Lauren Rossetti | staff writer

The towering American flag on Duquesne’s College Hall lawn was lowered to half-mast as various members of the community placed hundreds of small flags in the grass.

Faculty, staff and various student organizations including Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC), Student Government, Christian Athletes and Greek associations gathered to honor the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks that happened 25 years ago.

Duquesne President David Dausey and others gave speeches on the lawn in a longstanding tradition to honor the thousands who lost their lives that day.

“It’s good for everybody to know how everyone came together to help one another,” said Assistant Director of Student Involvement and Union Operations Tamara Trembulak, who is one of the event planners.

Organized by the Center for Student Involvement, the ceremony not only served as a chance to pause to remember the lives lost and all of those impacted by the events of Sept. 11, but also aimed to bridge the gap between different generations’ experiences regarding the attacks.

“Just because you weren’t alive for it, doesn’t mean you weren’t affected by it with family members or the military or anything like that,” Linda Farrow, another organizer of the event said.

The ceremony also honored the military, fire departments and the police departments who not only helped save lives on Sept. 11, but also protect and serve in the community every day.

“It goes past the ROTC, our police department, our fire department that is at our beck and call a lot of the time, and we just show our appreciation to everybody that was involved, and how it touched everybody, ” Trembulak said. “Even if you weren’t in New York, Shanksville or alive to watch it on TV, you were affected by it one way or another.”

Christopher Boissonnault, Duquesne’s Director of Military and Veteran students, executed the triangular 13 ceremonial folds of the American flag at the event.

“A lot of the veteran students here at Duquesne actually joined the military because of 9/11, they lived through it,” Boissonnault said. “Then you have the next generation that wasn’t born yet, so I think it’s important for the two generations to interact so we can carry on the remembrance of what happened on that tragic day.”

Boissonnault explained that there is a rich military history tradition at Duquesne.

He said that the university was bankrupt during World War II until soldiers came back to the U.S. and doubled the school’s population.

“The veterans actually saved Duquesne University,” he said.

The Duquesne tradition will continue to honor the victims of the terrorist attacks and connect students to history.

“Every year we’re going to keep doing something so the students and the faculty can remember 9/11,” Boissonnault said.

Lauren Rossetti can be reached at rossettil1@duq.edu