IUP to mark 9/11 anniversary with memorial program near remnant from Ground Zero

Indiana University of Pennsylvania President Michael Driscoll remembers how shocked he was nearly 24 years ago when he first learned of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States.

On Thursday morning, when he takes part in the university’s annual program marking the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, he’ll be focused on ensuring the significance of that event isn’t lost on students who weren’t yet born at the time.

It was at a time in Driscoll’s career in when he was living on the West Coast, serving as associate dean of the College of Engineering and Computer Science at Portland State University.

“I was going to work when the news first hit for us,” he said of the reports of hijacked airplanes slamming into the World Trade Center towers in New York City. “My first thought was, ‘How can this be happening?’ ”

Then his thoughts turned to the equally stunned students who would be gathering on the Portland campus: “Let’s get to work and take care of the people who were traumatized by this, even if it was 2,000 miles away.

“Later in day, it hit me, with my own children and wife, how horrific this was and how it changed everything.”

At IUP, despite the nearly quarter of a century that has passed, the memory of 9/11 has a lasting presence.

Three IUP alumni were among those who were killed in the World Trade Center attacks, and the university’s central Indiana County campus is not far away from the Somerset County field where United Flight 93 crashed after it, too, was hijacked by terrorists.

There is a daily reminder of 9/11 at the heart of the IUP campus.

Thursday’s anniversary program will begin at 11:10 a.m. in front of a 9/11 memorial located between Sutton Hall and Stapleton Library in the university’s Oak Grove. During September, IUP offers a display in the library’s first-floor lobby about the 9/11 attacks.

The memorial incorporates a 13-foot-high piece of steel that was part of the frame for one of the destroyed World Trade Center buildings. The building remnant is on long-term loan from the Kovalchick family of Indiana.

The memorial is dedicated to those who were lost during the 9/11 attacks, including: Donald Jones, a 1980 IUP graduate; William Moskal, a 1979 graduate; and William (Bill) Sugra, a 1993 graduate.

Jones and Sugra worked for prominent trading company Cantor Fitzgerald in the north tower of the World Trade Center. Jones was a bond broker from Bucks County.

Sugra lived in Manhattan and worked for e-Speed, Cantor Fitzgerald’s electronic trading unit. His Allentown family continues to fund an annual memorial scholarship in his honor for IUP students.

Moskal, a safety sciences graduate and Johnstown native, was a risk consultant for Marsh and McLennan in Cleveland, specializing in heavy construction. On 9/11, he was in New York for a meeting at the World Trade Center.

As this year’s 9/11 anniversary nears, Driscoll is reminded how “in one moment, our entire reality can change.”

IUP’s memorial and annual service play an important part in underlining that reality for “students who were born after 9/11 and have only a reflected memory,” Driscoll said. “How do we share with them the loss of innocence we felt in the country at the time and the total disruption in our lives?”

To that end, he said, IUP through the years has invited memorial speakers who have been able to share their experiences of 9/11 and its aftermath — including those who were involved in emergency rescue or military operations.

Speaking at this year’s program will be retired U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Robin Paul Swan, a 1978 IUP graduate.

During his 32 years of military service, Swan commanded an infantry battalion in Bosnia and a military training team in Iraq, and he was deputy commanding general of an infantry division in Baghdad. He also was director of Army Strategy Headquarters.

After he retired from uniformed service, he became director of the U.S. Army Office of Business Transformation. He retired as director of the Army Office of Enterprise Management.

At IUP, Swan graduated from the Army ROTC program and earned a bachelor’s degree in geology. He was the keynote speaker at the IUP ROTC program’s 100th anniversary dinner in 2016, and he received the IUP Distinguished Alumni Award in 2023.

Lt. Col. Erich Steffens, chair of IUP’s Department of Military Science, will serve as master of ceremonies for Thursday’s program. Music will be performed by the IUP Wind Ensemble.

Driscoll said he is gratified to see the many IUP ROTC cadets and local first responders who have attended the 9/11 memorial programs.

The former, he noted, “are our next generation of leaders to protect our country.”

Of the latter, he said, “There are many who would have been deployed to help (on 9/11), but some of them were probably not born when it happened.”

IUP’s memorial also recognizes 5,000 community members who gathered in Oak Grove three days after 9/11 to honor those who perished in the attacks.

The annual program, Driscoll said, is one way to help “recapture that spirit of community that came in the wake of the tragedy.”