SCSU Remembrance Garden

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By Ava Pulisciano 

On December 14, 2012, twenty-six people were shot and killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. A twenty-year-old man, who went to Sandy Hook years before, carried three guns into the school where approximately seven hundred students were present. He shot and killed twenty students, ages 6 and 7, and six adults. Four of the adults killed were Southern Connecticut State University alumni. When law enforcement officers approached, the man shot and killed himself in a classroom. This traumatic event has left parents and teachers along with the town of Newtown and the nation at large devastated. To honor the SCSU alumni lives that were taken this day and in dedication to social justice movements, a memorial monument was put on Southern’s campus called the “Remembrance Garden.”


The idea for the Remembrance Garden became originated in the spring of 2013. Co-chairman Bill Faraclas, an SCSU Professor in Public Health, led this effort and began vision sessions in March of 2017 with a council of committee members. Co-chairman Dan Camenga said the designs focused on students, faculty and staff, and community voices. Committee members put together ideas for Massachusetts artists and recreational sailors, Rich Duca and Meredith Bergmann. The artists designed the sculpture at the Brooklin Boat Yard and felt lucky “to be part of such a significant project.” They expressed their sorrow for the horrific event and that “it was nice to be a part of something positive.” The sculpture was made indoors because the committee required that it contained no metal, symbolizing gun reforms and the message behind the garden. This piece of art was made of Atlantic cedarwood, using the same modern techniques used to protect the wood on boats. When finished, the designers decided that the sculpture would include four circles of fiber-optic lighting. The sculpture was then finished and delivered to Southern’s campus on April 19th, 2018.

The garden consists of the sculpture, plants, flowers, and a bench for the community to sit and reflect. This memorial space would not be possible without the donors, fundraising, and help from the community. One outstanding donor was Rita Landino, who devoted her career to supporting the Southern community. In her past, she advocated for women and survivors of sexual harassment and assault. But more than advocating, Rita felt a connection to the memorial. Not only was she a Southern faculty member working with the four alumni that were killed, but she was still grieving from the tragic loss of her son to a car accident. She said that this monument takes her personal grief and grief over the death of the alumni and “transforms it into a monument of beauty ad memory.”

To make this project possible, a fundraising event occurred called “Paddle 4 Peace.” The event took place on August 5th, 2017 at Lake Kenosia Park in Danbury, Connecticut. Lake Kenosia is a good and large space for holding the event and has proximity to Newtown, where the shooting occurred. The community paid $45 per person to paddle personal kayaks, canoes, and paddleboards across the lake. The event stems from one of the focal points of the memorial, the water that lies behind it and symbolizes a life source. Along with donors like Landino and fundraising, the community came together to create a beautiful garden that surrounds the sculpture. Eli Whitney Technical School built a large wooden bench open to the community. The community also helped to dig and plant the flowers and shrubbery that surrounds the sculpture. With the community, fundraising, and donors coming together for one cause, the memorial's opening ceremony was held on May 4th, 2018.

The memorial monument is now open to the public and campus students. It is a place to reflect and find silence in our chaotic lives. This memorial is also used to elevate local history and bring attention to the importance of this past event in the fight for gun reform and social justice. A case study of the Sandy Hook shooting showed that this monument is used to “redefine and reclaim the Newtown community and how it was perceived and discussed.” The monument shows a forward-looking view, emphasizing lessons learned, and a brighter future. An official place of memory invites a shared sense of the past while embodying unique rhetorical principles. It uses rhetorical inventions to selectively and creatively construct the event in a particular way. Although there is “no ‘pure’ articulation of the past, the language, structural elements, arguments, tropes, narratives, justifications, and such in which the event is cast are intentional resources availability of knowledge of the event, to begin with,” Professors of Communication Studies, Greg Dickinson, Carole Blair, and Brian L. Ott say. The wooden sculpture did not include any metal as that material would evoke references to the firearms that have become the focal point of the post-Sandy Hook debate. The lights inside the sculpture represented the four alumni that taught and were killed during the shooting: Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung, Anne Marie Murphy, Mary J. Sherlach, and Victoria Soto.

These elements of the memorial show the importance of the tragic event while giving the community a place to reflect and remember loved ones. It was just a thought in 2013 and now impacts many people from the community. Whether one connects to the event, has also experienced a tragic loss, or simply needs somewhere to escape life, the SCSU Remembrance Garden is the perfect place to sit down and do that.



Figure 1: The community and staff members come together to help create the SCSU Remembrance Garden, photo courtesy of Southern Connecticut State University.


Figure 2: The SCSU Remembrance Garden illuminated during the evening of the Grand Opening on May 4, 2018, photo courtesy of JMMDS.

Bibliography

 Berleant, Anne. “Brooklin Boat Yard Builds Sandy Hook Memorial.” The Weekly Packet. The 

Weekly Packet, April 26, 2018. https://weeklypacket.com/news/2018/apr/26/brooklin-boat-yard-builds-sandy-hook-memorial/?fbclid=IwAR2DsJ7rv8zY8Iu1qCGbsuA_bMmYGjlL1GBCJPcW_ReQyT1ZcYPsjrM8Kyk.


Dickinson, Greg, Carole Blair, and Brian L. Ott. Places of Public Memory the Rhetoric of 

Museums and Memorials. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 2010. 


Difference, Making a. “'Makes Your Heart Grow': Final Playground to Remember Sandy Hook

Victims Opens.” NBCNews.com. NBCUniversal News Group, October 6, 2014. https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/making-a-difference/makes-your-heart-grow-final-playground-remember-sandy-hook-victims-n219501. 

Fox, Sandra Diamond, Brian Zahn, Doug Bonjour, Jordan Fenster, and Lisa Reisman. “Kayaking 

Fundraiser to Support Sandy Hook Memorial at SCSU in New Haven.” New Haven Register. New Haven Register, July 24, 2017. https://www.nhregister.com/connecticut/article/Kayaking-fundraiser-to-support-Sandy-Hook-11728902.php. 

Greenberg, Mona Doreen, and Robert P. Watson. Public Memorials in American Life, March 2, 

2011. http://www.americansc.org.uk/Online/Public_Memorials.htm. 

Macaluso, Laura A. “Public Art as ‘Usable Past’: Rewriting Revolutionary New Haven .” Essay. 

In The Public Artscape of New Haven: Themes in the Creation of a City Image, 71–88. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2018. 

Missakian, Natalie. “A Space for Healing.” issuu. from Southern Alumni Magazine Summer 

2018by Southern Connecticut State University, July 30, 2018. https://issuu.com/scsu/docs/smag48pp_sum18i-issuu-150dpi-r1/s/7056. 

Pelliccio, August. “Sandy Hook Remembrance Garden to Open in May.” Southern News. 

February 28, 2018, Volume 55 edition, sec. Issue 19. 

“Sandy Hook Elementary Shooting: What Happened?” CNN. Cable News Network, 2012.

http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2012/12/us/sandy-hook-timeline/index.html.

 

Wombacher, Kevin, Emina Herovic, Timothy L. Sellnow, and Matthew W. Seeger. “The

Complexities of Place in Crisis Renewal Discourse: A Case Study of the Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting.” Wiley Online Library. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, June 20, 2017. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1468-5973.12186.

 








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