Heritage, 2009, Volume 3 Page: 11
31 p. : ill. (some col.) ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Dustin Goedde, team leader; Hans Schreck, tech special-
ist; and research specialists Stephanie Loden and Mandy
Deen-considered several possible topics before deciding
to study the local impact of a national event. To guide their
research design, they soon adopted a mission statement:
"to listen to and recount the stories of the people of Texas
State University after September 11, 2001."
It was a broad mission statement that provided the
team with opportunities for analyzing various layers of the
overall story. Given the time constraints of the semester,
though, they had to focus on one particular aspect, and
after initially planning to document how university poli-
cies have changed since the event, they quickly shifted to
an overview of how the campus as a whole had changed in
the seven years since that benchmark day.
As with any good oral history project, Team Turbo began
by building a foundation of background research, using the
resulting information to identify potential interviewees. As
Stephanie Loden, an Austin student with roots in East Tex-
as, recalled, "I went to the Texas State [University] library
and looked up the [school] newspaper, as well as the San
Marcos newspaper, for September 10-13 of 2001-2003.
Through this I was able to find names of people from Texas
State who had been interviewed for articles about 9/11."
Noting the team's early shift in focus, she added, "Since
we were initially looking for administrative changes, we re-
searched those in charge of certain administrative aspects
of Texas State, including the president, vice president, and
those in charge of student affairs." With additional re-
search, the pool of potential interviewees quickly widened
to include other individuals, even news photographers who
covered campus memorial activities.
With project deadlines and the availability of inter-
viewees as primary determinants, the students narrowed
their list to three individuals: Dr. James D. Studer, vice
president for student affairs at the time of the attacks; Dr.
Joanne H. Smith, then the associate vice president for stu-
dent affairs and coordinator of the university's crisis man-
agement team; and Dr. Randall Osborne, a professor of
psychology and a new faculty member in 2001. Each rep-
resented unique perspectives on how the university com-
munity reacted to the national tragedy that occurred so
many miles distant from Central Texas.
Dr. Studer recalled that he and his teenage son were
both ill on that benchmark day and so were at home as
the events unfolded. Studer's son first heard the breaking
news on television and notified his father. "Dad," he said,
"something's going on." And so, as father and son watched
the news together, Studer noted, "like a lot of people we
saw the plane hit the second tower .... It's an almost surre-
al experience of [seeing] what's going on and at that point
not knowing what's going on."HERITA GE, Volume 3 2009
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Texas Historical Foundation. Heritage, 2009, Volume 3, periodical, 2009; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth254214/m1/11/: accessed April 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas Historical Foundation.