A Few Words
President Gerald Heeger

The terrorist attacks and UMUC
As a global university, UMUC has a great deal at stake.

The recent terrorist attacks on the United States and the global war on terrorism have very broad implications for UMUC, perhaps more than they do most other universities, because of our great geographic and multicultural diversity.

Gerald Heeger

As you know, our University's beginnings are rooted in its service to the U.S. military, so servicemember-students, who last year numbered about 47,000 in 29 countries, are very important in our mission to provide education to working adults.

There has been a transformation, too, in our thinking of who our heroes really are. No longer do we imagine the most famous and glamorous figures; instead, we now regard most highly firefighters, the rescue workers, police, construction tradesmen, nurses, and local politicians. They are heroes of every walk of life. These heroes are our students.

Since 1947, members of the UMUC community have uniquely fulfilled their responsibilities as "global citizens," sensitive to the many and varied cultures in which the University is privileged to exist. Thank you for your collegiality and diligence to serve our heroes, our neighbors, and each other through these very trying times that continue to extract a heavy toll after the world was changed on September 11, 2001.

The events on that date have been striking because of the way in which they have provoked both a reflection on the institutions which structure our lives and on our own personal wellbeing. The attacks have jarred us, reminding us to appreciate even more our country's commitment to pluralism and to civility. As an institution committed to being a global university, UMUC has a great deal at stake.

Just as the tragedies at the World Trade Center and Pentagon have generated untold outpouring of empathy worldwide for our nation and for the victims from many countries whose citizens, like ours, were killed or are still missing, so has our University community drawn together. That is evident in this issue of FYI Online, which includes the perspectives and often very personal testimonies of UMUC alumni, faculty, and even the wife of a UMUC student who is missing and presumed dead from the World Trade Center attack.

While none of us can truly imagine the pain and suffering of victims and their families, or of rescue workers who will be haunted by what they have seen, the anxiety that has consumed us all is almost tangible—and visible in the faces and disquiet of most everyone we see. Nonetheless, I am confident that we—as a people, as a university, and as individuals—will see this through. Please find strength in the camaraderie of our University community.