Dear UMPI Community,
As we close the day, September 11, 2024, it is only appropriate that we reflect upon the events of 23 years ago that impacted so many lives, some immediately on that day, but so many more over the months and years that were to follow. On September 11, 2001, I was doing what a number of faculty and staff who are still here at UMPI, these many years later, were doing that very day—teaching class, at work in our offices and around campus, and otherwise doing the things we would normally do on a bright and clear September morning. Those of us who are old enough to remember the initial reports of the strikes on the Twin Towers, and the confusion and disbelief that came in response to those reports, can likely recall very specific details: who we were talking to, what we were doing, how those around us first knew of what was to become a day that would see the loss of 2,753 lives, and also leave lasting impacts on those who survived, those who provided succor and assistance, and those who strove to make sense of the events themselves.
These events persist in our collective and, for those who are old enough, our individual memories, as do the responses which followed. We witnessed a national and global response to the terrorist acts on an unprecedented level, as individuals and organizations and nations across the world all acted to provide sympathy and support to the families of the victims of 9-11 and worked toward ways to address and heal not only the pain experienced directly by the acts, but by people all around the world. To this day, the first responders and emergency staff and those who labored for weeks and months to repair and heal both physical lives and emotional pain as well as remove countless tons of debris from Ground Zero and, in time, erect monuments and remembrances vital to our own collective memory and recovery– to this day, many of those individuals still suffer from the events of that day and the toxins and poisoned land in which they labored to help a nation heal.
Indeed, higher education itself changed on that day. No one, not a teacher or student or staff member at any institution, whether it be a large state university or a small private college, whether it be situated in a metropolitan area or in a rural county, could any longer imagine themselves to be insulated from the devastating impact of a larger world. We realized, as I myself would write in a published paper sometime later, that “only through a new way of thinking about our relationship with the rest of the world– and a new way of thinking about the world– can we hope to avoid repeating a tragedy like that of September 11, 2001.” This means condemning all acts of terrorism that lead to or promulgate violence. But it also means listening to and valuing people unlike ourselves; embracing diversity and inclusion; respecting all members of our communities, in all of their differences. And it means hearing and valuing those differences, and ensuring that the resultant dialogue will make us a stronger university, a strong community, and a stronger nation.
That need is as timely and vital today as it was in the years after 9-11.
May we continue such efforts today and every day and help make this a better world for each one of us.
