Syracuse University Honors Pan Am 103 Victims with New ‘Act Forward’ Projects During Remembrance Week

The Hall of Languages behind the Pan Am Flight 103 Place of Remembrance on the SU campus. Photo © 2024 Waverly Brannigan

This year marks the 36th anniversary of the terrorist attack on Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, on December 21, 1988, which killed 270 people, including 35 Syracuse University (SU) students studying abroad. 

To honor the students whose lives were lost in the bombing, SU established the Remembrance Scholarship program in 1989. The first group of scholars was selected for the 1990-1991 academic year, according to Syracuse University Libraries. 

The university holds Remembrance Week annually each fall to commemorate this tragedy. This year, events are taking place from Sunday, Oct. 20, through Saturday, Oct. 26. 

‘Look Back, Act Forward’

A weeklong series of events organized by the Remembrance and Lockerbie Scholars, Remembrance Week aims to memorialize the victims and further educate the campus and greater Syracuse community about terrorism, guided by the motto ‘Look Back, Act Forward.’

“Our initiative, as you may know, is ‘Look Back, Act Forward,’ meaning we look back and honor the event and honor the individuals of Pan Am 103, but we also act forward as a way to prevent future violent extremism terrorism,” said Danis Cammett, an SU senior and Remembrance Scholar representing Timothy Cardwell. “As part of that initiative, we have a symposium presenting what the Remembrance Scholars, who are divided into multiple groups, are going to do with this motto.”

Chairs meant to honor the 35 SU students who passed away on Pan Am Flight 103 sit on SU's Shaw Quadrangle. Photo © 2024 Waverly Brannigan

The Act Forward Project Initiative

The Remembrance Scholars have also embraced a new role within the community this year through the new “Act Forward” project initiative. 

Kelly Rodoski, who has been a Remembrance Scholar advisor for 15 years and was a freshman at SU the year of the bombing, explained that the 35 scholars are divided into seven groups of five scholars each, with each group working on a year-long project relating to the tragedy. 

“It's remembrance week right now, but this is going to last throughout the year, and they're working on things where we say, okay, how can we really make a difference? How are we looking forward?,” said Rodoski.

This is the first year that the Remembrance Scholar program has incorporated the “Act Forward” projects, which scholars have been developing throughout the semester and will continue building upon until a final symposium in the spring to present their findings.

“We're going to be able to take the results of these projects and what they create and what they learn, and put them in lots of different formats and platforms,” Rodoski said. “So it won't be information that just lives here. It'll be information that we can share far and wide.”

The SU Remembrance quilt helped created by the 1998-99 Remembrance Scholars, is on display inside Hendricks Chapel. Photo © 2024 Waverly Brannigan

Project Topics are Aimed at Community Education and Benefit

The scholars are exploring topics including: 

• Media response to disasters

• Preventing extremism

• Monuments and public memory

• Understanding grief and mourning

• Modeling civil discourse

• International law and justice

• Curriculum integration of remembrance into First Year Seminar 

“It's a very broad range of projects that we're all working on,” said Tabitha Hulme, SU senior and Remembrance Scholar representing Turhan Ergin. “They're all kind of different ways of making a permanent impact and permanent influence of the Remembrance Program on the SU campus and the surrounding community.”

The Act Forward Symposium will take place on Thursday, Oct. 24, at Huntington Beard Crouse Hall in the Gifford Auditorium Atrium from 7 to 8 p.m. and is open to the community. During this event, the Remembrance Scholars will showcase their projects, which include external outreach, research, education, and creative work to benefit the community. 

For a full schedule of Remembrance Week events, visit here.