Tragedy at Virginia Tech

Students and administrators at Princeton and on college campuses nationwide reacted with shock and sorrow as news of the worst shooting in U.S. history spread across the country.

Early yesterday morning, a gunman killed 32 people on the campus of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va., before taking his own life.

"My reaction was one of horror at the loss of so many innocent young lives," President Tilghman said yesterday afternoon, echoing the disbelief across campus that the peace of a community much like Princeton's had been so brutally shattered.

Students with ties to Virginia Tech or the surrounding area were surprised not only by the scope of the crime, but also by the mere existence of such violence in that community.

"It's a typical college town," Timothy Pollio '08 said. He lives in Blacksburg, and his mother works for Virginia Tech. "I found out [about the shootings] this afternoon from an email from my dad," he said. "I was really shocked. It's not something you'd think would happen."

Lucy He '09, who knows several Virginia Tech students, said she "called a couple of friends [there], and they've said that they're OK."

But with shock gripping the campus, "OK" is a relative term. "They sounded kind of lifeless," she said, "like they couldn't believe it was happening."

Of the people who died, 30 were killed inside Norris Hall, a building that houses some of the school's engineering classrooms and offices. They were at the mercy of one man who methodically shot at them until silence replaced the echoing staccato of gunfire.

Virginia Tech's College of Engineering Dean Richard Benson '73 has offices in Norris Hall but was traveling at the time of the shootings.

His wife, Leslie Benson, said in an interview that "he's heartsick, and he's coming back as fast as he can."

Student solidarity

On Princeton's campus, student groups quickly mobilized to express heartfelt sympathy and solidarity with Virginia Tech students.

Students from the Princeton Evangelical Fellowship organized a prayer gathering at Murray-Dodge Hall last night that was attended by about 40 people from various Christian organizations.

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"I'll continue to pray for the affected," Princeton Faith and Action president Justin Woyak '09 said. "I think and hope [the tragedy] will start thoughts and conversations amongst students everywhere to really evaluate life."

The USG and class governments, working with the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students and the Office of Religious Life (ORL), announced a campus gathering to be held at 9 p.m.

The gathering's planners wanted to "organize an opportunity for students to gather and in part to remember our colleagues down at Virginia Tech and also to impart a sense of community and communal support because there are students here who have lost friends who went to school at Virginia Tech," ORL Dean Paul Raushenbush said.

Even for those students who did not have direct connections to Blacksburg, yesterday's events proved equally moving, since students, staff members and faculty just like them had been assailed, their lives brutally cut short in the middle of learning, teaching or service.

"It's a national day of tragedy, but it's also particular [for us] because we're on a university campus," Raushenbush added.

"It's just a tragic, tragic incident," Public Safety director Steven Healy said in an interview. "The other tragedy is that college campuses on a day-today basis are such safe places."

Campus safety

Though the day's horrific events occurred several hundred miles away, the scope of the tragedy raises the question of how well colleges are equipped to deal with the threat of mass violence against their communities.

"There is simply no way that a university can protect itself against a random act of violence such as this one, short of turning the campus into a fortress," Tilghman said. "We have sensible security processes in place, and we monitor their effectiveness regularly."

Public Safety has a clearly defined procedure for dealing with what law enforcement officials call an "active shooter" situation, Healy, who is also president of the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators, said.

The term was originally created in the aftermath of the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., and describes a scenario where an individual is "actively engaged in bringing about significant violence or death," he explained.

The general procedure for dealing with such incidents involves first establishing a perimeter to prevent violence from spreading and informing people within the perimeter to protect themselves, Healy explained. "The next step is to go in, either with a SWAT team or whatever other entry team is available."

Since Public Safety officers are unarmed, the University relies on the aid of Borough and Township police and, in the case of major incidents, the Mercer County SWAT team.

"We feel pretty confident about that protocol, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't go back and look at it," Healy added. "[Incidents like this] cause us to step back and look at our policies and to make sure our partners are fully engaged."

Wilson School professor Katherine Newman, author of "Rampage: The Social Roots of School Shootings," said that shootings are "much more rare on university campuses than in high schools," though there are "some very notorious examples on college campuses."

College shootings tend to be precipitated by "academic grievances," Newman added, but that does not seem to be the motivating factor behind the Virginia Tech shootings based on information released so far.

Regardless of the motivations of the killer, the end remains the same. The lives of 33 people have been taken, and the lives of their families, friends and neighbors are forever changed.

Survivors of mass shootings tend to be affected for long periods of time, Newman said. "I wish I could say that people will get over it, but, honestly, they usually don't. Who gets over something like this?"