{"id":9520,"date":"2021-09-01T12:00:14","date_gmt":"2021-09-01T16:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/2021\/09\/10\/remembrance-reflection-renewal-furman-remembers-9-11\/"},"modified":"2022-11-06T18:15:22","modified_gmt":"2022-11-06T23:15:22","slug":"remembrance-reflection-renewal-furman-remembers-9-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/remembrance-reflection-renewal-furman-remembers-9-11\/","title":{"rendered":"Remembrance, reflection, renewal: Furman remembers 9\/11"},"content":{"rendered":"

Twenty years ago, Furman\u2019s Class of 2005 was beginning its first day of class. The day was warm but cloudy, far from the brilliant, clear skies over New York City, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, that morning. The date was Sept. 11, 2001.<\/p>\n

The Furman community\u2019s response to 9\/11 was immediate. A memorial service welcomed hundreds of students, faculty and staff on Sept. 12 at Daniel Memorial Chapel. Students posted prayers and messages in the area between Furman and Plyler halls, and Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia presented a concert to benefit the Red Cross. Safety concerns forced the cancellation of study away programs for winter term and delayed the return of participants in the England program for more than a week.<\/p>\n

The tragedy continued to echo through the years. Members of the Furman family shared their stories, fears and hopes in a host of publications. In the summer of 2011, Furman magazine published a feature collecting remembrances and reflections from the past decade. Some of those are excerpted below, along with other Furman voices from the last two decades.<\/p>\n

A more permanent memorial now exists outside Furman Hall. The words of students \u2013 memories of that day and hopes for the future \u2013 are etched into two slabs of stone flanking a walkway. The monument was the senior gift of the Class of 2005<\/a><\/strong>, in memory of their first day of class on a warm fall morning 20 years ago.<\/p>\n

Read President Elizabeth Davis’s message reflecting on the 20th anniversary of 9\/11.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u2018She wandered onto the street like a ghost\u2019<\/a><\/h3>\n
\"Jack

Jack Sullivan \u201969<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cBy the afternoon, hundreds of people were streaming up the avenues from downtown, like panicked refugees,\u201d wrote Jack Sullivan \u201969 in Furman Magazine in 2011. \u201cI stood helplessly on the street with my neighbor. He looked ashen; he had been waiting all day for his wife to come home. She worked in the Towers, and since cellphones were out downtown, he didn\u2019t know if she was dead or alive. Eventually she wandered onto the street like a ghost.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Checks \u2013 and balances<\/a><\/h3>\n
\"Maya

Maya Pai \u201902<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cI thought my tribulations were over as I boarded the plane,\u201d remembered Maya Pai \u201902 of her Thanksgiving 2001 trip home, \u201calthough I was surprised that I hadn\u2019t been \u2018randomly selected\u2019 [for searching] again. But just as I reached my seat, an attendant said, \u2018Ms. Pai, you need to deplane immediately.\u2019 To my mortification, he escorted me off the plane.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u2018We must rally the world\u2019<\/a><\/h3>\n
\"Madeleine

Madeleine Albright and Richard Riley \u201954<\/p><\/div>\n

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was the star attraction of \u201cNational Security in a New Age,\u201d the first national conference sponsored by the Richard W. Riley Institute, held March 12, 2002.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are only at the beginning of what will be a long and perhaps permanent struggle against the forces of destruction,\u201d she said. \u201cIn the months ahead, we must employ every means available, every tool of politics and policy, to rally the world and defeat the devil\u2019s marriage between technology and terror.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u2018Shadow figures\u2019<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\"\"

Mark Kilstofte<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cI had just emerged from teaching my first 16th-century counterpoint class, which in those days met at 7:30 a.m., when the news hit. As a result, the image ever-imposed before my mind\u2019s eye as I worked on \u2018Sentinels\u2019 was that of two towering, isolated individuals \u2013 shadow figures in some tragic sense \u2014 invoked by the terrible events of 9\/11,\u201d said Mark Kilstofte, composer-in-residence and music professor at Furman. \u201cSentinels,\u201d<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0a work for two trumpets, was commissioned by Laurel Whisler, who had been a librarian in the Maxwell Music Library. It premiered in Daniel Recital Hall on April 18, 2002.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A healing message<\/a><\/h3>\n
\"Werner

Werner Kratschell<\/p><\/div>\n

Werner Kratschell, a prominent Lutheran minister from Germany, brought his message of peace and reconciliation to Furman at the opening convocation of the 2002-2003 academic year \u2013 held on Sept. 11.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we ask \u2026 how we as individuals and as a community of mankind can continue,\u201d he said, \u201cthe answer must include the installation of doors \u2013 doors for the development of new values and norms through which the power of God\u2019s word can enter our world to help, heal and reconcile.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A \u2018flashbulb\u2019 date<\/a><\/h3>\n
\"Sarah

Sarah Worth \u201992<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cTen years later, I teach in the same Furman Hall classrooms that I did that infamous day, and my world has changed, but my students have changed, too,\u201d said Sarah Worth \u201992, professor of philosophy. \u201cAlthough 9\/11 is one of those \u2018flashbulb\u2019 dates \u2013 people remember clearly where they were when they learned about the attacks \u2013 most members of the 2011 freshman class were born in 1998 and were only 8 when the planes crashed. They do not remember the New York City skyline with the Twin Towers, and they do not remember clearly what America was like before the attack.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u2018The next right thing\u2019<\/a><\/h3>\n
\"Amy

Amy Buttell \u201983<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t know or imagine the pain suffered by the loved ones of those who were killed. I also don\u2019t know what it\u2019s like to lose a family member in combat. But in my own universe, I\u2019ve experienced painful issues that can\u2019t be easily, quickly or inexpensively resolved,\u201d said Amy Buttell \u201983 in the summer 2011 Furman magazine. \u201cAll I can do within my private universe is try to do the next right thing, to act with integrity and make the most of each moment. If we can do that as a society, that\u2019s about all we can do as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u2018History makes a nation\u2019<\/a><\/h3>\n
\"Savita

Savita Nair, professor of history<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cI suggest we are well served to remember what historians know: history makes a nation,\u201d Savita Nair, professor of history, wrote in the Greenville News on Sept. 11, 2016. \u201cWe create that history in the present and have the possibility \u2026 to not repeat the mistakes of the past. What nation do we seek to make? We can begin by recognizing that the events being remembered today are not unique to this country. It is responsible to recall that many countries memorialize events all year long that are tragic and meaningful, and part of their history-making and nation-making.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u2018Stories engraved on the stones\u2019<\/a><\/h3>\n
\"9-11

A 9\/11 memorial now sits outside Furman Hall.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cJust as the Vietnam War Memorial helped me connect to a part of my father\u2019s life, I hope the 9\/11 Memorial at Furman will help others connect to a piece of our past,\u201d wrote Anna Martin Winter \u201905 on the 10th anniversary of 9\/11. \u201cPerhaps their fingers can trace over the stories engraved on the stones and allow them to better understand what the experience was like for us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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