Between classes, meetings, and the general hustle and bustle of campus life, most of us will walk past the plaque outside Van Pelt-Dietrich Library without ever slowing down enough to notice it.
That said, the plaque marks something worth stopping for. Twenty-five years ago this week, 2,977 people were killed at the World Trade Center, at the Pentagon, and aboard United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in a field outside Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers fought to keep it from reaching Washington. Sixteen of those lives were members of the Penn community.
Each anniversary of 9/11, Penn pauses to remember those we lost. The Office of the Chaplain and the Spiritual and Religious Life Center gather the community at the campus Love sculpture, where University leadership gives remarks, Chaplain Howard reads the 16 names aloud, a moment of silence follows, and everyone leaves with a flower in hand. Outside of annual remembrance, the University has created a scholarship fund in memory of those lost, helping support the children and spouses they left behind. To its credit, Penn has never let this day pass without marking it.
But a ceremony happens once a year. A scholarship fund, however meaningful, is not something a student or faculty member passes on their way to class. And the plaque, tucked along Van Pelt’s west wing, is easy to walk by a hundred times without ever reading a name.
Thus, with the blessing of the families, friends, and loved ones of the 16 lost, Penn should build a central memorial to the alumni lost on September 11 — one situated in a location where students pass, rather than one they must seek out. A public art piece, designed in partnership with students and faculty at the Stuart Weitzman School of Design, could turn remembrance into something the Penn community builds together, not just something it observes once a year.
Twenty-five years later, for the majority of college-aged students, 9/11 is a history lesson rather than a lived memory. A central memorial wouldn’t just honor the 16 alumni Penn lost; it would give a generation with no memory of that day a more personal connection to the 16 lives the Penn community carries.
This wouldn’t be new territory for Penn. The University has a long history of building things meant to be lived with, not just visited once a year. Memorial Tower at the 37th Street entrance to the Quad was dedicated in 1901 to Penn alumni who served in the Spanish-American War. Plaques inside the Quad honor alumni killed in World War I. The flagpole on 33rd Street outside the Palestra honors those who died in the line of duty between 1740 and 1950. Each of these memorials let Quakers of the present remember the loss and sacrifice of generations past, even without any memory of it themselves.
Numerous other schools have dedicated formal memorials to alumni killed in the attacks. Princeton’s 9/11 Memorial Garden, dedicated in 2003, honors its lost alumni with bronze stars set into a stone walkway and a bell that rings once for each name every anniversary. Similarly, Cornell built a permanent memorial to its 21 alumni lost in 9/11 into the rotunda of Anabel Taylor Hall, beside its World War II memorial. The memorial is not a substitute for annual remembrance; instead, it’s a reminder to students and alumni something that lasts beyond a single day.
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Regardless of whether this memorial is ever built, each Penn student ought to take a moment this week — this Friday, especially — to pause. Attend the ceremony. Stop and find the plaque outside Van Pelt. Read the 16 names.
Never Forget.
PETER KENNEDY is a College sophomore studying philosophy, politics & economics from West Chester, Pa.. His email is kenned29@sas.upenn.edu.
