The turtles captured the attention of Annie Franklin’s camera lens, the Texas afternoon sun bouncing off of their lazy shells. When stopping at the pond, she reminisces about feeding the turtles with her dad.
“It was always a silly place for me,” said Franklin, a native Austinite and UT Plan II liberal arts honors senior.
What she doesn’t think about is the turtle pond’s purpose — to memorialize the victims of the 1966 Texas Tower shooting. This incident led to changes in campus police management and expanded mental health resources for UT students. Policy changes at UT and across Texas were set in gradual motion by the shooting, but it took almost 30 years for a memorial to be dedicated to victims.
“It almost seems like UT didn’t want to remember,” said Laura Gonzalez, UT associate professor of instruction in the biology instructional office, who recalls the construction of the stone memorial after she joined faculty in 2002.
The stone memorial was built in 2016, the second memorial to be dedicated to the Tower shooting after the pond was designated as the first memorial site in 1999.
The dilemma lies in how to memorialize such an event properly. UT assistant professor of practice in educational policy and leadership Michael Goodman, said this could be due to the university wanting to avoid creating fear among students.
“An institution bringing attention to that might bring attention to the possible traumas that their own students could endure,” said Goodman, who looks into memorialization as part of his course Educational Crises and Emergency Response. “But also, how do we keep a memory alive if folks don’t know about it?”
In fact, some UT students did not have that memory in the first place.
First-year students Brooklyn Bulda and Connor Daly found out the pond’s significance after starting at the university. Bulda’s own curiosity about UT’s history led her to learning about the Texas Tower shooting through YouTube and a Darkness podcast season. Produced by the Drag audio production house on campus, Darkness discusses true crime in Austin, including the Texas Tower shooting.
Daly learned from Bulda, surprised at the pond’s second meaning considering his frequent middle school trips to the campus marker.
“I’ve lived here since I was 5,” said UT petroleum engineering major, Daly. “I didn’t know that was the point of the turtle pond.”
Bulda said she was taken aback by the amount of time between the incident and designation of the first memorial.
“It was definitely overdue,” said UT public relations major, Bulda.
Their findings on the turtle pond’s significance saddened, but encouraged them to learn more about UT’s history, Bulda said. Even though the people who died aren’t the first to come to Franklin’s mind while watching the turtles, she said there is a real value to the space dedicated to them.
“I’m sure that meant something to their families,” Franklin said. “To have a memorial on campus — even if it is hard and scary.”
Goodman said certain tragedies are depicted differently than the incident itself. He said the Texas tower shooting memorial, for example, can draw people in with the pond.
“There’s all these turtles and all this water,” Goodman said. “But there’s a major memorial there.”
He said the contrast of the pond’s peaceful nature to the large pink granite stone at the end of the grassy area in front of the tower, is a way to “lighten the heaviness” of the shooting. Most students, however, pass by the stone on the sidewalk next to it or cut straight across to see the turtle pond.
“It’s not a plaque, it’s not a wall that says a name,” Franklin said. “It’s a rough-hewn stone and that doesn’t attract your eye in the same way that a traditional memorial would.”
Part of memorialization, Goodman said, is the feelings of the families and community involved. Although there is still the question of how an institution makes space, the effort is to “remember and allow people to grieve and be seen,” he said.
One way that the university holds that space for those who have died is UT Remembers. The campus-wide ceremony invites people to come together to reserve a moment for students and staff who have died by reading their names and ringing the Tower bell for each individual.
“We get to honor those different segments of people on our campus for one unified reason,” said Abby Stauber, associate director for event communications at UT. “We are taking space to honor them and create a quiet moment for just an hour or so.”
The event looks to keep the legacy of those who have died, alive. Goodman said there is something powerful in these memorials.
“We can pause and honor, pause and name ways that folks’ legacies are still intact,” he said.
Franklin agreed, and described the turtle pond as a contemplative and peaceful space.
“If the place that you’re memorialized is beautiful,” Franklin said. “I think that’s a great thing.”
