TO THE EDITOR:
I am writing to express my displeasure with the way in which our campus remembered Sept. 11. As a New Yorker, the attacks hit incredibly close to home. The anger and fear I felt in their aftermath still reside within me.
After a year of trying to move past these feelings, I was hoping to acquire a sense of closure by participating in the University's planned events. Instead, some of that anger was simply redirected towards the University.
By holding the convocation at noon with classes still in session, the event was belittled. Because I had to run to a 1 p.m. class, I did not have the opportunity to place a stone in the spiral of life, a task which Chancellor James Moeser asked for us "all" to do. Furthermore, a number of my closest friends could not attend the ceremony because they were in class.
Classes should have either been canceled or an optional attendance policy put in place. To further irritate me, not one of my professors acknowledged the anniversary of the attacks. A simple sentence or two would have been sufficient. Regardless of how valuable such professors might view their class time, a simple acknowledgement as a sign of respect would have been appropriate.
I did not expect everyone to stop their lives to remember, but I felt a bigger effort should have been made by the University as a whole to reach out to those still in need of comfort. In the case of classes that conflicted with the convocation, making class attendance optional or canceling them would have been a highly appropriate measure to take. Additionally, faculty members should have been asked to foster an environment of understanding.
Tom Kingsley
Sophomore
Dramatic Art
