C.U. Officials Discuss Response to Va. Tech

By Ben Eisen
Sun Staff Writer
Apr 25 2007

"Half of college students report having felt extremely depressed," said Ray Kim, assistant dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, to a crowd of students in Goldwin Smith's Hollis E. Cornell auditorium yesterday afternoon. "60 percent of students report feeling absolutely hopeless at times. 10 percent of students reported seriously considering suicide. How many people knew it was this bad?"

No one raised their hands.

Kim was one of four speakers on a panel yesterday afternoon to speak about the Virginia Tech tragedy and Cornell's level of preparedness for such emergencies. Hosted by Omega Phi Beta Sorority and Lambda Phi Epsilon, the goal of the discussion was to bring the past week's events home to our campus.

Other speakers included George Sutfin, head of crime prevention at Cornell Police, Chief Curtis Ostrander who has worked for CUPD since before the 1983 shooting at Cornell, and Dr. Ya-Shu Liang, who works for Counseling and Psychological Services.

"Every time something happens [response and prevention] plans are reevaluated," Sutfin said.

"Columbine got everyone reevaluating response," added Ostrander. "New training was developed. I was one of the first officers who received training."

Sutfin told the audience that Cornell is now in the process of making a contract with a company that alerts everyone on campus of emergencies by text message.

"If something happens at an elementary school, it's easy to shut down, but Cornell is a small city, and it's very hard to shut down the entire campus. Studies show that 90 percent of students have cell phones, so [the new plan will] send texts to everyone in a circumference."

Though the officers were unable not comment on their current response plans to the specific type of emergency that happened at Virginia Tech, Sutfin said that CUPD senior staff sat in on meetings to discuss changes to the plans while the panel was going on.

He added that a lot of prevention rests in the hands of students. According to Sutfin, many students let unknown people into their dormitories, putting everyone at risk. He cited an incident when, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, he was able to get into a dorm, go into an unlocked room and "steal" a computer, without ever being asked who he was.

Kim said that there is added pressure in a university setting, which often drives people to need help. He said that University policy forbids the administration from telling parents when their students show signs of problems unless the student provides consent, and Gannett and Cayuga Medical cannot tell the administration when students need help. This means that a lot of responsibility for reaching out to those in trouble rests in the hands of students.

Liu spoke about the infrastructure that Gannett has implemented to help at-risk students through CAPS.

"If students are in danger to themselves or others, we may break confidentiality," Liu said. "If someone called the hotline and said that they were going to kill people, we would force them into the hospital."

She added that students have also used CAPS to help them cope with the Virginia Tech tragedy.

This panel was the only community forum organized by students, according to Antonia de Jesus '09 of Omega Phi Beta, who helped arrange the event.

"I got a call from my mother crying the day it happened," said de Jesus. "She had seen the pictures of all students. I looked it up on the internet, and I thought that something had to be done, so we put it all together."

Tiffany Brutus '07, president of Omega Phi Beta, was concerned because Cornell students had not done more in response to the tragedy.

"It's a big reflection on our generation. People care about it in the now, but not a couple days later. If you don't go to Virginia Tech, people forget about it."

--

Original Source: <a href=http://cornellsun.com/node/23152> Cornell Daily Sun - April 25, 2007</a>

Ben Eisen

2007-07-10

Sara Hood

Jonny Lieberman <jdl46@cornell.edu>, <lieberman.jonny@gmail.com>

eng

&#39;We Are One&#39;: C.U. Community Reflects on Va. Tech Tragedy

By Lisa Grossman
Sun Staff Writer
Apr 20 2007

Students, faculty, staff and members of the Ithaca community gathered in Sage Chapel yesterday afternoon to remember and reflect on the recent tragedy at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

Despite the fact that the service was held at 12:30 p.m., when many students and faculty are in class, the chapel was packed to capacity, with people pressed against the walls and in doorways.

The assembly fell silent as Prof. Annette Richards, music, opened the service with a melancholy and discordant organ solo. The mood remained hushed and somber as W. Kent Fuchs, the Joseph Silbert Dean of Engineering and father of Eric Fuchs, a junior at Virginia Tech, began the speaking portion of the service.

