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We remember the University alumni who lost their lives on 9 11 DAVID ALGER (CLASS
GARTENBERG (1987), STEVEN GOLDSTEIN (1988), DARYA LIN (1991), MANISH PATEL (2002),
2B Friday, September 9, 2011 9/115pecial Commemorative Edition
THE UNIVERSITY COMMUNITY
Campus leaders reflect on their experiences the
morning of Sept. 11 and how the day changed their
lives and the University of Michigan. REM EM BERS
Friday, September9, 201// 9/11Special7CommemorativeEdition
Teaching the Tragedy
Students analyze our generation's most formative moment
By Dylan Cinti
Daniel Oates
Former Ann Arbor Police Chief
Then-University President Lee Bollinger hosts students at his home on South
University Ave. on Sunday, Sept. 16, 2001.
Lee Bollinger
Former University President
Daniel Oates, chief of the Ann
Arbor Police Department in 2001,
charged out of a meeting with
Ann Arbor City Council members
on the morning of 9/11 wishing he
was alongside his New York Police
Department colleagues who were
heading for the World Trade Cen-
ter, where a second plane had just
toppled the south tower.
Just three weeks earlier, Oates
had accepted the position with
the AAPD, ending a 21-year career
with the NYPD in which he served
as the commanding officer of the
NYPD's Intelligence Division.
On 9/11, as Oates's former col-
leagues from the Patrol Borough
Brooklyn South rushed to down-
town Manhattan, he scrambled
to evacuate Ann Arbor City Hall
and identify and guard potential
terrorist targets in the local water
supply and infrastructure.
In a recent interview, Oates -
who has been the chief of police
for the city of Aurora, Colo. since
November 2005 - described that
morning as "chaotic."
"I had, seemingly to me at the
time, everyone turning to me and
asking, 'What do we do?' " Oates
said, adding that the 36 hours fol-
lowing the attacks werve "unlike
anything we had experienced."
That night, Oates and Ann Arbor
Mayor John Hieftje met with local
Muslim community leaders to plan
an event for the following day to
decry the backlash against Ann
Arbor's Muslim community. Oates
said the event was "the primary
reason why we had no subsequent
or significant events of backlash
against our Muslim citizens in
Ann Arbor in the days and months
afterward."
Oates later contacted his for-
mer command in New York to ask
about the status of two of his police
friends who responded to calls at
the World Trade Center and were
missing. They were finally located
two days later.
Though his two friends sur-
vived, Oates knew nine of the 23
NYPD officers who died on 9/11.
He admitted it was difficult to be
away from New York in the days
and months after the terrorist
attacks.
"For me personally, it was really
hard because by the time the tow-
ers went down, I knew to a certain-
ty that people I knew had died,"
Oates said. "And of course that
turned out to be absolutely true."
- ANDREW SCHULMAN
As the University community
grieved in the wake of the Sept. 11
attacks, then-University President
Lee Bollinger was stuck in New
York City trying to return to Ann
Arbor.
Bollinger, now the president
of Columbia University, and Ken
Fischer, then and current president
of the University of Michigan Musi-
cal Society, were in New York that
Tuesday to meet with representa-
tives from the Royal Shakespeare
Company about the relationship
between the company and the Uni-
versity of Michigan.
Because all flights were ground-
ed, Bollinger had to drive back to
Michigan, arrivingin Ann Arbor on
Sept.13.
University spokeswoman Julie
Peterson told The Michigan Daily at
the time: "He got a car, and he was
driving back last night. He's fine,
and he wasn't in Manhattan, so he
wasn'tcright in the middle ofthings."
After returning to campus, Bol-
linger, along with his wife Jean and
Ann Arbor Mayor John Hieftje,
attended a Sept. 14 service at the
Islamic Center of Ann Arbor. They
went to show support for members
of the local Muslim community
since they might have been targets
of retaliation because of their reli-
gious identification.
"It is frightening and disturbing
to people who are subject to that
kind of intolerance," Bollinger told
the Daily in 2001.
The Sunday after the attacks,
the Bollingers also hosted an open
house at their South University
Avenue home to provide students
with a "home away from home,"
Jean Bollinger told the Daily at the
open house. Various campus musi-
cal groups performed, and small
groups of students spoke with the
Bollingers about the impact of the
attacks.
