Last year, Eastern and the Charleston community memorialized the infamous attacks on our country on Sept. 11, 2001, by sponsoring more than seven events honoring the 10th anniversary of the tragedy, but this year they had only one.

The Student Community Service Office sponsored a “drop in” volunteer opportunity of making get well cards for soldiers at a veteran’s hospital, a project that began at the beginning of the school year.

Students also had the opportunity to help pack “welcome boxes” for the center’s “Meet and Greet” aspect of its Good Neighbor Project.

The Meet and Greet is where students and community members visit Charleston’s neighborhoods and inform them about the campus community. It began Tuesday and runs through Thursday.

Rachel Fisher, the director of student community service, said the office has been doing the Good Neighbor Project for four years, but this is the first time it has begun on Sept. 11. The project is one of five community-based projects the office is working on this week.

“I think it is a nice transition, changing the focus from one day of memorial to a week of community service,” Fisher said. “In the wake of a tragedy is a community that helps one another recover and stay strong.”

Despite publicizing the opportunity, Matt Kmety, a graduate student who works with the community service office, said only two people had stopped by to help with the projects halfway through the event.

“We know it being a school day that people are busy, but some people promised to stop by after class,” Kmety said. “We wanted to do something today, even though we have events spread throughout the week. We don’t want to downplay the anniversary, we want to remember it.”

Stephen Knotts, the coordinator of Veterans and Military Personnel Student Services, said the reason his office did not host any events was because they “simply could not pull it together in time.”

Instead, Knotts said they are planning a week of events in November for Veterans Day.

Around campus, the reaction of students and faculty to the lack of activity was mixed. Some said there was not the same “hype” because it was not a monumental anniversary year like five, 10 or 25. Others said this should not matter. Some compared the nation’s treatment of the tragedy to that of another tragedy in our nation’s history, Pearl Harbor.

“It is like when we talk about Dec. 7, my grandparents automatically say ‘Pearl Harbor Day,’ but I do not think of it like that, I think it could be similar with Sept. 11,” Fisher said.

Debra Reid, a history professor, said 9/11 and Pearl Harbor cannot be compared because it is all about perspective.

“As time moves forward, and the generations grow up, we become more and more removed from an event, but those who grew up with it become living memorials to it,” Reid said.

She used the example of her father who was on ship seven days out after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

“As the daughter of a Navy man, I was raised remembering and honoring it,” Reid said. “I take comfort in the fact that the attitude about 9/11 has changed and is no longer ‘rah rah America,’ maybe our nation is still in mourning.”

She said that apparent change in attitude does not have a simple reason and is probably very complex.

“I do not know why things have changed,” she said. “Maybe it is because (Osama) Bin Laden is dead, maybe because it is an election year, maybe we are still mourning, I really do not know.”

Amy Wywialowski can be reached at 581-2812 or alwywialowski@eiu.edu.