PUBLICATIONS Inside Illinois Vol. 21, No. 6, Sept. 20, 2001

Commerce dean ‘devastated’ by loss of former students at NYU

By Mark Reutter, News Bureau Staff Writer
(217) 333-0568; mreutter@illinois.edu

Photo by Bill Wiegand A personal loss Dean Avijt Ghosh, who was a professor and administrator at the Stern School of Business at New York University, knew a lot of former students working at the World Trade Center when it was attacked last week.

For Avijit Ghosh, the dean of the UI College of Commerce and Business Administration, the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center was personal and horrifying.

"This event has devastated me and my family," said Ghosh, who was a professor and administrator at the Stern School of Business at New York University for 21 years before becoming CBA dean last month.

Among the dead or missing were a number of his former students, many of them working professionals who had enrolled in his strategy and marketing classes in the evening MBA program. "I did know a lot of people who worked at the WTC. Some were my students, and others were students or alumni of NYU."

Like many faculty and staff members at the UI, he first heard about the attack while at work on campus. "I ran into a colleague who asked me if I knew about the plane accident, which in the beginning seemed to be a small plane that was flying low and accidentally hit one of the towers."
Within a short time, e-mails began to flash across his screen from and between friends, "and I realized that this was a much more momentous event than a mere accident."

Ghosh moved to New York from the University of Iowa in 1980. He and his family lived in Greenwich Village, and his eldest daughter attended Stuyvesant High School, located six blocks north of the WTC. Her school friends "were eyewitnesses to the entire set of events. They felt the shock of the planes hitting the towers, and they saw people jumping out of the windows before the towers collapsed." The 3,000 students were evacuated safely, and the school was turned into a triage and food distribution center.

Ghosh cited the unity events held on campus last week as important to his family. "They helped to focus our thoughts and to reflect about this tragedy in more constructive ways than pure emotion. Our thoughts are with the families and friends of all, including NYU and UI alums who have suffered as a result of this tragedy."