"There's a sense of family on
this campus,"Lee Bollinger told the
Daily at the time. He added that he
hoped the open house could start
to help the University community
move on.
"There was some sort of transi-
tion needed," Bollinger said at the
time. "However, I don't think nor-
mal life is possible right now and
won't be possible for a long time."
Bollinger, through a Columbia
University spokesman, declined
several recent requests from the
Daily for an interview for this
article.
- JOESEPHLICHTERMAN
University lecturer Jonathan
Marwil has taught a course on 9/11
every fall since 2007. And though
the students in every class experi-
enced that day in one wayor anoth-
er, Marwil has never once asked,
"Where were you when the towers
fell?"
That's because, as Marwil points
out, he's teaching a history course
- one that requires students to
detach themselves from their own
experiences in order to see the big-
ger picture.
"I'm not interested in turning
the class into 35 personal stories,"
Marwil said. "I want the students
to be, so to speak, historians - not
witnesses - of the event."
As Marwil was interviewed out-
side his classroom in Mason Hall
yesterday, his History 360 students
were watching a 2002 documenta-
ry called "9/11," a film composed of
first-person footage from that day.
It's films like these - along with
books, documents and guest speak-
ers - that constitute the course
curriculum.
After finishing the documen-
From Page 2B
campus newspaper ... there were
no obvious answers," Gagnon
said. "It was a strange afternoon
- one in which we didn't have a
good playbook on what to do."
Many staff members were
engaged in passionate debates
regarding the content in the
paper for the next day, Gagnon
said, adding that an editorial
board meeting was particularly
heated.
"Everyone was fully engaged
in a wayI had never seen before,"
Gagnon said. "It's one of those
instances where you know you
have to say something, but you
don't know what it is that you
really have to say."
Newsweek reported on the
experiences of Gagnon and
other University students in a
November 2001 article titled
"Generation 9-11." Gagnon -
currently a senior editor at The
Atlantic - said it was because
of the experience of interacting
with Newsweek editors that he
eventually decided to pursue a
career in journalism - a path he
tary, the students will read the 9/11
Commission Report and listen to
a presentation by Lorry Fenner, a
staff member of the 9/11 Commis-
sion. They'll also read works of
fiction such as John Updike's "Ter-
rorist," a narrative account of an
American-born Muslim recruited
to be a terrorist.
Marwil said his goal for the
course is to address 9/11 from every
possible angle.
"By the end of the class I want
them to have a critical understand-
ing of what happened and how we
have thought about it, how we've
dealt with it and how we've chosen
to remember it," Marwil said.
The inspiration for the course
came from a 2006 freshman semi-
nar Marwil taught on the coverage
of significant events, including 9/11.
It was from that class Marwil said
he began considering the wealth
of information on the tragedy and
realized there was enough for an
entire class.
"I thought, 'Why not a whole
course on 9/11, and a course devot-
ed to the consequences across a
wide spectrum?"' Marwil said.
However, he saidhe understands
when people question why a course
on 9/11 is considered "history."
"For a long time it was thought
that you couldn't write the history
of anything closer than 50 years to
your own time," Marwil said.
Of course, 9/11 is quite the oppo-
site - a contemporary event with a
significant and ongoing impact on
the world around us. That makes
the class more challenging, Marwil
said, but it's a challenge his stu-
dents rise to.
"Wipe away your feelings, your
tears, your memories," Marwil
advised. "Now let's discuss this."
Several students in Marwil's
class pointed to the continuous rel-
evance of 9/11 as the reason they
enrolled.
"Normally in a history class
you're learning about someone who
died 300 years ago," LSA junior
Christine Irish said. "The differ-
ence is, (this) is something that's
very real for all of us."
LSA junior Glenne Fucci added
that the highly specialized nature
Students in University lecturer Jonathan Marwil's history course on Sept.11 watch
"9/11," a 2002 documentary about the terrorist attacks.
Daniel Oates, chief of the AAPD in
2001, served as a commanding officer
of the NYPD's Intelligence Division for
21 years prior tocoming to Ann Arbor.
of the course made it appealing.
"It's really interestingthat there's
a class so specific, focused on such a
unique moment in time," Fucci said.
