Instead of planning activities to welcome freshmen this week, campus clergy members found themselves comforting shaken students and coordinating prayer services and vigils.
“There’s some real panic,” said Jacqueline Schmitt, Northwestern’s Episcopal chaplain. “I’m hearing things like, “What kind of a world is this?” and a real fear.”
Three campus clergy members were called to the Allen Center Tuesday morning to counsel students at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management’s Executive MBA Program. The students attending the weeklong conference were from Germany, Hong Kong and Tel Aviv and expressed concern about getting home at the end of the week, Schmitt said.
About 20 people gathered Tuesday at Alice Millar Chapel, with another informal service scheduled there tonight at 6 p.m. Noon services will most likely continue every day this week at Jeanne Vail Chapel in the Alice Millar Religious Center, said University Chaplain Timothy Stevens.
Religious leaders also met with Resident Assistants-in-training to instruct them how to recognize signs of shock among returning students.
Father Ken Simpson of the Sheil Catholic Center said many students have stopped by the chapel to sit quietly in meditation. Students have also approached him wanting to talk about the uncertainty caused by the incident.
“With young folks, both college and high school students have been wondering about the future in terms of (whether there is) going to be a war,” Simpson said. “I haven’t heard people talk about the draft in years, but that topic has come up.”
Simpson, who also serves as Evanston’s Fire Department chaplain and is trained in stress management, said his theme for this weekend’s sermons will surround Tuesday’s crashes. He said he probably will speak to freshmen about their new lives on campus and how to restore their sense of security.
At Hillel, Thursday’s overnight “Freshman Fest” is still scheduled to start at 3 p.m., but Rabbi Michael Mishkin said he did not expect all 75 enrolled freshmen to show up. Parents have called him to say they are driving instead of flying to ensure they arrive in Evanston in time.
But the activities might take a different focus, Mishkin said, as freshmen meet each other and continue coping with the news.
“It’s going to change everyone’s reality — the way that we look at life,” he said. “It’s an incredible emotional kind of burden for all of us. As a society we’re still in shock and haven’t allowed the emotions to set in.”
Rabbi Dov Klein learned of the attack Tuesday morning from a student who called him. Since then, Klein has heard from students and community members who have families in New York and Washington, D.C.
Klein said news of terrorist acts is nothing new to the Jewish community, but the scale of Tuesday’s attacks has touched students more deeply.
“It’s a wake-up call to educate people on tolerance, how to respect each other and how to get the message of love out there,” Klein said. “We really need to figure out a way for people to reach out to each other. And we’re going to need to do a lot of healing.
“If we don’t normalize our life,” he added, “the terrorists will win.”
