Thirty-five empty chairs on Syracuse University’s Quad will serve as a chilling reminder of the lives lost in the Pan Am Flight 103 bombings during Remembrance Week.

The Good Deeds Chair Campaign, led by Remembrance Scholars Liz Mikula and Chris DePalma, consists of 35 folding chairs, one dedicated to each student who died in the bombing.  Every chair has the student’s plane seat number, the Twitter hashtag #RW2012 and the Remembrance Week logo, a blue dove, on it.

Mikula, an architecture major who designed this year’s logo for Remembrance Week, said putting the logo on the chairs serves as a constant reminder of the week.

Last week, the 35 chairs were placed in various buildings around campus, and students wrote the good deeds they performed on the chairs, Mikula said.

The chair in the lobby of Newhouse I, dedicated to Kenneth Bissett, has deeds ranging from “Bought breakfast for a homeless man” to “Made a stranger smile” scribbled in blue ink across the seat.

During Remembrance Week, these chairs will be placed in front of Hendricks Chapel to remind everyone on campus of the tragedy that occurred, Mikula said.

“It unifies everyone on campus; it relates to everyone on campus,” she said. “We all sit in classrooms, so chairs seemed like an obvious connection between all students.”

Mikula said both she and DePalma were unsure of how students would react to the campaign, but the level of involvement pleasantly surprised the two.

“There has been a real push in PR and getting it out on campus,” Mikula said. “People have been writing on the chairs and sending in good deeds through Instagram and Twitter. It has gotten a really good response.”

Remembrance Scholar Alise Fisher said the chair campaign is an easy way for students to get involved in Remembrance Week.

“A lot of people know to a certain extent about Remembrance Week, but don’t understand why it’s relevant to them,” she said. “This is a nice gateway to capture interest in a small way to get involved in a big way.”

The Good Deed Chair Campaign goes hand in hand with this year’s Remembrance Week theme: Look Back, Act Forward.

“I think what’s really nice about the chair campaign is how it ties the two (themes) together,” said Fisher, the Remembrance Scholar. “We’re looking back and remembering the actual victim, but we’re also making it relevant in our lives now by writing good deeds on it.”

Mikula said the campaign is something all students on campus should be a part of.

“It could have been anyone,” Mikula said. “It is important to be a part of something bigger than yourself on campus. Our message, look back and act forward, is an important one a lot of people can take to heart.”

Published on October 22, 2012 at 12:36 am

Contact Brooke: bsfreund@syr.edu