Shaped by 9/11
In the summer of 2001, Rebecca Adelman was fresh out of college, working a temp job and searching for a sense of direction. When terrorists struck the World Trade Center on September 11, the heart-wrenching footage of the wreckage, victims and first responders affected her deeply. “I felt this sense of urgency,” Adelman says. “I needed to make some decisions about what was going to happen in my life.”
Ten years and one Ph.D. later, Adelman explores imagery of the War on Terror as an assistant professor of media and communication studies at UMBC.
ItÂ’s often said that the events of September 11 changed the course of history. To some UMBC faculty, particularly those early in their careers, the attacks also changed the course of their lifeÂ’s work.
As the UMBC community remembers the 9/11 attacks through campus programming and reflection, it also notes how those events fundamentally impacted UMBC students, faculty and staff across all disciplines and university departments.
Seth D. Messinger, associate professor of anthropology, was a Columbia University Ph.D. student at the time of the attacks. He considered a career studying addiction, until hundreds of veterans began returning home from Afghanistan and Iraq as amputees. “In 2004, my recollection is that there were 60 service members with traumatic limb loss,” says Messinger. “Today that number is over a thousand.”
Messinger specializes in the social reintegration of US military service-members following traumatic injury. His work explores how veterans recovering from limb loss refashion their senses of self and identity during rehabilitation. He asks, “How do you know you’re well when you’ve lost a limb?”
Jeffrey T. Mitchell, clinical professor of emergency health services, focuses on related questions. Namely, how can we support the mental health of first responders in crisis situations? Mitchell has become an authority on psychological first aid and stress management for emergency response personnel. His writing addresses topics ranging from suicide prevention in the military, to mitigating the psychological effects of terrorism, to mental health care in police departments after line-of-duty deaths.
Another UMBC professor developed a process that helps those first responders act more quickly. When letters containing a mysterious white powder showed up at media and government offices in the weeks after September 11, it took authorities about 48 hours to determine if the substance was anthrax. Today, a new process developed by Chris Geddes, professor of chemistry and biochemistry, with colleagues at UMBCÂ’s Institute of Fluorescence, can quickly identify bioagents such as anthrax and salmonella. (see a video of the process here)
The impacts of the 9/11 attacks are not just far-reaching—nationally and globally—they are also deeply felt throughout the UMBC community. The UMBC Office of Student Affairs will host a series of commemoration events on campus to provide students with an opportunity to remember and reflect. For information on these programs, including a service project to benefit U.S. troops and a film screening with facilitated discussion, contact Fritzie Charne-Merriwether.
Read more about the events UMBC has planned to commemorate the anniversary.
(9/6/11)
