Shenaz Abreo knew she and her fellow seniors couldn’t donate the typical fountain or benches as their parting gift to Northwest Missouri State University not after Sept. 11.

Instead, they enlisted schoolmates to fill a wall in the student union with a variety of artworks and written pieces titled “Triumph Through Tragedy.”

The south wall of Fiterman Hall at the Borough of Manhattan Community College in New York undergoes repair for damage resulting from the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. As the school year winds down, the attacks are being remembered at schools throughout the country, and especially at BMCC, which lost six students in the trade center.

“The fact that everything can end in a split second,” said Abreo, the class president, “it scared a lot of the students.”

As college graduation season gets into full swing, many other schools are also revamping commencement traditions to reflect a school year like no other.

Fall semester courses were just hitting their stride on most campuses when the terrorists struck. Soon, college life included blood drives and prayer vigils, forums on terrorism and crowded courses on Islam.

Now as the year winds down, the attacks are being remembered in the choice of commencement speakers, class gifts and patriotic flourishes.

Words of inspiration

Sandra Apgar, an assistant professor of sociology at Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio, was picked to address her school’s graduates June 15 after she spent her three-week December break in New York, counseling grieving families as a Red Cross volunteer.

“It was difficult to figure out what to say,” Apgar admitted. But she thought of the families, what aiding them gave back to her, and found her theme: life lessons about faithfulness, gratitude and living in the moment.

Among other speakers: Leslie Robertson, the trade center’s structural engineer, will address graduates of the College of Engineering at Penn State University. Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani will speak at Syracuse University’s graduation.

Graduating seniors are giving Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania three flags the American, state and university standards and three flagpoles in memory of those killed Sept. 11.

Some memorials will celebrate the lives of those who perished that day.

University of Bridgeport student Kiran Gopu was to receive his master’s degree in computer science this spring: the 25-year-old Indian citizen died in the towers, where he had just begun an internship. On May 12, the Connecticut school will bestow his degree posthumously.

Two honorary doctorates also will be given posthumously to the Rev. Mychal Judge, the Roman Catholic chaplain to the New York Fire Department, who was killed by falling debris. The Franciscan priest will be honored by his alma mater, St. Bonaventure University in Olean, N.Y., and by Siena College in Loudonville, N.Y., where he once worked.

A special banner to commemorate the attacks and inspire hope will bedeck the arena at Colorado State University during graduation for the College of Liberal Arts. Designed for the school, the banner depicts a brilliant orange sun over a blackened horizon.

Simple touches

No school felt the attacks’ impact more than the Borough of Manhattan Community College. One of its buildings, now closed, sits beside what was 7 World Trade Center. The destruction tore corners off the newly renovated college building and displaced thousands of students.

Classes were suspended for three weeks while city officials turned the main campus, just a few blocks north of the devastation, into an emergency command center. Rescue crews worked, ate, slept and showered at the school, which lost six students in the trade center.

A simple moment of silence is planned when the school celebrates its 1,800 graduates May 31 in Madison Square Garden.