By Ginger

April 18, 2007 4:21 PM | Link to this

As a Va. Tech alumna, my heart breaks for everyone involved. My family visited the campus in November, so my memories of the school and the spirited young students are very fresh. I noticed the dorms had key-card entry, new since my days there, but it also occurred to me at the time how open the campus is there, as is the case at most universities. Even so, when the perpetrator is a student, most protective precautions won’t help. You know, you want your children to be safe, but at the same time you don’t want to send them to a school that’s a fortress. It seems the administrators and campus police did the very best they could with the information they had and, as Scott Elliott’s blog pointed out, there’s simply no foolproof way to protect ourselves and our children from every homicidal maniac out there. It’s extremely scary, but that’s the world we live in. We can only be prepared to the best of our ability and hope and pray we and our children never meet with this kind of insanity.

By Mary

April 18, 2007 1:59 PM | Link to this

Sports is a double edged sword with depression. Exercise in itself can help alleviate depression, but sports (and other types of) concussions, and steriods can contribute to depression. There is also a problem with compulsive exercising. It is interesting that both of the perpetrator’s parents worked in the dry cleaning business. Exposure to certain dry cleaning fluids is also linked with depression and the student might have been exposed at an early age. DPS teacher, football does not make enough money to cover the cost of the stadium. If so, why did the taxpayers have to contribute to the remodeling at OSU and why do athletic contributors get tax write-offs? Congress and the IRS are asking those questions, as well.

By Dave

April 18, 2007 12:14 PM | Link to this

Folks with a sports-related injury WANT to get better. Depressed folks often refuse help - as did this gunman.

By dps teacher

April 18, 2007 10:13 AM | Link to this

Usually when an athlete sprains an ankle or gets hurt, they want to heal and get well but generally those who have severe, psychotic problems will not seek treatment and the school officials hands are tied by law. This is not an issue about sports and I do not understand why you keep flogging that dead horse. This is about a severely disturbed young man. Most young athletes are well adjusted, outstanding young people and those that are not, have issues that go beyond the sports field. The football program at Ohio State pays for all of the other sports programs, excluding men’s basketball, which includes scholarships for many students to attend the university, including academic scholarships. Right or wrong, sports are an important aspect of most cultures, including the American culture. Is it a problem? Yes, in many ways, but it is not cause of all the ills in our society..

By Mary

April 17, 2007 10:30 PM | Link to this

“oldprof”, it also sounds as if the college administrators bumbled on following through on the concerns flagged by the student’s English professors over a year ago. I’ll bet you his psychological symptoms got less than a tenth of the attention of a sports injury of an athlete at the school. Priorities.

By Oldprof

April 17, 2007 7:18 PM | Link to this

Terrence, exactly my point. They’re not prepared. They should be. Take a few administrators away from the latest management fad, and coordinate disaster and crisis preparedness.

By nikki

April 17, 2007 6:45 PM | Link to this

i’m appalled at the lack of response from the school officials, as well as the number of people killed in this tragedy. I’m just sorry that the man responsible will never have to see the damage he has caused to countless families, and the feelings of emptiness harbored by the people who had to watch all their friends and collegues die. My heart and soul go out to the people whose lives will be forever changed by this tragedy.

By Terrence

April 17, 2007 3:31 PM | Link to this

Pretty soon we’ll find some way to blame all this on rap music. But seriously, VT is a pretty large school and im sure its very difficult to get word out to every student in a timley manner. Could the school have done a better job on informing its students,Yes, But how many schools in America are prepared for this type of situation?

By Mary

April 17, 2007 12:00 PM | Link to this

So DPS teacher, I suppose all the facts would change if I were to tell you I was or was not dumped by an athlete. The book “Beer and Circus - How big time sports has crippled undergraduate education” was written by an English professor and former college athlete. So what is his ax to grind. The book, “30? million dollar slaves” was written by a former college athlete. What is his ax to grind? Was he dumped? I have never approached men or potential dates as one dimensional labels, like “athlete”. I think you would find many athletes share similar concerns - at least those athletes who are not one dimensional and venture out of their self serving cliques. Are you a teacher or a coach? How many dimensions do you have? I parted ways with one person in my early 20s who was obsessed with sports, but he was also almost old enough to be my father. I frustrated him because I would not put out for him. I was probably a better athlete than he was.

