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Sara Hood
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Sarah Mogin
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2007-07-31
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News | Sarah Mogin
Wednesday night, students and faculty gathered by the Fence. In the midst of the cold and windy weather, 70 hands cupped 70 flickering flames as the Carnegie Mellon community mourned the victims of the Virginia Tech massacre.
Last Monday, 23-year-old Virginia Tech student Seung-Hui Cho killed himself and 32 others in the deadliest shooting executed by a single person in United States history. The attacks occurred in a dormitory and an academic building, both located on the Virginia Tech campus.
The vigil by the Fence is only one example of the ways in which colleges and universities nationwide are coming together to honor those slain.
"Students totally took the lead on creating this opportunity to express themselves after the Virginia Tech shootings," said Jonathan Kroll, housefellow for Morewood Gardens. "I think it definitely helps with the grieving process."
The vigil began at 9 p.m. with a moment of silence. As the group grew in number, participants continued to light the candles of those who gathered along the periphery of the crowd.
Student Body President Karl Sjogren passed out lyrics to to "Lean on Me" and the group then joined in song. After that, students and faculty members, one of whom was an alumna of Virginia Tech, took turns speaking informally.
Two hours earlier, the Hillel Jewish University Center (JUC) of Pittsburgh hosted a vigil led by rabbi Jamie Gibson of Temple Sinai.
Gibson led those attending in song and prayer, and students read prayers as well. During the vigil, Gibson gave personal attention to each of the departed.
"We knew that we wanted to read the names of every single person whose name had been released," said Sahar Oz, the JUC's assistant director. "And we also wanted to say a few things about them."
Students lit candles for each of the known victims: Liviu Librescu, a 76-year-old Holocaust survivor; Reema Samaha, an 18-year-old first-year; Kevin Granata, a biomechanics researcher and a leader in his field; and 26 others.
The group also lit three candles for the victims whose names had not yet been released.
Oz found Librescu's death particularly troubling. Librescu, a professor at Virginia Tech, was shot while protecting his students by guarding the entrance to his classroom.
"He was murdered on Holocaust Remembrance Day, which is an occasion observed around the world," Oz said. "It sent shock and a tremendous sense of loss to the Jewish community."
The tragedy resonated in particular with several Carnegie Mellon students in the JUC who met Virginia Tech students last May while on a Birthright trip to Israel.
"One of the things we did immediately was try to reach the eight students who went on this trip from Virginia Tech," Oz said. All eight were unharmed.
"We had that added element of emotional proximity," Oz said.
The modern languages department is also making plans to reach out to Virginia Tech, in part because so many of the shootings took place in foreign-language classrooms.
"We feel closer," said Sono Hayes-Takano, a Japanese professor.
"We've been brainstorming," Hayes-Takano said. "People in MLSAC, [Modern Languages Student Advisory Committee], they're thinking about raising money for [the victims'] memorial fund."
Beyond the campus community, the Internet has helped many feel connected to the Virginia Tech victims.
"I think the Internet in this case has been a tremendous asset," Oz said. "I think Facebook is a great example."
Profiles of victims on Facebook, in addition to those on news sites such as CNN and BBC News, have helped humanize the tragedy.
"We don't want these victims to become statistics," Oz said. "Keep it personal."
But with such accessibility, fear is often not too far behind.
"There is this sense of, 'It could happen to me,' " Oz said.
Students feeling vulnerable might benefit from becoming familiar with Carnegie Mellon's security policy.
"We have trained a certain number of people ... in every building," said Madelyn Miller, director of Environmental Health & Safety (EH&S) at the university.
RAs, building marshals, and other qualified individuals are among those who have received training, she said.
EH&S has had a system called AlertNow in place for the past couple of years. AlertNow enables EH&S to make 5000 phone calls in about a minute, which could help alert floor marshals of a campus emergency.
"Not everybody knows that we have these procedures in place," Miller said.
In the past, EH&S's procedures were kept online behind a firewall. The procedures were privatized because they included the cell phone numbers of various staff members, in addition to the locations of hazardous materials throughout campus.
After Virginia Tech, EH&S decided to make the procedures available to the public — without the information regarding cell phones or hazardous materials.
Carnegie Mellon's urban campus is an asset in the event of an emergency, Miller said. The university is within close reach of city, county, and state police.
"I think it makes us safer," she said.
Moreover, RAs are trained to recognize suspicious students, which could help prevent a future incident, Kroll said. Concern from other students is often cause for immediate action.
"Undoubtedly, we take that very seriously," he said.
