University community reacts, evolves in reponse to Sept 11th

Everyone was on campus. By Monday, September 10, 2001 all returning undergraduates had joined the newly oriented class of 2005. And on Tuesday, September 11, they had planned to unpack, buy textbooks and get settled in after a summer away from Princeton.

On Thursday the 13th, the University's administrators decided that classes should begin as planned. Two days before, roughly 3000 people had died in attacks on the World Trade Center, but those administrators did not want to give the terrorists the satisfaction of disrupting daily life at the University.

An already full calendar of advising meetings, open houses and social events was expanded to include prayer vigils and counseling sessions. A University-wide prayer service the Sunday after the attacks was billed as a search for "peace and understanding." President Tilghman stressed the need to avoid lashing out at Muslim and Arab Americans. She expressed regret that the prayer vigil had to take place on Cannon Green, a place named for an instrument of war.

The administration's dogged determination to continue planned activities without delay drew criticism from some students. Many who grew up in New York were touched personally with anxiety or grief after the event. As classes began, professors and students alike found it difficult to focus on academic work. Some found their textbooks less relevant in the face of human tragedy, while others turned to study as a way to escape the emotional and psychological burdens of current events.

The anthrax-laced letters that were sent to Washington and New York later in the fall were postmarked in Trenton, a 20-minute drive from the University campus. The national wave of scares over suspicious white powders was particularly acute at Princeton, as residents speculated that the person or group sending the letters might be based nearby. A hazardous materials team removed suspicious powder from a keyboard in the Frist Campus Center. The powder eventually tested negative for anthrax, but the University came under fire for its handling of the matter. While waiting for the test results, health officials initially failed to warn students to be on the lookout for the flu-like symptoms that accompany anthrax infection. Outside medical experts worried that if the powder were anthrax, infections could progress to an untreatable stage before definitive test results were available.

Several campus safety measures were revamped over the course of the year. Dormitory evacuation plans were revised and updated, and now include plans for the temporary sheltering of students in Dillon Gym if dorm buildings become uninhabitable.

Over time, both students and professors redirected their usual activities. Student activists split into two camps: the Princeton Peace Network, which opposed the use of American military force in response to the attacks, and the Princeton Committee Against Terrorism, which favored using armed forces to hunt down terrorists overseas. A visiting professor of engineering offered a lecture explaining how the twin towers came to collapse. Faculty in the Woodrow Wilson School devoted themselves to a seemingly endless series of forum discussions, tirelessly analyzing and explaining the various strategies being considered and adopted in the fight against terrorism. Members of the campus community were often critical of the coverage America's response to terrorism received in the mainstream media, and did not hesitate to voice reservations about the government's policy in the months following the attack.

The Daily Princetonian recognized a trio of history professors for a series of impromptu discussions they organized after the attacks. The discussions, and others like them, combined the normal collegiate struggle for theoretical understanding with a more personal need to digest the human side of the events.

Increased numbers of students enrolled in classes about the Middle East, international relations and security policy. Several spring courses, such as a seminar about media coverage of the war on terror, were organized specifically in response to the event.

And as students return to campus this September, they will see a memorial to the event that happened one year before. Town and gown have used gardening — a symbol of growth and new life — as a way of celebrating those who died in the World Trade Center attacks. The Garden Club of Princeton planted close to 7,000 yellow daffodils on the Princeton battlefield, one for each life lost in the attacks. The University recently announced plans for its own memorial garden, to be located on campus.