Five years later a campus remembers

Hindus, Christians, Jews and Muslims left their places of worship last night to remember together the events of Sept. 11, 2001.

But they did more than remember. They sang, prayed, performed poetry and reflected, on this fifth anniversary of a day few Penn students will forget.

"Let us honor the memory of those who fell that horrific day by pledging to be true to our better angels," University President Amy Gutmann told the group of about 40 students and faculty members. "Let us rededicate ourselves to truth-seeking and life-giving."

College senior Soham Dave of the Hindu Students Council spoke about a funeral he attended at Arlington Cemetery for a friend's brother who died in the Pentagon on Sept. 11.

"It wasn't just silence in that cemetery - it was emptiness," he said.

Dave said he turned to prayer after the funeral to cope with the feeling of loss. He shared a prayer of peace and healing at the interfaith vigil in a room in Irvine Auditorium last night.

"I'm glad that everyone came together and shared something from their faith," Wharton junior Khalid Usmani said. "It affected all of us. It would be natural that we all came together."

Attendees of the vigil created a "Wall of Goodness," sponsored by the Lubavitch House. They wrote good deeds they plan to perform on the back of papers with photos of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks. The papers were then pinned on a cloth wall in Irvine.

"The best way to defeat evil is to add positivity," Rabbi Levi Haskelevich said. The project was first done at Penn on the first anniversary of the attacks and will be done on 15 campuses this year.

University Chaplain William Gipson praised students for wanting to participate in an interfaith commemoration.

"Those departed ones died together, but we're going to do our best to live together in peace," he said.

Today, several events on campus and nationwide will take place to mark the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Members of fraternities and sororities will hand out American flag pins on Locust Walk throughout the day.

A blood drive in honor of those who died on Sept. 11 will be held in Houston Hall from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

United 93, a film about the hijacked plane that crashed in Pennsylvania, will be shown in Gregory College House, and Rodin College House will sponsor a trip to see the film World Trade Center.

The day will be commemorated nationwide, as well as by people all over the globe.

President George Bush will address the nation at 9 p.m. His speech will be carried on major network television channels.

Footage from Sept. 11 will play in real time all day on the CNN Pipeline on Cnn.com.

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