Fuchs focused on the connections that Cornell shares with Virginia Tech as a major university, saying that Cornell and Virginia Tech are "part of the same family of students and faculty and staff."

Words of hope.Words of hope."The tragedy is particularly difficult to comprehend because ... of the contrast to the love and care demonstrated by the students and faculty at that university. The tragedy is also an enormous contrast to the common mission that we have and that we share in: the joy of learning and study," he said.

Fuchs spoke with emotion and even a little humor, saying that "from Eric, I&#39;ve come to appreciate what it means to have a turkey for your mascot, and to call yourself a &#39;Hokie,&#39; which my son does with enormous pride."

President David J. Skorton echoed Fuchs&#39; emphasis on family and unity, repeating, in tones that might be used to recite a poem, "We are one."

"We are one — one community, one people, one planet. We are here today to affirm that oneness," he said. "We share the same sorrow and the same need for comfort and reassurance ... We will stay together, we will go forward together, we will never forget our loss. We are one."

Provost Biddy Martin was in Virginia, her native state, visiting her mother on Monday morning. She said she was struck by the "dignity of the students who were approached for interviews by the press - their humility, their respect, their unwillingness to offer superficial commentary, their resistance to easy analysis or the assigning of blame. In response to the questions they were asked, they made a plea ... that we not reduce their experience or their university to this horror, this unspeakable tragedy."

"In response to their plea, it is not hard, I think, for Cornellians to answer, to identify with Virginia Tech," she said.

The service was punctuated by musical performances, including the Cornell University Chorus and Glee Club and a vocal solo by Rev. Heewon Chun, chaplain of the Korean Church at Cornell.

Chun said he found the service "very comforting. It will give Cornellians energy to cope with what has happened, and will also give hope for the future ... one for backwards, one for forwards." He also said that the Korean community deeply aches for this tragedy, and noted that some members of the Korean community are concerned about the possibility of race-related backlash.

Thomas Riehl &#39;09 said he felt "wary of how much race seems to be playing into it. Why was it even pertinent to have [a Korean religious leader] sing? Why is this even part of the issue? It just seems so wrong and out of it to bring up the kid&#39;s race."

Sarah Dunlap &#39;06 was also concerned with the potential effect the incident and the media&#39;s treatment of it could have on the community of international students. She noted that "on CNN, the commentators kept referring to the shooter as an &#39;alien&#39; because he was a foreign student. I was disgusted—that&#39;s demoralizing. It&#39;s offensive to the entire body of foreign students, and on the individual level, that kind of exclusion and alienation is the kind of thing that leads to the desperate misery and rage that makes some people lash out in horrible ways."

Dunlap found comfort in the service itself, however, saying that she "liked the focus on community. The response of the Cornell community is different from the response of the national community. It&#39;s not sensationalist; it&#39;s more nuanced. I think that&#39;s because even if we don&#39;t have a personal connection to Virginia Tech, we still identify strongly with them because we belong to the same university culture."

Some people have questioned why the service was held in the middle of the afternoon, when a large portion of students was in class.

Ken Clarke, director of Cornell United Religious Work, said that the time was chosen in order to "catch the greatest cross-section of the Cornell community." He acknowledged that there was no optimal time to hold the service, and while some students had to miss it due to class obligations, much of the staff and faculty would have missed an evening service because of obligations at home. Clarke also noted that holding the service at 12:30 meant that it would be flanked by the chimes.

The bells of McGraw tower rang 33 times before the service, once for each of the victims, and the daily afternoon chimes concert began just as people began filing out of Sage Chapel.

You can view a recording of the service at www.cornell.edu.


<b>Comments:</b>


Outraged

With all due respect, you write that the "bells of McGraw tower rang 33 times before the service, once for each of the victims..." This is a complete moral outrage -- since when is a cold blooded killer a victim? This is akin to reading the 9/11 hijackers&#39; names along with the true 9/11 victims.

<i>By Alex Hyman (not verified) at April 20, 2007 - 2:10am</i>

----

Appalled

Not only did the bells ring 33 times, but President Skorton was sure to include the killer with the victims. Such a disgrace. What the crap was he thinking?

