Mobilizing a University at a time of crisis. (Featured Topic).

Two WEEKS AFTER THE SEPTEMBER 11 ATTACKS on America, my wife and I hosted a small group of students at our home. Shortly before we sat down for dinner, I was talking with one student about her studies and her goals for the future. She told me that she was majoring in music, played the cello, hoped to earn a doctorate in ethnomusicology, and eventually become a professor of music. During our conversation I asked her how she was feeling since the attacks. Her response has stayed with me: "I wonder if what I am doing is still important." The more we talked, the clearer it became that she and her friends shared similar and ambivalent feelings of optimism and apprehension about their work at USC and their futures.

Student reactions

Our conversation illustrates what many talented students have been thinking since that fateful day. Until September 11, most students had known and felt only a boundless sense of optimism, privilege, and safety. Her misgivings reminded me of my undergraduate days at Stanford University during the Vietnam war when my classmates and I wondered if our college education was "relevant" to stopping the war and achieving peace. Furthermore, her comments echoed what students at colleges and universities around the nation must be struggling with as they try to understand why such acts of terror have occurred and what our country is going to do about it.

During the past few months I have watched USC students try to maintain focus on their studies, internships, community service projects, and social events planning, while simultaneously struggling with a sense of doubt about the future. This has been particularly true for graduating seniors and graduate students who are anticipating entering a job market that had appeared so bountiful and lucrative just a few short weeks ago. In addition to turning to their parents for support, students look to professors, the president, student affairs staff, student leaders, and campus ministers to reassure them that they will be all right. They question whether or not the dreams and goals they have been working to achieve will be realized in the ways that were promised by parents, teachers, and the seemingly buoyant economy in which they grew up. They want to be reassured that the attacks on the World Trade Towers, the Pentagon, and airplanes that whisk them from coast to coast and around the world will not endanger their s ense of self and their ambitions.

Senior administrators at the University of Southern California had similar thoughts. We wanted to reassure our students that, despite these terrible events, they did have bright futures and that their university would continue to do everything it reasonably could to make this possible.

Response: The first day

On the morning of the attacks our first concern was to maintain as normal a routine as possible by keeping the university open for classes, to reassure students and their parents that they were safe and that the campus was secure. Our experiences with the civil disturbances in Los Angeles after the Rodney King verdict in 1992 and the Northridge earthquake in 1994 had both taught us and clearly demonstrated that the way we reacted as an institution to the terrorist attacks would heavily influence students' reactions to the tragedies. It would have an impact on their feelings about the university and their interactions with other students.

Student interaction was particularly important because it had been reported that the Arabs who perpetrated the attacks had justified their actions under the cover of their Islamic faith. Our goal was to prevent harassment of students who shared a common heritage or religion with those responsible for these crimes. The strategy we used was having USC President Steven B. Sample communicate to all faculty, staff, and students via e-mail that, while he condemned the attacks, he also condemned harassment of Muslim students, faculty, and staff. At the same time, student affairs staff contacted Arab and Muslim student leaders to reassure them of the university's support; we established a regular meeting schedule with them to make sure they knew the university was concerned and taking appropriate action regarding their welfare, to work on problems, and to address rumors.

In case we did have to deal with safety issues, we called together our emergency planning team. We were a bit nervous about the fact that the hijacked planes had been headed to Los Angeles and that USC is a prominent symbol in downtown Los Angeles. This sense of vulnerability resulted in increased security patrols by USC's department of public safety and the Los Angeles police department both around campus and at a mosque across the street from campus.

Student leaders, with support from student affairs staff, hastily organized a large rally in the center of campus to "speak out" against the attacks, and faculty, staff, and religious leaders spoke. Staff from the office of residential and Greek life made plans to visit student residences that evening to talk, listen to student concerns, and inform them about what the university was doing in response to the attacks. Hundreds of students attended these meetings. We reminded them of the counseling resources available on campus to help them if they were feeling overwhelmed or extremely anxious about the attacks. These meetings were also useful to again emphasize that there was no reason to believe any Arab or Muslim students at USC were involved in the terrorist acts and that we did not want anyone unfairly attacked or questioned about their status in our educational community.

Response: The second day

On Wednesday, September 12, faculty in the departments of international relations and political science organized a teach-in to talk about the attacks. Scores of students came to hear faculty share information about Afghanistan, the religion of Islam, and international terrorism. They also discussed the history of the Middle East and the complex issues that may have given rise to the attacks. Joseph Aoun, dean of the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, announced an eighteen-month program of seminars, classes, research projects, and public lectures on political violence. The purpose of the program is to broaden students' understanding of the role terrorism plays in history, geopolitical maneuvering by nations, and ideological groups seeking recognition, resources, and revenge.

Response: The third day

On Thursday, September 13, Rabbi Susan Laemmle, the dean of religious life, and students organized an interfaith service in the university's main auditorium. Nearly 1,600 students, faculty, and staff were in attendance.

The provost asked Dean Laemmle and me to form a group to help the university think about what we could do to ensure that our community stayed united. USC annually enrolls almost 5,000 international students. The provost asked us to reassure our international students and their families that USC does not intend to retreat from its strategic focus on internationalization and is proud of their attendance and contributions to the university. We were also asked to chronicle the many educational, spiritual, and support programs that faculty and students were now organizing, and to communicate these activities to the greater university community.

Likewise, we focused on ensuring that those who dissent from the prosecution of a war on terrorism in Afghanistan and elsewhere can share their views in a setting of academic freedom. The result has been a flurry of activity under the name ONE USC, including the development of a Web site linked to the USC homepage. The Web site seeks to inform, encourage, and remind students that our university as an educational community values scholarship, respect for diversity, and tolerance of differing points of view. It promotes collective action, open debate, reflections, civic responsibility, and creativity by the USC community. Through ONE USC, we hope to provide a model of engaged citizenship by a diverse community. The name ONE USC was chosen to symbolize that no matter what our race, class, country of origin, or religion, we are one educational community working to support each of its members in the pursuit of knowledge.

All of these responses were designed to maintain healthy and open communication with key institutional constituencies, especially students. We wanted to model what our university does best: educate students and demonstrate our care about their development and welfare. We want them to know that we still fervently believe that the reasons why they came to the university--and in answer to the student musician's query to me--are important, indeed just as important after the attacks as they were before them. It is a big task, but our institutions of higher education have met such challenges in the past; there is no reason to believe we cannot continue to do so.

RELATED ARTICLE: Topics on ONE USC Web site

Breaking News

Calendar of Events

In Memoriam

Counseling Resources

Creative Expression

Community Outreach and Education

Terrorism Bibliography

Student Reflections

Archive

A Message from Our Students to the World

Faculty Comments

Sections for parents, students, faculty/staff, alumni, and community

MICHAEL L. JACKSON is vice president for student affairs at the University of Southern California.