From Andrew McCloskey ’15:
The Brothers of Delta Kappa Epsilon and the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life are cosponsoring an Interfaith Worship Service and September 11th Memorial on Sunday, 9/16 at 2 PM in Memorial Chapel. Reception to follow at DKE.
Date: Sunday, September 16th
Time: 2 pm
Place: Memorial Chapel/DKE
“What can we do as a community in this time of crisis and uncertainty? The most important thing, perhaps, will be to learn from each other.” —President Bennet
Here’s what the Argus looked like the week of September 11, 2001—shocked, singularly focused, teeming with questions and grief. The bold header is striking and clear: “UNIVERSITY STUNNED BY ATTACKS.”
There was the candlelight vigil outside North College Tuesday night, where President Douglas Bennet ’59 spoke (“We are together as a community because we need to sustain each other in a time of loss,” he said) and Dean Mike Whaley opened up the microphone to any student who wished to speak. There was the afternoon forum on Wednesday, featuring words by Professor Khachig Tölölyan among other faculty. There were the “where I was when I heard” anecdotes, the firsthand accounts by alumni survivors, the blood drives, the faculty panel. One article sought to summarize how other colleges were adjusting their schedules—especially those with campuses in New York. At Wesleyan, classes moved forward, with extreme flexibility. “Holding classes will provide us all with an opportunity to gather in small groups,” wrote the University’s administration, “and is preferable to the alternative of our students remaining isolated.”
President Bennet wrote a Wespeak. “We have an unusual opportunity to see past stereotypes, identify and diminish our own prejudices, and experience a complex world through the sensitivities of others,” Bennet urged.
From Mansoor Alam ’15:
Come join us tonight for an informal discussion and conversation on 9/11. To remember the victims both here and abroad, regardless of race and creed, to discuss what has happened in the years following, and to honor our responsibility of pledging to move forward in the direction of peace and justice. Hosted by the MSA, tea and coffee will be served.
Date: Tonight, 9/11
Time: 9PMPlace: Library, Office of Religious and Spiritual Life (ORSL)
Thought it would be cool to break up the event posts (trust me: there’s more comin’), so here – stop doing homework and enjoy some assorted internet treasures :
Don’t forget: if you want to take the stick shift to this post’s automatic transmission, you can use the filters at the top of the page to change the Wesleying stream from the default (everything) to just events or events we forgot to properly categorize assorted features with the events filtered out.
It’s that time of year again: weighing the cultural significance and long-term effects of September 11th. Newsweek published a feature about how 9/11 affected several members of our generation, including Jared Radin ’12:
The events of 9/11 destroyed a sense of security for this cohort of children. Born as the Cold War ended, they grew up in a decade that saw massive economic growth, the dawning of the World Wide Web and a culture riddled with cynicism. Members of the “millennial” generation—born between 1982 and about 2004—they tend to be sheltered, close to their parents, and confident […]
The attacks brought terror to their doorsteps: “9/11 was the beginning of a new fear in America about chaos and uncontrolled disorder in the world,” says Howe. […] They got caught up in a collective sense of national dread: what next? And that was a question nobody, not even the highest officials in the country, could answer. Now, as the United States marks the eighth anniversary of 9/11, these children are turning 18 and entering adulthood, and they offer a unique glimpse into the mindset of a group of Americans coming of age under the shadow of terrorism.
[…] Jared Radin‘s uncle Paul Friedman died on American Airlines Flight 11. Soon thereafter, Radin lost the political enthusiasm he had begun to develop during the 2000 election. September 11 “made me a little hopeless and apathetic and cynical about world affairs,” he says. Radin, now a sophomore at Wesleyan University and reinvigorated by current events, remembers entering what he calls an “insular period,” without much care for what was going on; life felt grim.
Newsweek: Generation 9/11