By Dave

April 17, 2007 10:05 AM | Link to this

I give it 3 weeks, max. before the alumni force the President of VT to resign over the way he mis-handled the first shooting. Especially since this was the second campus shooting this school year.

By Oldprof

April 17, 2007 9:21 AM | Link to this

Sports are to blame? No, we’ve had shootings at Wright State where there’s no football. It’s unfortunate, but we can’t anticipate and prevent it if a person becomes deranged. My hope is that administrators at our local colleges and universities will wake up and implement a thorough, professional system of crisis training. If you walk through any campus in our area, you can easily imagine how you could plant a bomb, hide weapons, invade without even verbal challenge. We don’t need to turn UD, Sinclair, WSU, Antioch, CSU, Wittenberg, or Edison into military encampments, but more attention to emergency procedures would be prudent.

By Joanna Perretta

April 17, 2007 9:04 AM | Link to this

I am in shock and in tears over what has happened at Virginia Tech. Another reminder our children do not have to be in Iraq to be shot and killed.

By dps teacher

April 17, 2007 9:03 AM | Link to this

Geez Mary, what is wrong with you? Were you dumped by an athlete or maybe they didn’t pay attention to you. The most prominent feature at VT is the drill fields, not the stadium or the sports facilities. The dorm where the first tragic incident occurred was near the arena but how does that have any thing to do with this tragedy? My assumption is that the maniac (or maniacs) that did these horrendous acts were mentally unstable and had no coping skills. The reasons behind the Columbine tragedy and the VT tragedy are probably dissimilar. The two boys from Columbine hated everybody else because of their perceived status in the school but the VT gunman (or gunmen) probably acted because of failure whether in a relationship or in academics. These acts at VT were probably not done to gain notoriety and to make a statement, as in Columbine, it was done out of passion and desperation. Is anyone getting tired of hearing the media second guessing the administration about their reaction to the initial shootings? It seems that a lot of people are blaming the VT administration for the shootings and not the actual shooter (or shooters). I am not sure how anyone could have foreseen the incident in Norris Hall 2 hours after the dorm shooting.

By Mary

April 16, 2007 4:53 PM | Link to this

I see common themes in what we were currently discussing on construction, the role of big time sports in education and the Virgina Tech and Columbine incidents - class sizes, lack of challenge and big time sports. The most prominent facility shown on the campus map of Viginia Tech on CNN was the stadium - not the library or classrooms, or dorms. Do a “google search” on Virgina Tech class sizes and you can locate a report from the provost about “well roundedness”, student complaints on core curriculum, large class sizes, and lack of challenge. I went through my big time sports reference in the 2000 book “Beer and Circus - How Big-time College Sports is Crippling Undergraduate Education” and looked up comments the author made about Virgina Tech. Right after Columbine, Virginia Tech played Florida State for number one in football. Virgina Tech is one of 11 school mentioned in this exerpt “However, even though these schools frequently had top-twenty college sports teams, none of them ever broke into the top fifty on the standard rankings of national universities.” Virgina Tech and Rutgers (also in the news), Ohio State, Georgia (my parents alma mater) and Georgia Tech (my alma mater)were among 20 universities mentioned in this exerpt “‘Professors suck all life from material’,’Professors make themselves scarce’, and ‘Class discussion rare’ turn up many of the usual suspects - research universities in big time college sports, including those often high in the NCAA college football and men’s basketball polls. “Virgina Tech AD Jim Weaver was more honest than Glen Mason about his department’s construction spree, not bothering to put academic ribbons on it“‘If you are not upgrading your facilities, you are going backward in college athletics today…we’re in the game of keeping up with the Joneses’. I don’t like it , but it’s a fact”. Read the book about Columbine, “No easy answers - the truth behind death at Columbine” written by a student and you will see many of the same themes.