A series of events...
I've been meaning to blog about the series of events that have been occurring on our campus and how frustrating it all has been. The Roanoke Times just came out with an article that does it better than I could describe, so I'll just paste it here:
http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/225603
Tragedy-rocked Tech reaches out to Fort Hood
School officials are helping the military even as they grapple with yet another gruesome link to Blacksburg.
By Tonia Moxley | The Roanoke Times
BLACKSBURG -- Military officials dealing with Thursday's Fort Hood shootings have called on Virginia Tech for guidance in coping with the trauma that follows such violence.
It's been more than two years since Tech English major Seung-Hui Cho gunned down 32 students and faculty and injured dozens more in the worst school shooting in U.S. history.
In that time, there has been healing and solidarity. Officials have implemented new security measures and training on campus and in the community. State legislators have revised public policy and bolstered mental health services across the state.
But in many ways, the community here is still reeling, not just from the aftereffects of April 16, 2007, but from a string of subsequent tragedies that have befallen Tech students.
The crimes and the national spotlight under which these events are now analyzed create a feeling of "yet again, here's another one. It's draining after a while," said Scott Russell, Episcopal campus minister at Tech.
The constant attention, even when it's well-meaning, "can be debilitating," Vice President for Student Affairs Ed Spencer said.
In January, Tech doctoral student Haiyang Zhu, 26, was charged with the killing of fellow student Xin Yang, 22, who was decapitated in a cafe in Tech's Graduate Life Center.
An unknown killer or killers shot and killed 18-year-old Heidi Childs and her boyfriend, David Metzler, 19, in August in a secluded campground a short drive from campus.
Twenty-year-old Morgan Harrington disappeared last month from a rock concert in Charlottesville, leaving her family bereft and the Tech community bewildered.
Then, on Thursday, news broke that Nidal Malik Hasan, a 1995 Tech graduate formerly of Roanoke, allegedly opened fire on fellow soldiers in a medical waiting room at Fort Hood, Texas, killing 13 and injuring about 30.
It has been called the worst mass shooting on a military base in U.S. history.
And once again, the name Virginia Tech was paired with mass tragedy in news reports across the country.
"I hate to hear this. I hate this association with Virginia Tech," said Tom Sitz, a biochemistry professor who taught Hasan in the early 1990s.
Hasan has "been gone a long time. How can you make something out of that?" Sitz asked.
Still, the tragedies that have beset the Hokie nation since 2007 prick wounds from that terrible time more than two years ago when the community's sense of security was shattered by Cho.
Now, every time there's a new tragedy, it "brings back those same gut-wrenching feelings," Sitz said.
"Even before the shootings in Texas, I must admit to wondering about the incomprehensible series of events. ... Because nothing seemed to ever happen in Blacksburg. And now all of this?" Tech journalism instructor Roland Lazenby wrote in a message Sunday.
Lazenby has taught at Tech for 11 years and co-wrote with some of his students the oral history "April 16th: Virginia Tech Remembers."
The mounting effects of senseless and in some cases unsolved Tech-related crimes have caused many to question if so much tragedy can be a coincidence. There's a feeling of unease -- fueled by bloggers, Internet commentaries and even local speculation -- that in Blacksburg might lie some wellspring of violence.
In a pre-April 16 context, Hasan's fleeting connection to Tech would likely have garnered little notice. But the human tendency to look for a simple explanation can lead to rampant mythmaking, said Dr. Frank Ochberg, co-founder of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma and a leading expert in traumatic stress studies.
It's a phenomenon felt in Columbine, Colo., in the years following what in 1999 was the worst school shooting in the country's history. That year, an entire community became synonymous with teen violence and related social ills.
"Tragic and traumatic events sometimes cause us collectively to have some common feeling. This feeling can pull us together," said Ochberg, who worked with officials in Columbine following those killings.
"But it can also cause us to assume that tragedies have a common root. ... It's not unexpected that people will put together a string of tragedies" and assume "this particular place is a 'tragic land' or has something negative about it," Ochberg said.
People living there can come to feel cursed or damned, he said.
"The answer to that is: Be reasonable and be rational. Look for very important differences" in the events, he said.
"This is also a good time for people to embrace each other and get back in touch with their ... love and solidarity. And don't pay too much attention to the voices of gloom and doom," he said.
Ochberg also suggested that community and campus leaders remind the public "that these myths about being damned and cursed are superstitions." To counteract them, "search for what's really going on and what you can do about it."
"I have been to Virginia Tech, and I have felt the spirit. And it is good," Ochberg said.
As universities and even Columbine High School Principal Frank DeAngelis reached out to Tech in the aftermath of April 16, so has Tech reached out to the victims at Fort Hood.
Spencer said he and about a dozen other university officials have spent hours talking with Pentagon officials by phone and teleconference. They've given advice in planning for the days, weeks and even years of grief and change that community now faces, he said.
