10 years later, Vassar remembers Sept. 11

There are few days that an entire nation can collectively recall. Over the course of the past 10 years, the date Sept. 11 has become synonymous with the 2001 terror attacks in New York, Washington D.C., and Shanksville, Pa. Each year, this date and what it signifies invokes memories of grief, fear and how these horrifying incidents brought out the best in certain individuals and communities. With Vassar less than 90 miles away from New York City, these events have left their particular mark on both students and faculty alike.

During the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, it is not uncommon for people to reminisce about where they were when reality as they then knew it was upended. In September 2001, Jillian Quint '04, a Philadelphia native, was just beginning her sophomore year at Vassar. Like many, her memories of that day were dominated by the confusion, and eventual shock inspired by the unfolding events.

As she recalled in an emailed statement, "I first heard that something was up from somebody at [the All Campus Dining Center]—after the first attack—but at that point it still seemed like an accident. By the time I got back to my dorm it was clearer that something bigger was happening. Phones weren't working. We heard rumors of a plane down in Pennsylvania and it was downright scary. For much of the day, we were all glued to the TV in the multi-purpose room and since a lot of kids had parents who worked in Manhattan, there was a great deal of panic."

Dean of Students D.B. Brown also remembers the particular hardships of that day. "We had something like 10 students whose parents worked in the World Trade Center," began Brown. "My memory is that all 10 of them survived, but some were missing for a while and they were found in hospitals and different places. So not only was the school traumatized, but we had some specifically traumatized students."

One student's mother in particular, as Brown later noted, was missing for over a week before she made herself known in one of the New York City area hospitals.

Dean of the College Chris Roellke was attending a meeting for educational outreach at the Collin's Field Station when he first heard a rumor of "fires" at the World Trade Center. A House Fellow in Raymond House at the time, he vividly recalls the immediacy with which the College responded to the emotional needs of the students, faculty and staff.

"The College quickly set up an information center in the Villard Room to serve as a resource for students, faculty and families," noted Roellke in an emailed statement. "I also recall an emergency faculty meeting in Rockefeller Hall, as there were questions about the College's ability to hold classes."

Televisions were set up in the Faculty Lounge, bringing students and staff uninterrupted news coverage of the events, while phones were placed in the Villard Room, allowing members of the Vassar community to contact loved ones and friends. Additionally, a counseling service was quickly mobilized, offering group therapy sessions as well as individual conferences. Acting in many ways as surrogate parents for those residing in their dorms, the House Fellows also played a key role in lending students emotional support. In 2001, Brown served as the faculty House Fellow for Lathrop House and noted the frequency with which he met with students in informal groups.

"Anyone could come and speak with us. A lot of students really just wanted to be with somebody," stated Brown.

In the following days and weeks, teach-ins and faculty discussion panels in the Villard Room helped shed an intellectual light on the motives behind the attacks. However, the outpouring of spiritual and emotional support continued. Candlelight vigils were staged outside of the Chapel, and flowers were left at the base of the great tree in the center of the Library lawn. Students and faculty would also steal away to the Peace Garden that lines the path from the College Center to the ACDC for a few moments of quiet contemplation.

From this tragedy rose a heightened sense of community that in many instances brought out the best in faculty and students alike. Just before the attacks, there was a number of students who were interested in creating a Muslim student alliance at Vassar, with the group's first meeting being planned for the week of the 11th. Yet in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 events, an Islam-phobic wave swept most of the United States, often resulting in unjust profiling among many in the American Muslim communities.

"These students were feeling very uncomfortable. It wasn't a very large group, but it was a new group, and they were really feeling vulnerable and kind of uneasy," noted Brown.

In light of this, the Jewish Student Union offered their support to the Muslim students by conjoining their meetings. As Brown stated, "They were making it clear that there is a ‘we' here, that there is a Vassar ‘we.'"

Although it has been 10 years since the attacks, students and faculty tried to recapture this sense of camaraderie, or an unbreakable "Vassar ‘we,'" over the weekend. They offered one another emotional and spiritual support through an evening candlelight vigil and various informal discussions. Just as their counterparts facilitated student conversation 10 years ago, Main House Fellows Sarita Gregory and Molly McGlennen hosted a campus-wide ice cream social in the Aula last Sunday with the intention of having students share their memories of Sept. 11. Before the discussion, students were invited to view the artwork of Khalilah Sabree, whose series of paintings entitled "Transcending the Veil of 9/11" has been displayed in the Aula since Aug. 31.

In the discussion, students and House Fellows shared their memories of that day.

"We wanted it to be a non-pressure conversation that would allow students to engage in a number of medians," noted McGlennen. "We just thought it would be an appropriate moment to bridge what was going on outside of the school with what was going on in the houses."

The Sept. 11 anniversary events also included a candlelight vigil sponsored by the Religion Department that evening, as well as a moment of silence in the Peace Garden on the morning of Sept. 12.

Although the events of Sept. 11, have forever etched themselves in the collective conscious of the entire nation, Vassar continues to move forward, sustaining bridges of communication between students and faculty, as well as preserving a sense of community within the College as a whole.