--
Original Source:<a href=http://www.thetartan.org/2007/4/23/news/va_tech>The Tartan - April 23, 2007</a>
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eng
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The Tartan
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Shawn Wertz <swertz@andrew.cmu.edu>
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How Carnegie Mellon is keeping campus safe after VA Tech massacre
campus safety
cmu
grief
vigil
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Sara Hood
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Sara Gregory
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2007-07-27
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The focus of a discussion between public safety officials on area crime issues quickly turned to Virginia Tech at the 2007 Chapel Hill-Carrboro-Orange County Forum sponsored by WCHL.
The forum was intended as an opportunity to discuss local issues, but the Monday shootings left leaders reflective.
Chapel Hill has experienced similar incidents on a smaller scale, such as when alumnus Mohammad Taheri-Azar drove through the Pit in March 2006, injuring nine students, and the 1995 Wendell Williamson shooting, in which a law student opened fire on Franklin Street, killing two and injuring two others, including a Chapel Hill police officer.
"This community can associate somewhat with the community of Blacksburg because we've come so close ourselves," said Dan Jones, Chapel Hill fire chief.
Interim Chapel Hill police Chief Maj. Brian Curran said he also noted the similarities between the two campuses.
"It's something that we're afraid could have happened here."
Panelists discussed the town's preparedness to handle such an event if something similar was to happen at UNC.
Jones noted how difficult it would be to secure the campus. He said every exit door to every building would need to be guarded, in addition to every intersection, sidewalk and open area.
"It's easy to see that in a matter of minutes you'd need over 1,000 officers to close off the campus," Jones said. "That'd be just about every officer in Orange, Chatham, Durham and Wake counties on any given day."
Capt. Charles Blackwood, of the Orange County Sheriff's Department, said he felt the Va. Tech emergency response was the best it could have been given the magnitude of the tragedy.
"I think they did as good a job as they can, and I think we would do the same," Blackwood said. "You try to have a good plan in place, and you hope you can respond in such a situation."
Many of the participants noted how failures in addressing mental health issues lead to safety issues, both for the individual and for the town residents.
Joyce Kuhn, executive director of Orange Chatham Alternative Sentencing Inc., said it is important to provide services for those in need, something panelists agreed has become more difficult to do as more of the burden is shifted to local municipalities.
"There has to be more of these things so people have the care they need," she said.
District Court Judge Joe Buckner said that only an estimated 1 percent of those held at Orange County Jail for misdemeanors are repeat offenders, with 10 or more charges, but that they create problems for the entire criminal system with their recurring offenses.
Curran reiterated that point, and said what frustrates police is their relative inability to intervene in situations where an individual has not committed a crime and is unwilling to seek mental help.
"We're dealing with a relatively small population, but we're dealing with them over and over again," Curran said. "We just kind of stand by and watch these folks spiral out of control - there's really very little we can do."
And arresting individuals with mental health issues on minor offenses creates overcrowding in the jails and forces the county to assume costs of treating and housing the individuals.
"You can't really arrest yourselves out of a problem," Curran said.
Public safety incidents have risen in all areas of the county, and many attribute the increases to the influx of residents into the region.
"Growth is all across the public service spectrum," Jones said. "We're seeing a more transient population that makes all of these issues ... more difficult."
Part of approaching those difficulties more successfully includes adjusting to the fact that Chapel Hill is growing.
"People still think they're living in a small town," said Donna Kay Smith, executive director of the Family Violence Prevention Center.
"People are having to make that transition of recognizing that this is not a small town area anymore."
--
Original Source:<a href=http://media.www.dailytarheel.com/media/storage/paper885/news/2007/04/19/OnlineExclusives/Safety.Forum.Turns.To.Va.Tech.Shooting-2851519.shtml>Daily Tar Heel - April 19, 2007</a>
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eng
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Daily Tar Heel
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Kevin Schwartz <kschwartz@unc.edu>
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Safety forum turns to Va. Tech shooting
campus safety
police presence
unc
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Sara Hood
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Sarah Singer
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2007-07-10
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By Sarah Singer
Sun City Editor
Apr 18 2007
<i>Cornell responds to recent tragedy at Virginia Tech</i>
Yesterday, several university officials hosted a media call-in where they discussed safety and security on the Cornell campus in the aftermath of Monday's shooting at Virginia Polytechnical Institute. The participants were Curt Ostrander, chief of Cornell University Police, Greg Eells, director of counseling and psychological services for Gannett, Tim Marchall, director of mental health initiatives for Gannett and Tommy Bruce, vice president of University communications.
Although the tragedy in Virginia did not pose an immediate threat to Cornell's safety, Eells said he had "some concerns" about the safety of all college campuses during this frightening time. "Traumas like this can make students' own problems more clear to them," he said.
"We have heightened the police presence around residential areas," said Ostrander, "and we are being especially attentive to all of campus as well."
Although the University is in a heightened state of security, according to Ostrander, anticipating the exact measures it would take if faced with a crisis situation similar to Virginia Tech's is difficult, but confidently stated, "we have the plans and procedures in place to deal with situations like this," he said.
