As we watched two airliners topple the World Trade Center on Tuesday, the terrorists in control left a simmering hole where New York’s heart once pulsed. A void now exists where a jewel once lay.

Americans and concerned citizens worldwide have spent the last few days trying to fill that void with love, prayer and unity. We will eventually heal the sensitive wounds that dot the eastern coast of our nation, but it will take time.

President Bush, you are correct: Americans now face a test that we have no choice but to pass. But on Wednesday at Harvard, that test began on the first day of school, literally.

It was wrong to keep Harvard and almost every other American college and university open on Sept. 12, 2001. Rather than being a day of shopping period just like any other, Wednesday should have been a day of observance. It should have been a time of reflection when students could remember the innocent souls who lost their lives. It should have been a day when we could pay our respects to the victims. It should have been a day for the lucky ones among us to thank God that our families and our friends were spared and that the damage was not any worse than it was.

Harvard is a leader among American institutions of higher education in so many other ways. Why could President Lawrence H. Summers and the administration not wipe the omnipresent stoic expression off of Harvard’s face and show some desperately needed sensitivity? Why could they not demonstrate that we are human too, that we appreciate the lives we have, that we do care about what happened and that it did affect us deeply?