On Penn's campus, Sept. 11, 2002 was a day of remembrance, political debate and hope for the future -- but also a day of classes.
Despite the bell tolls, art projects, panel discussions and vigils happening throughout campus, classes were held as usual. While professors were encouraged to be flexible and understanding with absent students, they were not asked to cancel class.
But the one-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington did not go entirely unnoticed inside the classroom.
In Professor Sheldon Hackney's History of the South class yesterday morning, a discussion of the attacks and their aftermath was tied into the class material. Hackney spoke of the Civil War and the great loss the nation felt afterwards and related that to the events of the past year.
"I remember being awestruck, of course, at the events of a year ago," Hackney told his class. "Awestruck because of the horror, but also rather buoyed up by the acts of heroism there, the heroism of ordinary people caught up in that event, the notion of self-sacrifice. It's a spiritual thing to risk or give yourself for the sake of the group. The group has been the nation. Those flags are signs of belonging."
Hackney suggested that the American people have not significantly changed in the 100-plus years since the Civil War.
"We've reverted back," Hackney said. "We still see flags, but people don't think about what they mean."
Hackney cited the Enron and WorldCom corporate scandals, as well as the recent allegations of corruption in the Catholic Church, as sources of trouble in the United States, but added that the response to the Sept. 11 attacks continues to give him hope.
Hackney said he believes confronting the issue on the anniversary was pertinent.
"It is on everyone's mind and I thought passing it by would not be a good idea," he said after class.
But not all professors handled the anniversary like Hackney.
In Professor Thomas Childers' History of the Third Reich class, the class was lectured on the wars in Prussia and Germany, without a mention of the anniversary. Even some large introductory courses, such as Professors Uriel Spiegel's Microeconomics, continued on track without mention of the day's historical significance.
And other professors were somewhere in the middle.
Professor Paul Kleindorfer began his Operations and Informations Management 211 class with a short discussion of Sept. 11, encouraging students to attend the planned activities around campus before continuing on with regular material.
"I find it appropriate that he mentioned it in class, and he also did it in a very sensitive way," Wharton and Engineering senior Dominique Burgauer said. "He was very serious about it, while usually he's a funny guy."
Some professors even took the anniversary as an opportunity to substantiate the validity of their entire course material.
Professor Jeremy McInerney is one such professor. In his History of Ancient Greece syllabus, he stated that "The events of the last year have made it impossible to take our culture for granted. If the West, and America in particular, is capable of inspiring such hatred in its detractors that they turn murder to carnage, then we are obliged to learn more about our own culture.
"We must, as the Greeks would say, know ourselves," he continued. "To do that we have to know our history, not just in the 19th or 20th centuries, but long before as well."
McInerney began his class by asking the students to stand for a moment of silence to commemorate the day.
"I hope in the course of the next semester... something we learn about the Greeks may give you a frame of reference to deal with the events of your lifetime," he said.
