In honor of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, this year’s Constitution Week was themed “The Tenth Anniversary of 9/11: Lessons Learned.”

Saundra Ardrey, political science department head, said she was pleased with the week.

“This generation of college students were very young when 9/11 happened, and this an opportunity for them,” she said. “And they’ve taken full advantage of it, getting the information about 9/11 and how things have changed — things this generation thinks are normal in terms of security and some rights we may have lost.”

The following are various highlights from the activities throughout the week.

SATURDAY

Constitution Week kicked off Saturday afternoon before the WKU football game against Navy with an event on South Lawn called “We Remember 9/11.” The event, hosted by the ALIVE Center, offered students a chance to pay tribute to 9/11 attacks one decade later.

Aurelia Spaulding, communications and marketing coordinator for ALIVE, said about 200 participants stopped by the event and signed a remembrance banner that is now hanging in the Downing University Center.

MONDAY

David Henderson, a research fellow at the Hoover Institute at Stanford University, presented “Lessons Not Learned from 9/11: An Economic, Numerate, Constitutional Perspective” as the first lecture of the week.

Henderson made the case that the attacks on 9/11 were motivated not by American freedoms, but rather a long-standing policy of intervention in the Middle East.

Henderson began the lecture with a warning: Freedom in the United States is at great risk. Not from terrorists, Henderson said, but rather the reaction of the government that leads to the curtailing of civil liberties.

TUESDAY

“Abraham’s Children,” a film about Muslim youth dealing with prejudice, diversity and other 9/11 related issues, was shown by the Institute for Citizenship and Social Responsibility. According to the documentary’s website, the Muslim students of New York City portrayed in the film provide a “stark contrast” to inaccurate media portrayals of Muslims.

WEDNESDAY

As part of Constitution week and the anniversary of 9/11, Ryan Hall, the director of the English as a Second Language Institute (ESLI), hosted a discussion Wednesday about the “Perceptions and Realities of WKU Middle Eastern Students Post 9/11.”

Many students from the Middle East and Asia attended and discussed their own experiences since coming to America.

There was a common theme that developed throughout the discussion — not to “paint a group of people with a broad brush,” which many students said causes cultural misunderstandings.

THURSDAY

“Project Affect: Fall Student Engagement Fair” began at 11 a.m. and lasted until 2 p.m. on Centennial Mall. Campus and community organizations came out to show students ways to get involved through service and become more active citizens.

—Reporter Cameron Koch contributed to this story.