REMEMBERING 9/11/01
The Michigan Daily - Thursday, September 12, 2002 - 3A
Students' kind actions speak louder than words
By Erin Saylor
For the Daily
Students bustling through the Diag couldn't
help but notice the large board erected opposite
the Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library that said
"Together We Fall, United We Stand," listing
the names of the 2,801 people who lost their
lives in the terrorist attacks. Tacked over the
names to form an American flag were more
than 600 red, white and blue cards, each with a
random act of kindness written on the back.
The activity, organized by the Michigan
Student Assembly, offered students a way to
make something positive come of the
tragedies of last Sept. 11, asking passers-by if
they would like to participate in a "Random
Act of Kindness."
"There are plenty of memorials reflecting
on what happened last September, and we feel
that it's important to do something construc-
tive, something that looks toward the future
and rebuilds," Rabbi Alter Goldstein of the
Chabad House said.
"These cards give students an opportuni-
ty to do something kind on behalf of those
who died."
Ranging from slightly humorous to more
serious, each card suggested an act of kind-
ness such as "Give to a charity," "Visit the
sick," "Bring a good friend a flower" and
"Call your mother."
"You don't necessarily know the person
you're doing it for, but it means something to
someone," said Business senior Atichay
Chopra, president of the South Asian Interest
Fraternity.
MSA members said they were more than
pleased with the students' participation in the
event.
"We were hoping to have all 600 cards
gone by 6 p.m. today, and they were all gone
by 10!" LSA junior and co-director Jeff Nel-
son said.
"We've already been through 1,200 cards
and we still have hours to go."
"Students were reaching out to others and
appreciating being alive and together in
America," said sophomore Pete Woiwode,
communications chair for MSA.
With many events scheduled throughout the
day, students seemed enthusiastic to get
involved.
"It's a good link between the future and the
past," Kinesiology sophomore Sarah Trow-
bridge said.
"It's so easy to do, and you feel good about
it," LSA senior Erin Kopcki said,
"We want this to be an opportunity for peo-
ple to unite," said co-director and LSA senior
Margo Gannes.
Volunteers from over 30 organizations
including the Muslim Student Association, the
Black Student Union, the Panhellenic Associ-
ation and the Interfraternity Council, partici-
pated in the event.
"We wanted to do this event in a way that
would include every group," Gannes said.
A poster displayed at the event reading,
"Against Such Darkness, We Must Retaliate
With Light," reiterated Goldstein's words.
"The idea now is to spread positive energy
throughout the world, and I think people
walked away from here today feeling good,"
Goldstein said.
UANNY MULUHUI
Bouquets of flowers adorn the Diag, left in memoriam of the victims of the terrorist attacks. Nearby,
students invited passers-by to counter violence with random acts of kindness.
Still vigilant
Experts: Economy remains stable
after year of uncertainty and fear
By Ted Borden
and Shabina S. Khatri
Daily Staff Reporters
After surviving a year rife with ter-
rorist attacks, accounting scandals and
fluctuating stock prices, the American
economy may be stabilizing at last,
experts say.
Business School Prof. Richard
Sloan said he foresees no future down-
turn that could derail the potential
recovery of the economy.
"My own view is that markets are
likely to stay pretty flat, as I don't see a
catalyst on the horizon for a near term
recovery,"he said.
One unique factor that affected
the economy in 2002 was the reac-
tion following the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks.
Sloan said many industries were
negatively impacted by the after-
math of the World Trade Center
bombings, but the influence of
"The consumer is still the main pillar of
the economy."
- Donald Grimes
University Senior Research Associate
potential threats are still difficult to
quantify.
"They hurt consumer confidence
generally, they inhibited international
trade and expansion, and they hit cer-
tain industries like airlines and leisure
very hard," Sloan said.
"The (terrorist threats) are obvi-
ously so unpredictable as to when
and how they will occur. I think
Wall Street is taking a 'wait and
see' approach."
