College newspaper editorial boards paused to remember and reflect on the Virginia Tech tragedy on its one-year anniversary. Read below for a selection of the editorials.
We were all Hokies that day
Source | The Daily Kent Stater
Exactly one year ago our hearts stopped. We witnessed a scene unfold that made us question humanity.
Each hour, the death count grew. The pain in our stomachs deepened. It was happening almost 400 miles away, but it felt as though it were happening in our own backyard.
And it could have been.
The 32 victims were just like us. They sat in classrooms just like the ones we sit in every day. They had Facebook pages, impending exams, drama between friends and weekend plans.
But those Facebook pages were never updated, the exams were never taken, the drama was never resolved and the plans were never fulfilled.
Since the tragedy at Virginia Tech, the climate in America’s colleges - and even Kent State - has changed. On April 16, 2007, the sense of security many college students felt was shattered when news reports poured in of an armed student gunning down his classmates. We were shocked from our innocence.
It didn’t and still doesn’t make sense.
Security on college campuses has come a long way since the shootings. When reports surfaced of shooting taking place at Northern Illinois, it seemed like Virginia Tech all over again. Luckily, precautions had been in place, and the tragedy didn’t reach the magnitude of the massacre in Blacksburg.
But still, lives were lost for reasons nobody can comprehend.
Caution and awareness, not paranoia, is the answer
Source | The Daily O’Collegian
The anniversary of this terrible event has arrived as universities and schools across the country try to reevaluate their security procedures. More importantly, reevaluating how institutions deal with troubled people on their campus, before a crisis situation develops, is taking place as well.
Putting up security perimeters, remote sensors, inside locks, electronic entry and various other measures to supposedly boost security on campus is important in conveying an outward sense of security and makes us feel safer.
But how effective are these procedures when we can’t put monitors and locks into the mind of a would-be attacker?
A common thread in the attacks over the past decade is a deeply troubled person who has somehow eluded the intervention of others, whether intentionally or by accident, which could have prevented his or her ultimate meltdown.
A pound of prevention is worth an ounce of cure, but in situations such as the Virginia Tech shooting, there seemed to be a breakdown in the school’s handling of student personal crises.
Read the entire editorial.
Colleges show good progress on preventative health, monitoring efforts
Source | The Daily Targum
In the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre, administrators and counselors are being more aggressive nationwide in their efforts to identify students who would benefit from mental health counseling and are pushing more students harder to seek help. Mental health counselors are viewing this as a welcome challenge that simultaneously sends more students to their offices for help, while creating a strain on their already understaffed departments.
Colleges are also urging professors to be more proactive about identifying patterns of troubling behavior in their students, creating a separate division of oversight that was not present before the shooting. Proponents of these increased security measures have cited the fact that Seung-Hui Cho, the Virginia Tech gunman, could have been identified as a potential threat by his professors, who admitted after the fact that some of his writing assignments contained a pattern of violent material.
But there are many students who have a problem with this sort of monitoring by professors and teachers. A professor, to use Rutgers as a point of reference, stands in front of a class of students on average for 80-minute periods twice a week. If it is a large-, or even medium-, sized class, this often prohibits professors from developing a meaningful relationship with their students.
Some people argue professors are also likely to be hypersensitive to students who are merely eccentric and do not pose a significant threat to anyone. Susan Davis, a lawyer employed by the University of Virginia said, “There’s no question there’s some hysteria and there’s some things we don’t see,” alluding to inefficiencies in screening performed by professors or university officials.
But we must realize that no plan that urges oversight and preventive planning will ever be enough to ensure that such a massacre never happens again. No one can accurately predict 100 percent of the time which students are more likely to exhibit violent behavior. It is inevitable that, no matter how hard people look, troubled students will still fall through the cracks.
Take a moment to honor the Va. Tech victims
Source | The Kansas State Collegian
Today is the one-year anniversary of the shootings at Virginia Tech. The university canceled class so students and faculty could mourn the losses.
We at Kansas State should remember the shootings and how we came together. After the shootings, students attended candlelight vigils and memorials, joined memorial Facebook groups and wore maroon and orange to remember Virginia Tech. […]
[But on the anniversary,] no events have been scheduled by K-State, and nobody has posted on those Facebook groups’ walls for months.
Virginia Governor Timothy Kaine has called for a statewide moment of silence at noon today.
Members of the local community should also take a moment of silence of their own to remember the losses and gains of shootings at a university not much different from their own.