<i>By Tammi (not verified) at April 20, 2007 - 11:20am</i>

----

A little compassion

The gunman may not have been a victim of a violent murder, but he was certainly a victim. He was a victim of mental illness, of being trapped in his own psyche where every interaction with the world felt like an attack. He&#39;s still another person who could have had a future and didn&#39;t. He had a family, too--how must they be feeling now? Including him and remembering him respectfully now is not only appropriate, it&#39;s too little too late. Maybe if he had felt less isolated before, we wouldn&#39;t need to be discussing it. His situation was tragic, too.

<i>By Hannah (not verified) at April 21, 2007 - 4:50pm</i>

----

This moral equivalence is totally disgraceful


"The bells of McGraw tower rang 33 times before the service, once for each of the victims"

Cho was not a victim; he was a perpetrator who chose to kill 32 students. Forgiveness is good but why are we paying him respect and honor?

We don&#39;t honor, hold services or ring bells for just anyone who commits suicide. The only reason Cho is included is because he massacred 32 defenseless students in cold blood. I agree with Alex Hymen above that this is totally inappropriate and outrageous.

<i>By Coyote (not verified) at April 22, 2007 - 10:04am</i>

----

Hannah, we must reexamine a society that makes everyone out to be a victim. Find me a person who was not made fun of in high school. The fact is everyone was made fun of and 99% don&#39;t go out and kill people. While we can feel bad for Cho&#39;s family, as we currently know of nothing that they did wrong, he is certainly not a victim and certainly should not be memorialized. And as for your comment about him being a victim of mental illness -- I would agree with you, but that&#39;s where him being a victim ends. Since when do we ring bells for victims of mental illness? The fact is he -- like all freely thinking people -- made a choice, but made the wrong choice.

<i>By Alex Hyman (not verified) at April 22, 2007 - 6:12pm</i>

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Disgusting

Skorton is an educated, articulate, man. He must have realized what his words meant. For him to say that Cornell is "one" with a murderer is beyond the pale.

<i>By G. Man (not verified) at April 23, 2007 - 8:55am</i>

----

People obviously handle grief in different ways

I don&#39;t think memorializing the shooter was the "right" thing to do, and I personally would not do it myself, but I think some people feel the need to memorialize Cho to help them deal with their grief. Although Cho was the perpetrator in this horrible tragedy, he was also a victim of a horrible mental health system in this country. If he had gotten the help he so desperately needed, then possibly this whole thing could have been avoided.

Also think how his family must feel. They are obviously victims also, because they have to live with this horrible tragedy for the rest of their lives, as well as the families of the victims of Cho&#39;s madness.

<i>By Anne (not verified) at April 28, 2007 - 12:02pm</i>

--

Original Source: <a href= http://cornellsun.com/node/23056> Cornell Daily Sun - April 20, 2007</a>

Sara Hood

Cornell Daily Sun

2007-07-02

Sara Hood

Jonny Lieberman <jdl46@cornell.edu>, <lieberman.jonny@gmail.com>

eng

Reflections on Virginia Tech

By Billy McMorris
Apr 17 2007

<b>John Manetta Once Told Me</b>

In early modern Europe the infant mortality rate was astronomical. Crude medical practices led to a high casualty rate for mother and child alike. In many cases, new mothers would be forced to rely on lying-in-maids to handle maternal responsibilities, while they recovered from the exhausting and traumatic experience of child birth.

Lying-in-maids were generally post-menopausal widows, who were unable to mother children themselves. If new- born children were to become sick or die, grieving mothers, in some cases already afflicted with post partum depression, would look for some sort of explanation for why their child did not survive infancy.

In some cases, the dazed and depressed mother would come to a genius conclusion: the lying-in-maid was a witch. Accusations were launched against close family friends and next door neighbors ... even the child&#39;s grandmother could find herself burned at the stake if she did not make sure that baby survived until the mother could fulfill her maternal role. These infertile women could not use their feminine power to care for the infant, and instead chose to use sorcery to bring about harm. Apparently all one needs is a scapegoat to survive the grieving process.

America, however, is no different than these mourning mothers. Any major tragedy is immediately followed with a blame game of epic proportions. Calls for inquiries, hearings, firings and resignations are launched before words of condolence are even expressed. When we as a culture engage in this sort of "dialogue," we take the event away from those who are affected by it, and try to center it around our own vanity. It is perhaps the most despicable thing about our culture; it&#39;s even more revolting than a cult following of Paris Hilton. But still, everyone is chiming in on Virginia Tech.