"We would dispatch a multiple officer response," he continued.
Ostrander said that the CUPD "assesses the campus every six months" to ensure its high level of safety for students. He also said that there are "training programs in place for resident hall directors on what to do in dangerous situations. We can track who enters and leaves the dorms, and can implement a lockdown if necessary," he said.
This effort to maintain a high level of security on campus extends beyond police efforts. Eells emphasized a number of educational initiatives that involve "working with residence halls directors to identify students and reach out to students if they are struggling," he said.
He could not outline the specific steps that a counselor would undertake when helping a student as he said such would have to be determined "on a case-by-case basis." However, Ostrander emphasized that if students encounter a physical threat at any time, "they can receive information from the dispatch at any time."
Bruce stressed, "student to student programs are extremely important on campus at times like this." Although he is confident in the University's ability to handle emergency situations, Ostrander said that Cornell's large size does pose complications when faced with a situation that warrants a school-wide lockdown that would affect 250 major buildings and approximately 30,000 residents.
The last shooting that occurred at Cornell was on Sunday, Dec. 17, 1983 when 26-year-old Su Yong Kim of Queens, New York shot and killed two freshmen girls, Young H. Suh '87 and Erin C. Nieswand '87, roommates living in Low Rise 7. Kim was Suh's ex-boyfriend. He arrived at Suh's dorm at 11:30 on Saturday night, and Kim unwillingly agreed to see him.
After threatening Suh and other dorm residents in her room, Kim agreed to let everyone besides Suh and Nieswan leave the room. The residents immediately called the police, who said the shots were fired at about 11:50 p.m. He used a rifle with a silencer attached.
After murdering both women, Kim killed himself, according to an article in The Sun.
--
Original Source: <a href= http://cornellsun.com/node/22971>Cornell Daily Sun - April 18, 2007</a>
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eng
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Jonny Lieberman <jdl46@cornell.edu>, <lieberman.jonny@gmail.com>
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CUPD Assesses Campus Safety
1983 tragedy
campus safety
cornell
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Sara Hood
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Owen Fletcher
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2007-06-22
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By Owen Fletcher
Princetonian Staff Writer
About a week before last week's shootings at Virginia Tech, the University made the prescient purchase of a mass alert system to notify students of campus security crises.
The University's system, which messages students' cell phones or other portable devices, has not yet been fully implemented, but it signals a heightened concern about campus security that existed even before the shootings.
But the shootings have ignited a national debate on methods to prevent and effectively respond to crises and have led to questions about campus security procedures.
Some Virginia Tech students have criticized campus safety officials for their slow response to gunman Cho Seung-Hui's murder of two students. Campus police notified students by email about two hours after the incident, but by then, Cho had begun his second round of shooting, taking 30 more lives and his own.
Crises like last week's shooting are difficult to predict, Public Safety Deputy Director Charles Davall said. "You can never totally be prepared for something like this," he said. "It could happen anywhere."
At a Senate hearing yesterday on campus security, Public Safety Director Steven Healy recommended that more universities adopt "mass notification systems that are capable of reaching community members."
Getting students to provide their portable contact information for this system, however, could be difficult, Healy testified. "Even if you have a system that can reach a person's cell phone" or other portable device, he said, "they still have to be willing to give you those numbers."
Healy, who is also president of the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators, said there is room for nationwide improvement on campus security.
"[M]ost colleges and universities have plans" to respond to crises, he said, but "we're a long way from being able to say ... that all institutions know how those plans will play."
Since last week's shootings, Public Safety has begun a review of campus security plans. Davall said that the department tentatively has arranged for Mercer County officials to train its officers.
In the event of a crisis, Davall said, Public Safety would respond by securing the area and calling local armed police, since campus police do not carry weapons. They would then notify all University members by email. But one problem with this method is that "students have to be looking at [a computer] to get the email," he said.
Healy also advocated "community policing" in his testimony. As part of Public Safety's policy, officers are required to patrol campus by foot for at least two hours a day so that students and faculty feel comfortable approaching them, officer Jim Lanzi said.
The department's efforts to engage the community can make people more comfortable in reporting suspicious activity, Lanzi said, but they are also meant to educate the community since students sometimes have a "false sense of security" on campus.
While these initiatives would not directly prevent an event like the Virginia Tech shooting, Lanzi said, the atmospheric difference they make could help increase the efficacy of a response.
Princeton "is generally a safe area ... but [students] always need to be aware of their surroundings," Davall said.
--
Original Source: <a href=http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2007/04/24/news/18230.shtml> Daily Princetonian - April 24, 2007</a>
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eng
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Daily Princetonian
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Kavita Saini <ksaini@Princeton.EDU>
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Would Public Safety be able to prevent a shooting?
campus safety
princeton
warning systems