Photo courtesy: flickr.com (Ann Althouse)
This Friday, if you ask UT students where they were exactly eight years ago, most, if not all, will be able to tell you. The events of Sept. 11, 2001 terrorized America and shocked citizens around the world. Years later, memories of that day are still fresh in the minds of most, including UT students and faculty.
While some Spartans told their tales of that day, others considered how the events changed them entirely.
Current UT students were in an entirely different place eight years ago, long from making the decision about where to attend college.
Some sat at small desks in their elementary classrooms while others walked the hallways of middle and high schools.
Most didn’t understand the word “terrorism.” Many were misinformed about what happened. Others were shielded from the frightening news.
JD Draga, a junior from North Carolina, was in the sixth grade when the attacks took place. “I remember being scared to death,” he said, recalling how his class was brought to the school cafeteria and kept uninformed about the events.
“I could tell the teachers were scared,” Draga said. “I thought it was a joke, some mass prank. It was scary; you always feel so protected, in a little bubble. My parents didn’t know what to do; I thought, ‘What am I supposed to do?’”
Samantha Sendlewski, a senior from Pennsylvania, said her school also kept her and her peers away from the news.
“I was in my history class, and there was an announcement that we weren’t allowed to watch TV,” she said. “I’m almost thankful I didn’t know what was going on because it was such an emotional thing.”
Brendan Milliken, a sophomore from Virginia, was in the fifth grade that year.
“We heard loud planes overhead making emergency landings,” he said. “We thought all hell was breaking loose.” Milliken remembered how his school tried to keep quiet what had happened; he didn’t find out what went wrong until 2 p.m.
Some students found out about the events when they weren’t supposed to.
Meg Walsh, a junior from Long Island, said a peer walked into the teachers’ lounge of her school that day and found out what was happening from the TV.
“That’s how the whole school found out,” she said. “I thought [of the attack], ‘What idiot did that?’ I had no concept of what everything meant. People were pulled out of school, and some didn’t come back because they had parents who worked in the World Trade Center.”
One UT junior from Puerto Rico said he wasn’t shielded from the news.
“I was in my high school science class,” said Jamie “H” Gordon. “Someone came up to my teacher and told her the news, and her eyes became wide open. Our teacher then told everyone to calm down because they were about to give us some bad news. Then they turned on the TV.”
Gordon said that for months afterward, the National Guard followed the police in Puerto Rico wherever they patrolled.
“It was a defensive approach,” Gordon said. “But we were all treated like terrorists. People were investigated.”
Another UT junior was in the seventh grade during the attacks. “I thought what happened was an accident,” said Matt Z., a Long Island native.
He added that afterwards he felt a lot of negative feelings towards outsiders, but after realizing what happened, he learned to be more open-minded.
Milliken also believes the events of 9/11 changed him. “I’m in the ROTC Navy, and I feel an obligation to serve my country and keep things from happening again,” he said.
Though current UT students were not on campus the year of the attacks, a few professors still at the university were.
Most remember not just where they were, but also the affect the event had on the entire campus atmosphere.
Dr. David Isele, professor of music, said he had an early morning theory class and was walking down the hall when Susan Taylor Lennon approached him, asking if he had heard about the tragedy in New York. He hadn’t.
“We dragged a TV into Room 115, and we saw it,” he said. “We couldn’t even talk. They just kept replaying it, and each time it got more horrible. I tried to teach and couldn’t. It was a bleak morning, too, and the whole department had an uncanny calm. A mysterious, ominous calm.”
Dr. Andy Solomon, professor of English and writing, said the first thing he felt was shock and disbelief.
Solomon recalls students’ fear in his 11 a.m. class that morning. “Am I safe? Can this happen here now?” his students wanted to know.
Solomon said student reactions ranged from fear and insecurity to rage.
“It took days to weeks before the fear was appreciably gone,” he said.
Dr. William McReynolds, professor of psychology, was at home watching TV and saw the first tower smoking.
At first he thought to himself, “What kind of freakish accident was that?”
After watching the second plane hit and realizing what happened, McReynolds called president Vaughn and told him that UT needed to set up a crisis center.
Though stunned and in disbelief over the situation, McReynolds managed to organize a crisis center in Fletcher Lounge.
Students were quickly provided with counseling and access to phones to make long-distance calls.
“I still have some disbelief and good deal of world sorrow,” he said. “I feel sorrow and sadness at the state of the world.”
Dr. Jeffrey Klepfer, assistant professor of psychology, said there was “an incredible amount of shock.”
He remembered how concerned the faculty was and how quickly they mobilized to help students.
“It’s still a very mourning time of the year,” he said, adding that it is also an uplifting time. “It represented a time when the country moved together” and, in the midst of grief and trauma, good was present.
Charlie Hambos and Mel Steiner also contributed reporting to this article.
