulane's strongest area. "The undergraduate enterprise," explains MacLaren.
In the wake of Katrina, Newcomb women's college and Tulane men's college combined, six of the campus' eight engineering programs were cut, a number of faculty were fired. An entire hospital staff was uprooted and replanted in Texas, while athletic teams faced the ax.
The faces of Tulane were the faces of New Orleans, and MacLaren is quick to note that Tulane will rise from the Bayou a more student-centric place.
Things seem like they're getting back to the way they once were-thanks to the efforts of a core group of architects who made a hotel room their headquarters.
"I'm looking out the window and it looks like a normal college scene now," Strecker says. "It's a long road, but I think we're going to come back."
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