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A Message from Dean Richard Matasar
Monday, September 17, 2001

Colleagues, leaving the law school today I was bursting with conflicting emotions. I am so grateful to be part of a wonderful community of faculty and staff. So many of you found your way to the City and then to the Law School. I am proud of our commitment to give our students everything they deserve, to take account of their educational AND emotional needs, to do everything we can to help our neighbors and our city. At the same time, I am angry about the many serious inconveniences that we will face in getting back to normal, disgusted with the few sick individuals in our city who are interfering with the police and fire fighters, and worried about the many things that we cannot make right and the impossibility of making whole those irreparably harmed by the terrorists' acts.

For me these many thoughts are compounded during the high holidays. Walking into services through metal detectors with a significant police presence reinforces the conclusion that all is not right. Yet, reading texts that go back through the ages about the need for peace in our times and the need for personal accountability reminds me that none of us who have survived is completely a victim unless we choose to let ourselves fall into despair; none of us is fated to a future of someone else's making when we have the power to influence future events.

Thus, I leave this day with yet another emotion: determination that we come together as a community, press ourselves to accomplish all that we are capable of accomplishing, and create a future for ourselves and our students that will be vibrant and aware of our own power to make change. I look forward to working with all of you to take our place (and all of us as individuals) to the next level.