Community Must Share Grief

To the Editor:

Yesterday, Sept. 11, 2001, was a day when all of us at Oberlin College struggled for understanding. Every one of us witnessed a tragedy of heretofore unimaginable dimensions. Clustered around radios and televisions, we tried to determine what happened, and why. Many of us were scared, not knowing about the fate of loved ones. Others, in a new home, felt themselves without the sources of support that they were accustomed to. Many of us have family and friends who have been directly affected by these catastrophes. All of us cannot help but be apprehensive about what these events portend.
The meaning of such horrific events is not easily discovered. It will be weeks, or months, before we individually and collectively bring some order and sense to our chaotic feelings. Our experience of the world is suddenly very different, which makes us feel newly vulnerable.
But even with the jumble of feelings and fears, Oberlinians instinctively looked for ways to help. Within hours, students had organized the transportation of their classmates to area blood banks. Students, faculty and staff immediately provided assistance to our campus-wide communication efforts. People held and comforted one another and did one of the few things available to us when a friend has encountered unimaginable grief — they listened.
Today, we have many more tasks ahead. We need to be present for one another and to be the kind of caring and supportive community that we aspire to be. We need to consider the many ways that our friends, neighbors, teachers, students and colleagues will be affected by this. Oberlin is an inclusive community which values and supports every one of its members.
Today and tomorrow, and for many days to come, we will need to consider the things that our community cares most deeply about, and find the means of articulating them. We will have many opportunities to search for meanings — personal and private, collective and political — in what has happened, and to make sense of our reactions. We will also have many opportunities to talk about peoples’ responsibilities to one another in a highly interdependent world. This will require the work of all of us — our best thinking, and our empathy and compassion for one another.
At Oberlin, music and art have often been the means by which we express the inexpressible and give shape to our deepest feelings. Our campus-wide assembly this afternoon, entitled “A Gathering for Reflection: Words and Music,” will take place at 4:30 in Finney Chapel.

–Nancy Dye
President
–Clayton Koppes
Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences
–Robert Dodson
Dean of the Conservatory
–Peter Goldsmith
Dean of Students