POTSDAM - On Sept. 11, 2001, almost 3,000 people perished in terrorist attacks on American soil, including four Clarkson alumni.

On Tuesday, the Clarkson University campus community and members of the local community will gather at Clarkson’s World Trade Center Memorial Sculpture from 8:30-9 a.m. for a remembrance ceremony. Members of local rescue squads, fire or police departments; the military; and veterans are invited to attend in dress uniform.

If the weather is inclement, the ceremony will take place in the Student Center forum.

The steel in Clarkson’s World Trade Center Memorial is from the World Trade Center.

The day of the World Trade Center collapse, Clarkson alumnus Michael Bielawa’85 was called to Ground Zero to supervise the clean-up efforts. He worked on Ground Zero for three weeks, effectively clearing the debris and helping to recover survivors.

After his first-hand experience with the Sept. 11 disaster, he requested that the New York City Office of Emergency Management donate steel from the World Trade Center to Clarkson to be used for a memorial. Several years of planning and fund-raising led to the installation of a memorial in 2005.

This site was dedicated as a memorial to the four alumni’s lives lost in the World Trade Center attacks. Each of the alumni’s names, Peter A. Klein ‘87, Paul R. Hughes ‘85, Richard J. O’Connor ‘75, and R. Mark Rasweiler ‘70, is engraved above a light installed in the foundation of the structure, and at night the lights shine up on the structural beams.

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