The student activists are complaining that, "if it wasn&#39;t for Charlton Heston or the &#39;gun nuts,&#39; this would have never happened." Can&#39;t the explanation for such an event simply be an evil person doing an evil thing? Is it really Charlton Heston&#39;s fault that some kid went crazy?

Campus police representatives say that "there was no indication of any possible motive." Evil sounds like a pretty fair assessment of the situation. Nothing but pure evil could truly describe what Cho Seung-Hui did just four days before the eighth anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre.

Psychotherapists have called the murderer&#39;s suicide note "disturbing." "Evil" however, seems a more appropriate word. This is, after all, the same note that the 23-year-old South Korean before killing two people. This is the same note that he wrote before before reloading and taking away 30 more bright futures. In the note, he used the cliché suicide phrase, "you caused me to do this," as if writing it down on paper would make it true. But no one caused him to do this; only pure evil can drive someone to do something so remarkably despicable and cowardly.

Various Virginia Tech students and their parents are calling for resignations and firings because their children could have been killed due to the inadequate response to the first vicious killing. These same people have not given a second thought to the actual victims or their families that did lose a child.

That idiot who lives in your hall is probably still telling that story about how "he almost went to Virginia Tech." Whoa, that&#39;s spooky you herb, some people actually go there; in fact, some people just got murdered there. You might have even seen it on the news. These self-centered malcontents try to do everything they can to make the tragedy about them.

The presidential candidates have begun explaining their positions concerning gun control and second amendment rights. At a time like this, it is disgusting to hear Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton (in her new Southern accent) discuss their stance toward gun control, just as it is repulsive to hear John McCain pander to the National Rifle Association. They are no better than Michael Moore, who is now drooling over the prospect of a sequel to Bowling for Columbine.

These brats and blamers only serve to shift the attention away from the tragedy that befell 32 students and professors, and instead make this horrifying event an impersonal political debate or personal tale. We have plenty of time to do that later.

For now, let&#39;s put down those petitions advocating enhanced gun control or handgun-friendly campus buildings. Why don&#39;t we raise money for the families of that coward&#39;s tragic victims instead? Rather than telling the story about a kid you know who went to Virginia Tech, why don&#39;t you sit down and think about that anonymous Hokie who was robbed of his future.

For now though, let&#39;s think about the victims, their families and those that protect us.

Let&#39;s think about Ryan Clark, one of the first two victims; he died trying to calm that murderous coward down.

Let&#39;s think about the heroism of Prof. Liviu Librescu, who blocked his classroom door with his own body to give his students time to escape before suffering a fatal gunshot wound.

Be thankful that we, too, have professionals willing to protect our university and its students. Thank your R.A.; thank a CUPD officer; thank Robert Davis and Antwan Sampson for making sure you have a Cornell I.D. before entering the library. And thank God for giving us men and women that are here to make sure we never suffer a tragedy of this magnitude.

But most of all, think about the terror that all these victims must have experienced before meeting an untimely end.

Now tell me; do your anecdotes and agendas seem that important now?

<i>Billy McMorris is a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be contacted at wjm27@cornell.edu. John Manetta Once Told Me appears alternate Wednesdays.</i>


<b>Comments:</b>

&#39;only pure evil&#39;?

Hi Billy,

I agree with you that it is appalling that the blame game started even before all victims are identified. It is quite ridiculous to start blaming gun control laws, finger pointing the president and police, and forming inquiry panels to find every little fault.

But I strongly disagree with you when you say Cho&#39;s motivation was &#39;only pure evil&#39;. In a way, Cho was a victim himself - a victim because no one tried to help him. He was very lonely, angry, and troubled. There were many warning signs before the massacre happened. He didn&#39;t just wake up one day and snapped; he didn&#39;t get up early 5:30am in the morning because he suddenly wanted to kill.

No one is born evil; no one truly wants to hurt another. If something like this happens, we must examine the circumstances that make people so resentful that they feel they have no recourse but to commit suicides and homicides.

