A ºÚÁÏÍø student honored the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks with a display of 2,977 American flags on the campus student green this week.
Mark Morrison, 21, a junior accounting major and ºÚÁÏÍø Honors College student, organized the memorial to uphold the promise to "Never Forget" and promote national unity.
"I wasn't alive to remember the day this tragedy struck," Morrison told ºÚÁÏÍø Today. "The vast majority of students on campus weren't born yet either."
Born in 2003, Morrison said he feels a personal connection to 9/11 through his family. His father and brother are firefighters.
"Even here in Northeast Ohio, my dad remembers being on alert in case they had to support fire departments in western New York and Pennsylvania while they responded to ground zero," he said.
Morrison began setting up the flags at 9 p.m. with help from family and friends. The project took over seven and a half hours to complete.
"By 1:30 a.m., it was just me and my mom," Morrison said. "At 3:30 a.m., a stranger walked past, an aviation student in his first year here at Kent, and offered to help us finish."
They completed the memorial at 4:30 a.m.
Morrison, who plans to attend law school after graduation, said he hopes the memorial serves as a reminder of the unity Americans felt after 9/11.
"September 12, 2001, was quite possibly the day in which this country was most united," he said. "I wish for us to return to a time where we were unified."
The flag display at ºÚÁÏÍø was one of many memorials across the country marking the 23rd anniversary of the attacks that killed 2,977 people in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania.