Jacqueline Reilly wants Syracuse University students to learn about the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing through upcoming Remembrance Week events.

“These are students of ours and not remembering and not caring about it is basically saying their lives didn’t matter, which isn’t true. Their lives matter very much so,” said Reilly, a senior graphic design major.

Reilly is among 35 SU seniors chosen as Remembrance Scholars to represent the 35 SU students who died in the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing. This year marks the 27th anniversary of the bombing, which killed a total of 270 people. This year’s Remembrance Scholars organized a series of events for Remembrance Week running from Sunday through Saturday.

On Dec. 21, 1988, an explosive detonated on Pan Am Flight 103, killing all 259 people on board, including 35 SU students who were traveling from London to New York City after completing a study abroad program. The debris from the plane fell onto the small town of Lockerbie, Scotland, where 11 people were killed.

Along with the Remembrance Scholars, two students from Lockerbie are invited as Lockerbie Scholars to study at SU for a full year.

Throughout the week, pen-and-ink drawings of the students, along with photos of the “Dark Elegy” sculptures, will be exhibited in Panasci Lounge on the third floor of the Schine Student Center. A remembrance dove sculpture will be showcased in the atrium of the Martin J. Whitman School of Management.

Thirty-five empty chairs representing where each student sat on the flight will be placed on the Quad in front of Hendricks Chapel. In addition, a “Wall of Hopes and Dreams” will be displayed at the Huntington Beard Crouse Hall plaza for people to write their dreams on the wall. At night, blue lights will be shined onto the Hall of Languages.

On Monday, part one of a three-part series PBS documentary, “My Brother’s Bomber,” will be screened at Slocum Auditorium at 7:30 p.m. The director of the documentary, Ken Dornstein, lost his brother in the bombing.

On Tuesday, a panel discussion on terrorism in the Internet Age will be held in Hall of Languages Room 500 at 7 p.m. William Banks, interim dean of the College of Law; University Professor Sean O’Keefe; and Bryan Semaan, assistant professor in the School of Information Studies, will lead the discussion.

“(The panel) we wanted to do just because we are obviously commemorating a terrorist attack over two decades ago, but we wanted to contextualize the terrorism in the modern days,” said Virginia Giannini, a Remembrance Scholar and an international relations and public relations dual major.

Wednesday will be dedicated to community service. In recognition of Remembrance Week, 10 percent of every sale on Wednesday at Insomnia Cookies on Marshall Street will be donated to the Ronald McDonald House in Syracuse. The Remembrance and Lockerbie Scholars will also be making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the Samaritan Center in Schine at 12 p.m.

“A Celebration of Life” performance will take place in Panasci Lounge on Thursday starting at 7 p.m. SU students will present performances and remembrance to celebrate the lives of those lost in the bombing.

The annual Rose Laying Ceremony, a symbolic event of Remembrance Week, will be held on Friday at the Wall of Remembrance in front of the Hall of Languages at 2:03 p.m. — the exact time when the bomb went off in the skies of Lockerbie.

Each Remembrance and Lockerbie Scholar will make a short speech and lay a rose on the Wall of Remembrance to pay a tribute to the SU students who died in the bombing. The Remembrance Convocation will take place subsequently in Hendricks Chapel at 3:30 p.m.

The Remembrance Scholars will hold a private meeting to meet the family members of the students on Saturday.

Reilly, a Remembrance Scholar, added that the Remembrance Scholars have introduced a Snapchat geofilter for Remembrance Week. The geofilter, which launched on Saturday, features a white ribbon with “Remembrance Week” written on it and a white dove above the ribbon.

Published on October 25, 2015 at 9:38 pm

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