The smoke gave some indication.

It rose for weeks from the debris of the World Trade Center following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on America, a testament to the tragic, long-term suffering inflicted on the nation and the city by a ruthless enemy. But steel, brick and mortar cannot encompass the deepest of wounds: the loved ones forever lost, the shaken sense of security, the nagging feeling that life may never be the same.

Healing will not come overnight to New York. But it will come. And AFT members working in the city's schools, colleges and universities, and communities will take a leading role in binding the city's wounds.

In the days immediately after the tragedy, Lou Stollar, president of United College Employees/AFT of the Fashion Institute of Technology, found himself and his union colleagues doing what came naturally to the many stunned New Yorkers--reaching out to help and console one another. Members of his executive board met and determined how they would make themselves and their offices available to faculty, staff and students. Then they fanned out in teams to each of the five buildings that make up the lower Manhattan campus. They provided help and information to students, food and changes of clothing for the rescue workers, and telephones for the many lined up at payphones who needed to check in with family.

Stollar and his wife live in Greenwich Village, about two miles from the World Trade Center, which had dominated the view from their bedroom window, he says. Still at home on the morning of Sept. 11, they heard the news reports and were at the window watching the flames when the second plane hit the South Tower.

Of the many indelible memories of that week, Stollar says, two stand out. On the day after the attack, he and his wife stood with thousands who lined West Street, one route the recovery crews and trucks took to and from Ground Zero. They held signs and cheered the workers as they went past. "I was so proud to be a New Yorker," he said. Another source of pride, he adds, was news that rescue forces had so many volunteers, they began to weigh offers of help based on whether the volunteers had union cards. "That card was evidence of a level of professionalism and skill that made me proud to be a union member," he says.

The Borough of Manhattan Community College of the City University of New York is located within five blocks of the disaster site, and one of its buildings, Fiterman Hall, is right next door. By 9:30 a.m. on Sept. 11, all BMCC students and employees had been evacuated from the buildings. In short order, the college's main building became a staging area for emergency workers, says Jane Young, Professional Staff Congress/AFT chapter chair at BMCC. The collapse of the towers seriously damaged Fiterman Hall, which will not reopen this year. CUNY managed to find alternative sites for the 40 classrooms that were in use there, so that all classes could start on Oct. 1 when BMCC resumed classes.

From the outset, the PSC was in touch with the CUNY administration, ensuring that all buildings met safety requirements before faculty and staff returned to work. The union also ensured that paychecks for all affected employees were available and helped coordinate relief and counseling services.

AFT higher education members across the region were involved in dealing with the physical aftermath of the terrorist strikes. Ellen A. Becker, a member of the Long Island University Faculty Federation, organized her colleagues to set up a first aid station to help survivors and lower Manhattan refugees who streamed into Brooklyn on the day of the attack.

All of the medical centers affiliated with the State University of New York responded to the crisis, the New York State United Teachers reports. SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn treated people injured in the attack. Stony Brook Health Science Center provided services to injured firefighters and police. SUNY Maritime sent an EMT squad to the scene and prepared its ship for standby as a Federal Emergency Management Agency command center. Outside the metropolitan area, Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse readied supplies, workers and beds in order to handle an overflow that sadly was not to materialize.

Beyond dealing with the physical demands of living near a war zone, New York faculty are now confronting the challenge of helping students make sense of loss and respond to a national challenge unlike any today's college students have ever seen.

The Professional Staff Congress passed a resolution condemning the terrorist attacks and offering the academic environment as "safe harbor for people and ideas." The union sponsored forums and teach-ins to allow open discussion on the disaster, some of which proved controversial.

It is an event that will mark and define this generation, notes Frank Kirkland, a professor of philosophy at Hunter College. Kirkland moderated a panel discussion called "Crisis and Response: An Open Forum on the World Trade Center Disaster." His goals for the forum were to make sure that students are informed and conversant on the problems that brought about the events of Sept. 11.

Another panelist at the PSC forum was Mohamed Yousef, a professor of engineering and computer science at the CUNY College of Staten Island. He has spent many hours this fall participating in teach-ins and attending memorial services. Our first response, he says, was to take care of each other. The second was to ensure this doesn't happen again here or anywhere. That requires education.

For our students, he says, "we need to work harder to let people know about each other's cultures. My religion, which is Islam, is a well-kept secret in America."

Yousef, one of the founding leaders of the Professional Staff Congress, emigrated to the U.S. from Egypt, drawn by a love of freedom and democracy, he says. He remembers and has been quoting lately the words of Edward Kennedy, eulogizing his brother Robert: "He saw wrong and tried to right it; saw war and tried to stop it."

"Then, it sounded idealistic," Yousef says of the 1960s. "Now, it sounds more realistic. We have a burden on our shoulders that we have to address."

This article is based on reporting by the AFT editorial department staff, and by Ned Hoskens and Liza Frenette, from New York State United Teachers.