Bo Hart, chief of staff of the Tech Student Government Association, said Friday, "We're here to support Fort Hood and the Army. ... We're here to do whatever we can."
http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/225603
Tragedy-rocked Tech reaches out to Fort Hood
School officials are helping the military even as they grapple with yet another gruesome link to Blacksburg.
By Tonia Moxley | The Roanoke Times
BLACKSBURG -- Military officials dealing with Thursday's Fort Hood shootings have called on Virginia Tech for guidance in coping with the trauma that follows such violence.
It's been more than two years since Tech English major Seung-Hui Cho gunned down 32 students and faculty and injured dozens more in the worst school shooting in U.S. history.
In that time, there has been healing and solidarity. Officials have implemented new security measures and training on campus and in the community. State legislators have revised public policy and bolstered mental health services across the state.
But in many ways, the community here is still reeling, not just from the aftereffects of April 16, 2007, but from a string of subsequent tragedies that have befallen Tech students.
The crimes and the national spotlight under which these events are now analyzed create a feeling of "yet again, here's another one. It's draining after a while," said Scott Russell, Episcopal campus minister at Tech.
The constant attention, even when it's well-meaning, "can be debilitating," Vice President for Student Affairs Ed Spencer said.
In January, Tech doctoral student Haiyang Zhu, 26, was charged with the killing of fellow student Xin Yang, 22, who was decapitated in a cafe in Tech's Graduate Life Center.
An unknown killer or killers shot and killed 18-year-old Heidi Childs and her boyfriend, David Metzler, 19, in August in a secluded campground a short drive from campus.
Twenty-year-old Morgan Harrington disappeared last month from a rock concert in Charlottesville, leaving her family bereft and the Tech community bewildered.
Then, on Thursday, news broke that Nidal Malik Hasan, a 1995 Tech graduate formerly of Roanoke, allegedly opened fire on fellow soldiers in a medical waiting room at Fort Hood, Texas, killing 13 and injuring about 30.
It has been called the worst mass shooting on a military base in U.S. history.
And once again, the name Virginia Tech was paired with mass tragedy in news reports across the country.
"I hate to hear this. I hate this association with Virginia Tech," said Tom Sitz, a biochemistry professor who taught Hasan in the early 1990s.
Hasan has "been gone a long time. How can you make something out of that?" Sitz asked.
Still, the tragedies that have beset the Hokie nation since 2007 prick wounds from that terrible time more than two years ago when the community's sense of security was shattered by Cho.
Now, every time there's a new tragedy, it "brings back those same gut-wrenching feelings," Sitz said.
"Even before the shootings in Texas, I must admit to wondering about the incomprehensible series of events. ... Because nothing seemed to ever happen in Blacksburg. And now all of this?" Tech journalism instructor Roland Lazenby wrote in a message Sunday.
Lazenby has taught at Tech for 11 years and co-wrote with some of his students the oral history "April 16th: Virginia Tech Remembers."
The mounting effects of senseless and in some cases unsolved Tech-related crimes have caused many to question if so much tragedy can be a coincidence. There's a feeling of unease -- fueled by bloggers, Internet commentaries and even local speculation -- that in Blacksburg might lie some wellspring of violence.
In a pre-April 16 context, Hasan's fleeting connection to Tech would likely have garnered little notice. But the human tendency to look for a simple explanation can lead to rampant mythmaking, said Dr. Frank Ochberg, co-founder of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma and a leading expert in traumatic stress studies.
It's a phenomenon felt in Columbine, Colo., in the years following what in 1999 was the worst school shooting in the country's history. That year, an entire community became synonymous with teen violence and related social ills.
"Tragic and traumatic events sometimes cause us collectively to have some common feeling. This feeling can pull us together," said Ochberg, who worked with officials in Columbine following those killings.
"But it can also cause us to assume that tragedies have a common root. ... It's not unexpected that people will put together a string of tragedies" and assume "this particular place is a 'tragic land' or has something negative about it," Ochberg said.
People living there can come to feel cursed or damned, he said.
"The answer to that is: Be reasonable and be rational. Look for very important differences" in the events, he said.
"This is also a good time for people to embrace each other and get back in touch with their ... love and solidarity. And don't pay too much attention to the voices of gloom and doom," he said.
Ochberg also suggested that community and campus leaders remind the public "that these myths about being damned and cursed are superstitions." To counteract them, "search for what's really going on and what you can do about it."
"I have been to Virginia Tech, and I have felt the spirit. And it is good," Ochberg said.
As universities and even Columbine High School Principal Frank DeAngelis reached out to Tech in the aftermath of April 16, so has Tech reached out to the victims at Fort Hood.
Spencer said he and about a dozen other university officials have spent hours talking with Pentagon officials by phone and teleconference. They've given advice in planning for the days, weeks and even years of grief and change that community now faces, he said.
Bo Hart, chief of staff of the Tech Student Government Association, said Friday, "We're here to support Fort Hood and the Army. ... We're here to do whatever we can."