Elizabeth Hillman travels the same way so many New Jersey occupants took into lower Manhattan every day for her PATH coach commute from her Jersey City home for the last time in 23 years.
” I think about a lot of things differently”, said Hillman, the president of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum at the original site of Ground Zero. ” I ca n’t help but be in awe of the bravery with which people responded that day and the compassion that many of the subsequent events also impacted,” said one witness.
However, those memories from that time are now dated by several years and are indistinguishable for a new generation born after the terrorist attacks.
” We now have 100 million Americans who are too young to remember September 11… they were born there or were very young at the time,” Hillman said while seated earlier this year near the monument waterfalls constructed in the footsteps of the North and South Towers.
As of 2023, 27 % of Americans were born after 2001. For those attempting to preserve the thoughts of those who died and the teachings of September 11, this is a sobering statistic.
” Our goal is to celebrate, educate and motivate people about what happened”, Hillman said. ” And for us to do that, we have to approach new years”.
The 16-acre page that once housed the World Trade Center buildings is home to the National September 11 Memorial and Museum. Its 90, 000 objects and 100, 000 rectangular feet of exhibition area serve as both a lesson for current years and a monument to the tragedy.
The history of Sept. 11, 2001, is complicated and far-reaching — and one Hillman is avid about telling.
After serving as president of Mills College in California for two years, the former Rutgers University teacher has led the gallery and monument. The 56-year-old is a veteran of the U. S. Air Force, a respectable historian and former law doctor. The New Jerseyan and her family, Trish, are the families of five developed children.
When she was appointed, Michael Bloomberg, the museum’s committee chairman, and former mayor of New York City, praised her for having “rare set of skills from her experience as a college president managing big institutions through hard times, as a veteran who is still trusted by our armed forces, as a historian whose strong sense of service is grounded in a longtime commitment to learning, and as a trailblazer who has fought for justice and equality her whole career.
Hillman had experience with constitutional reform involving military-related issues. She supervised students who were teaching rules in underserved schools in Camden while teaching at Rutgers Law School in Camden.
Her resume did n’t mention any museum work, so she was surprised to be hired for the position at the 9 / 11 museum.
But she saw it as a way to show off her strong interest in American history, both in the military, and in her desire to “inspire people about the most significant things that made the earth what it is and how they might be able to improve it or alter it in the future.”
She saw the potential to reach so many people from the page of the most recent criminal assault on American soil.
” We see thousands of people in the gallery every day”, she said. ” We’ll see more than 2 million this time”.
She had graduated from New York and was enjoying herself there. When the helicopters struck the buildings, she was just about to begin her employment at Rutgers-Camden. Although Hillman did not lose any close friends or relatives during the strikes, her girl was still residing in New York City at the time.
” Truthfully, it’s been a great privilege to attach to the areas most impacted by this”, she said.
She has been moved by the endurance of the city following its second worst day and how people have demonstrated how they can operate through unheard pain.
” We rebuilt the World Trade Center page, and all these people are around, learning and visiting”, she said, looking around at the masses. ” The fact that this was built, and that this remains quite sort of sacred earth, is an incredible thing”.
That moment held lessons for many sectors of society, she said, in fire, building, problems management, processing grief, and recovery, among others.
The museum offers educational programs both inside and outside its walls to ensure that both current and upcoming generations can benefit from those lessons.
The museum provides free lesson plans with video clips of the day’s memories for teachers to use.
For teachers, there are also virtual field trips and an Anniversary Digital Learning Experience on Wednesday, with a 9 a. m. to 3 p. m. live chat where educators will answer students ‘ questions about the day.
23 teachers from 12 states and the UK took part in a week-long, intensive professional development workshop over the summer.
The museum website also features panel discussions including” Forensic Science in the Wake of Mass Atrocity”,” Marking Fifty Years of Hip Hop &, the WTC”, and” God, Guns, and Sedition: Far-Right Terrorism in America”.
According to Hillman, one of the museum’s most well-liked lessons deals with how to talk to kids about terrorism.
It’s also important for young learners to understand how complex the events are, but it’s never too late to respond to children’s inquiries about what happened, she said.
The day-to-day running of the museum requires a deft touch. As in other museums that focus on traumatic material, it’s important to take care of staff and volunteers. Depending on how they are affected by their time spent with various exhibits, some will require breaks, and others will require relocation from one location to another.
For instance, the rooms with voicemails, newscasts, and the mangled Ladder Co. 3 firetruck might be challenging posts, and docents may need to move to the magnificent blue mural that recalls the sky on that perfect September Tuesday.
In time for the 25th anniversary of the attacks, Hillman wants to lead the museum beyond its 20 million-student goal of reaching the museum in two years.
She also wants to expand visitor access to the museum and reach 100, 000 young leaders in need of professional training. On the first Monday of each month, New Yorkers can access it for free, and she hopes to extend it to residents of New Jersey in the future.
Hillman has also met with Jersey City officials who wanted to use its materials to promote public service in underserved areas. And she visited the Sept. 11 memorial at Eagle Rock Reservation, meeting with Essex County Executive Joseph N. DiVincenzo Jr. and his chief of staff about 9/11 lessons.
” All education is local”, she said. Therefore, we must meet with people from various communities and form connections with them. We believe that the best way for us to reach more communities is through outreach to educators.
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Tina Kelley may be reached at]email , protected].
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