Though stunned and nearly overwhelmed by the September 11 events in Washington, D.C., New York City, and Pennsylvania, many people on campus sought to help any way they could, knowing that doing something, anything, meant feeling less helpless.

UIC undergraduates Laura Nimke and Melanie Massey organized an effective effort to aid the victims and help the campus community regain its balance.

"I was devastated by the tragedy in New York," said Nimke, president of Wellness Education by Students. "I decided to get the student organizations that I'm involved in together to sell white ribbons, symbolizing peace, as a way to raise funds for the victims of the disaster."

Soon eight groups were involved, including Undergraduate Student Government and the Muslim Students Association. With ribbon donated from Hancock Fabrics and safety pins donated by Jewel, they sold out of $1 pins and donated hundreds of dollars to assistance funds.

The neurobiology group in biological sciences raised more than $1,200 selling baked goods. "In four hours we sold about $750 worth of goods," said Anthony Molina, a graduate student in biological sciences. "Some people paid $20 for a cookie. We took what was left back to the Science and Engineering Labs and went door to door in the labs and raised another $400."

With short speeches, music, and a moment of silence, about thirty-two hundred members of the UIC community joined millions of people across the United States in an observance announced by President George W. Bush.

On the east side of campus, more than twelve hundred people filled the meeting rooms. Another thousand waited on the Lecture Center Plaza, holding an impromptu service until the speakers came outside to repeat the program for their benefit.

About a thousand students, faculty, and staff spilled into the hallways outside a College of Pharmacy auditorium for the west campus memorial.

Chancellor Sylvia Manning said the services were a chance for everyone to come together to mourn, and she encouraged the campus to be strong and celebrate its diversity. "We value [diversity] not for its own sake, but because it creates on our campus a space in which people can learn, across all their differences of color and creed, ethnicity and culture, experience and circumstance—can learn to live together in peace and mutual regard, can recognize the human bonds that transcend those differences," she said.

Christine Cleofe and fellow members of the UIC Choir had a first-hand view of this diversity as they stood onstage, singing the comforting hymns "Amazing Grace" and "Abide with Me."

"To look out from the stage and see all those people, and to see that every person was different from the person sitting next to them—but they all came together for this," said Cleofe, a communications student. "I'm glad I was a part of it."

"We may never be the same," said Barbara Henley, vice chancellor for student affairs, who led the service on the east campus. "We have had a glimpse of humanity at its worst. In the aftermath, we have witnessed humanity at its best."

At the end, the UIC community came together to hold hands, singing "God Bless America" so loudly that no one passing by could mistake the gathering for anything other than a community united.