Students examine the global impact of the 9/11 attacks in George Mason course

On the first day of class, George Mason University history professor Meredith Lair asked her students a simple question: Where were you on 9/11? 

As the nation marks the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, Lair is providing students with a chance to examine the event, not just as a turning point in U.S. history, but through the lenses of public memory, media literacy, commemoration, and civic responsibility. 

For most of Lair’s students, the answer to her question is not a memory, but an act of historical reconstruction. Only five students in the history special topics class are old enough to remember the attacks. The rest were born later and only know the event through archives and public memory.

History major Peter Fadel came into the course knowing about 9/11 mostly through family stories, including those of an uncle who went into the city to help with cleanup efforts. 

“I was hoping to learn more about the events and how the world was before 9/11,” said Fadel, a Lebanese American who grew up in Ohio. “I also wanted to learn about the circumstances that led to this tragedy, as well as hear the stories and perspectives of my older classmates. I’m lucky to be at George Mason having these conversations and learning about the “why,” which I think is very important going into this course.” 

Barbara Kyriakakis, a retired George Mason staff member, was working on campus that day and remembers the attacks vividly. She lost a neighbor who has aboard United Airlines Flight 93.  

In an ABC News interview, Kyriakakis said, “We watched a little girl grow up without her father.” But what she also remembers is that “the whole United States came together.”  

Now 83, Kyriakakis is one of the older students taking Lair’s course, and that generational range is part of the reason Lair teaches the course and hopes to continue doing so every five years—coinciding with the five-year anniversaries. 

"I wanted to create a space that would be a kind of bulwark against forgetting,” said Lair, an associate professor in the Department of History and Art History in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. 

The course, cross-listed HIST 389 Topics in U.S. History and HIST 387 Topics in Global History, examines the attacks themselves, as well as their long aftermath: the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the expansion of the national security state, anti-Muslim sentiment, memorialization, and the persistence of misinformation and conspiracy theories. 

“What historians do is teach skills about information handling—collecting, processing, and sharing data. I think that serves democracy, because we want educated citizenry,” Lair said. “I want students to learn how to ask good questions and to get used to doing real research, not doomscrolling on YouTube as research.” 

This emphasis aligns with George Mason’s commitment to strengthening trust and engagement in democracy by preparing students to weigh evidence, evaluate sources, and think critically about how knowledge is produced. 

Lair said she wants students to leave the course with more than a set of facts.  

“I want them to appreciate, understand, and remember,” she said. “I’m hoping to connect them to what happened, so they see how much it impacted people who still walk amongst them, and the changes that the event made on the world.”  

The course also highlights George Mason’s own contributions to preserving the history of 9/11. Lair is incorporating materials from the September 11 Digital Archives, created by the university’s Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, one of the earliest large-scale efforts in the country to collect personal stories, images, and reflections from the attacks and their aftermath. 

“[The center] has always been ahead of the curve in terms of digital history internationally,” said Lair. “They wanted to seize on the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and allowed people to record their experiences.” 

Students will use the archive for their final project, “A Legacy of 9/11,” which asks them to research one of the event’s enduring effects.  

Lair’s commitment to remembrance goes beyond the classroom: Each year, she marks the anniversary by releasing monarch butterflies from a conservation project she maintains as a symbol of hope. 

Lair, the daughter of a career Army veteran, said she considers this course as her way of “cleaning up my little corner of the world,” and hopes the course gives students historical perspectives, but also something more personal: a deeper understanding of resilience, community, and what people owe one another in times of crisis. 

“The American people really showed up for each other that day and I find that very inspiring and steadying,” Lair said. “That’s a lesson young people really need today.”