Fullerton : Cal State to Unveil Memorial to Dead

“To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.”

The line from “Hallowed Ground” by poet Thomas Campbell is on a memorial that will be unveiled Sunday in honor of Cal State Fullerton professors and students who have died, including physics professor Edward Lee Cooperman and five people who jumped from a campus building.

“Solstice,” an 8 1/2-foot memorial made of steel, fiberglass, resin and aluminum, will be dedicated during a ceremony at 11 a.m. on the southeast corner of University Center, said its creator, Steve Metzger.

Last November, the Associated Students allocated $750 for the materials to honor individuals who have died while part of the university residency.

Among those honored are:

Cooperman, founder of the U.S. Committee for Scientific Cooperation with Vietnam. He was killed in his campus office in October, 1984. A student was later convicted of involuntary manslaughter.

Five people who killed themselves in the past nine years by jumping off the eight-story Humanities Building.

Alex M. Odeh, who taught for several semesters in the school’s department of foreign languages and literature. Odeh, director of the California chapter of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee, was killed by a bomb in his Santa Ana office last October.

Priscilla Oaks, an English professor killed last September in an automobile accident.