University Senior Research Associ-
ate Donald Grimes said the recent rash
of corporate corruption played a larger
role in the economic recession than
last year's tragedy.
He added he had no idea if more
scandals were waiting to unfold.
"It's pure guess work," he said.
Experts agree the key to a strong
recovery is consumer confidence.
"The consumer is still the main pil-
lar of the economy," Grimes said, not-
ing that consumer spending during the
recession never wavered and helped
the country avoid a more serious
downturn.
Sloan said he is worried that
"strong consumer spending has
been propped up by continual
reductions in (interest) rates over
the past two years."
"Now that rates have stopped
falling, an important catalyst for con-
tinued strength in consumer spending
has gone," he said.
But Grimes predicted "consumers
will continue to spend." He also
expects that increased government and
business spending will help bolster the
economy.
LSA junior Sharad Jain, an execu-
tive board member of the Michigan
Economic Society, said he's confident
the economy will recover.
"You're obviously going to feel the
aftereffects of something like (Sept. 11
and the accounting scandals) for a
while, but then things start to
improve," he said.
As for potential terrorist attacks that
may cause a double-dip recession, he
said, "I've heard about stuff in the last
two to three weeks that there were
threats from foreign countries, but I
wouldn't be worried."
JESSICA YURASEK/Daily
Ann Arbor police chief Daniel Oates addresses a crowd at last
night's candlelight vigil on the Diag.
Speakers address
terror's legacy in
memory of alum
University Musical Society
02/03 SEASON
By Stephanie Schonholz
Daily Staff Reporter
Family and friends from several
states across the continental U.S.
gathered with the University com-
munity yesterday in memory of
alum Josh Rosenthal, who lost his
life on the 94th floor of the World
Trade Center's South Tower one
year ago yesterday.
The lecture, titled "The Josh
Rosenthal Education Fund Lecture,"
was organized by Marilyn Rosen-
thal, Josh's mother, in memoriam of
her son.
It was presented in the Michigan
League Ballroom, in conjunction
with the Gerald R. Ford School of
Public Policy.
Rosenthal, a '79 graduate from
the University, was a senior vice
president at Fiduciary Trust Compa-
ny International and had a particu-
lar interest in public policy.
"Josh was a realist and an idealist
all rolled into one," Marilyn said.
"I think he would understand that
we have to balance now, in this new
world, the need for security and our
strong love of freedoms and democ-
racy. It's going to be a tough chal-
lenge, but we have to find a way to
bring those two things together."
After losing her son in last year's
attacks, Marilyn said she found an
answer to the haunting question of
where Americans and the world
should go from this point.
"Those people who attacked the
World Trade Center exploited us,
but we have to accept the fact that it
happened and we have to get good
minds together to learn how to pro-
tect ourselves without losing some
of our freedoms," she said.
"In 200 years, we have not need-
ed an office of Homeland Security.
That tells you what kind of a world
we're living in," said Lt. General
Brent Scowcroft, who worked as
assistant to the President for
National Security Affairs under the
administrations of former presi-
dents Gerald Ford and George
Bush.
"The initial military response was
quick and brilliant, but we didn't
fully appreciate that this was a dif-
ferent kind of war," he said.
"This was fundamentally a war of
intelligence and we cannot win this
on the defensive. We can only solve
it on the offensive."
While dealing with personal
tragedies and security issues, Amer-
icans have had to face economic
struggles in the past 365 days.
Business Prof. Marina Whitman
said two major economic questions
that arose after Sept. 11 were
whether the U.S. economy would
collapse and if America could move
toward integration of global
economies.
"Our economy was momentarily
stopped dead in its tracks on Sep-
tember 11, but it seems to have
been remarkably resilient," Whit-
man said.
"While we learned a painful les-
son in geography and the dark side
of globalization, the financial mar-
kets recovered extremely fast after
September 11."
One year after the attacks, the
struggling economy and fears of
more terrorism have taken a toll on
the American public with people
not completely recovered from the
stress of that day.
"The slowly healing American
nsvche still shows symotoms of
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