And as Irish pointed out, it's a
moment in time that's engrained in
every student's past.
"I was only 10 years old at the
time but still remember it to this
From Page 4B
e-mail list this year and an average
attendance of 300 to 400 people at
MSA's large events, according to
Abdelhadi.
"It was not a fun time to be a
Muslim student at Michigan, but
really what you hear a lot in the
MSA community is that that was
sort of a turning point in MSA his-
tory," she said. "People talk about
that time like the golden years of
MSA - this year when things hap-
pened and people were suddenly
mobilized.
"Every activist sort of dreams
of the ability to just get everyone
together and do stuff, but it's real-
ly sad when it happens because
of a gigantic tragedy," Abdelhadi
added.
Before 9/11, MSA was mostly
focused on the spiritual health of
the community, Abdelhadi said.
But after the attacks, she said the
organization needed to initiate a
dialogue with the rest of campus
to distinguish true Islam from
the radical extremism that shook
members of their faith just as much
as non-Muslims.
day," Irish said. "I guess the fact
that it was the first major historical
event that I was a witness to made
me really interested in it."
But for Marwil, the course is
about moving away from memory
toward understanding. As he put
it, "I want them to learn, not just
emote."
To do this, the association held
multiple information sessions
about Islam to educate people on
what they claimed to be afraid
of. On Sept. 27, 2001 the associa-
tion held a joint teach-in with the
School of Social Work. At the event,
MSA members urged non-Muslim
female students to wear a hijab the
following day in an act of solidar-
ity with their fellow students. \J-n
and women who felt uncomfortable
in headscarves were encouraged to
wear white wristbands.
"If many, many women got
together and put on the hijab, it
would help diffuse the misplaced
anger that's being forced on any-
body that might be considered
Muslim," Lisa Leven, one of the
event organizers, said at the time.
Events like the teach-in and
A Walk in My Shoes - a current
MSA program that connects Mus-
lim and non-Muslim students to
exploreeach other's perspectives -
helped eradicate discrimination by
familiarizing students with Islam,
Abdelhadi said.
"You're less likely to be phobic
if you have a Muslim friend," sbe
said.
Geoffrey Gagnon
Former Michigan Daily Editor in Chief
cOURTESY OF GEOFFREY GAGNON
Former Michigan Daily staffers David Enders, Jen Fish and Rachel Green produce
the Sept.12, 2001 edition of The Michigan Daily.
For The Michigan Daily's
paper on Sept. 12, 2001, Geoffrey
Gagnon, then-editor in chief of
the Daily, was originally planning
to run a lead news story about
a student-athlete who had been
accused of sexual assault. Need-
less to say, there was a different
lead story that day.
When Gagnon's roommate
woke him up on the morning of
9/11to tellhim a plane had crashed
into the World Trade Center in
New York City, Gagnon knew
immediately where he needed to
be - the Daily newsroom.
"Pretty much everyone on
staff just kind of flooded into the
Daily," Gagnon said. "There was a
sense that that was a place where
people were trying to make sense
of what was going on."
Gagnon recalled the camarade-
rie felt amongDaily staff members
as they tried to make sense of the
tragedy while watching the after-
math of the attacks on television.
"We didn't know what we were
watching, and we certainly didn't
know how it was going to impact
the University of Michigan, but
we figured that was the place we
all wanted to be, and we wanted to
figure it out together," he said.
Gagnon said the major chal-
lenge for him and other Daily staff
members that day was determin-
ing how the campus newspaper
would respond to the tragedy.
"We all were trying to figure
out what should be reflected in the
See PAGE 7B
was hesitant to pursue despite his
position at the Daily.
When Newsweek editors
inquired about his future career
plans, Gagnon said he wasn't
interested in working in the
newspaper industry. However
the persistent editors convinced
him otherwise and offered him
a position as an intern with the
company, which eventually
helped to launch his career as a
magazine writer.
"I wouldn't have done that
had I not had that experience
with those folks," Gagnon said.
"Explaining to them how it is
that we tried to make sense of
things here ... it also helped con-
vince me that doing that type
of work is really gratifying and
valuable, and it's something that
I thought I wanted to do."
-ADAMRUBENFIRE