When word of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington hit campus last Tuesday, the University administration's usual day-to-day activities were thrown aside to concentrate on helping students deal with the tragedy.
"Everyone's lives were so disrupted," University President Judith Rodin said. "The desire to conduct business as usual was gone."
Many of the senior administrators, including Rodin, Provost Robert Barchi and Executive Vice President John Fry, were forced to clear their schedules and hold crisis meetings all day last Tuesday and throughout the week.
Among the scheduled meetings they were forced to cancel was a strategic planning retreat for the entire senior administration, including all deans and vice presidents. The event, which had been planned for months, still has not been rescheduled.
"So many members of the senior administration were in crisis meetings all day," Rodin said. "We had very little chance to fulfill our normal obligations."
And Tuesday was only the beginning of what became a hectic week for many of the University's top officials, whose schedules were altered and condensed to make room for emergency meetings and events.
The University Board of Trustees budget and finance, facilities and campus planning and executive committees, which had been scheduled to meet on Thursday, postponed their meetings both in deference to the attacks and for logistical reasons, such as travel.
Last Wednesday's scheduled University Council meeting, which would have been the first of the semester, was also canceled.
New events, such as last Wednesday's campus-wide memorial service and last Thursday's faculty symposium on terrorism, were last minute additions to the administrators' already packed schedules.
In short, flexibility was crucial for the University's highest officials.
"Basically, what happened for the duration of last week was everybody's schedules were cleared to deal with this in its entirety," said Nancy Nicely, executive director of external affairs for the Provost's Office.
But for many officials, juggling schedules was the least of their worries.
The welfare of the students and faculty on campus was the first priority, Rodin said.
"We really tried to create for the campus community a place where it would feel accommodating and responsive for the need for it not to be business as usual, when that was appropriate," Rodin said.
Nicely said that the hectic nature of her schedule did not take the provost's focus off of the issue of security on campus.
"Everybody's focus was on our students," Nicely said. "The primary concern was, `How do we make our students feel safe?'"
This week has proven to be less frantic for most University officials. But many find themselves playing catch-up due to the scrambling of schedules that occurred last week.
Many meetings have been rescheduled. The executive and budget and finance committees will meet today, and the facilities and campus planning committee will now meet in October.
And although there are still issues to be discussed and events to be rescheduled, Rodin said the University is adjusting back to its normal pace and typical routine.
"We tried to transition very consciously from attention to the spiritual and emotional to attention to the academic and intellectual," Rodin said. "I think we've taken the most extensive institutional response that we need to do in terms of immediate issues."