So I will make blame. I blame the university for not heeding the long warning signs. I blame the university counseling for not trying to help him. Cho voluntarily went to a mental hospital and was released; he was taking prescription drugs. Are the psychologists so incompetent that they couldn&#39;t see he was depressed enough to be suicidal? Did no one at the hospital try to reach out to him, connect with him, and get his trust enough to reveal what is troubling him?

There is reason to believe he may have been sexually molested. When police went to search for his parents, the house was deserted. If it were the case that Cho was abused at home or at one point assaulted, then it is not his fault he came to saw the world as not a happy place. No one tried to show him otherwise; no one.

I don&#39;t blame the students for not trying to be friends with him. But I am shocked at the behavior of some of the professors especially Nikki who saw him as a troublesome student that should be kicked out of her class. I commend Professor Roy for having to courage to help Cho and giving him one-on-one workshops. It is the responsibility of professors to not only teach students but also help them and try to make them individuals who will make society thrive.

It is therefore only appropriate to not only give condolences but also try to find reasons that could have led to this nightmare so that this could have been prevented. Yes, blaming the president and police for two hour delay in e-mail message and asking for tighter (or looser) gun control laws is ludicrous because they amount to nothing but finding scapegoats and furthering political agendas. But blaming the university counseling, callous people who drove Cho to his isolation and depression, and people for not heeding the long warning signs is not only appropriate but wise so that in future we can help people like Cho.

-May Zaw
Senior in College of Arts and Sciences
President of Origami Club

<i>By May Zaw (not verified) at April 18, 2007 - 4:46pm</i>

----

I agree with you. It really bothers me how many people&#39;s knee-jerk response to such a tragic event is to find a scapegoat, without even taking time to mourn for the victims and their loved ones.

It does seem strange that he was allowed to stay at VTech despite all the warning signs. Even though hindsight gives you 20-20 vision, the suicidal tendencies coupled with the plays he wrote for writing class ought to have set some alarm bells ringing. But there is no use pointing fingers at anyone - none of it will ever change the fact that over 30 people died on Monday. My prayers are with Virginia Tech.

<i>By Nikhil Chandra (not verified) at April 18, 2007 - 11:55pm </i>

----
To the Editor

Almost as distressing as the horrific event at Virginia Tech is the incessant focus of the media and public on understanding the "rationale"behind the killings. That focus is misplaced. As a psychiatrist it is obvious to me and many of my colleagues that what is really at work here are
the manifestations of an underlying mental disorder. From all the descriptions Mr. Seung-Hui demonstrated an almost textbook example of paranoid schizophrenia. He was motivated to kill because of his delusional thinking. He had grandiose delusions- irrationally saw himself as a martyr like Christ. He was seen giggling to himself and avoiding eye contact on the campus (he was responding to voices in his head, i.e., auditory hallucinations). He had systematized delusions about his fellow classmates- they hated him and were out to harm him (paranoid delusions). He was guarded and suspicious- he kept to himself and had no attachments to others (further support for his paranoia). He had nihilistic delusions- false negativistic views of the world and fellow students. This rage and paranoia may lead to violent behavior that is just as likely to be directed at others as it is to be turned on the self. That is why many psychotic
killers turn the guns on themselves following a mass shooting spree.

There is no mystery here. As much as we can hope that pathology like schizophrenia can be spotted before it can harm the individual or other that is not always feasible. The overarching tragedy is that unlike other societies for the sake of "protecting our freedoms" mentally ill individuals have easy access to weapons that permit them to act out their delusions on a massive scale.

Sincerely,

Joyce E. Myers, MD

Prison Staff Psychiatrist

<i>By Joyce Myers (not verified) at April 19, 2007 - 2:25pm</i>

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Hmmm...

"Now tell me; do your anecdotes and agendas seem that important now?"

It&#39;s ironic how your arrogant, didactic, self-important writing trivializes your subject matter. If anyone wonders why our school&#39;s ranking isn&#39;t as high as it should be, take a look at Billy McMorris&#39;s columns to see why.

<i>By AlbertN (not verified) at April 19, 2007 - 2:33pm</i>

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Why blame Charlton Heston?

Yes, why blame Charlton Heston for the Virginia tragedy? One of the most respectable Americans in todays America. He did his best for the country. Serving the nation in World War II. Giving an exemple as a father and grand father. As a professional, always showing that the good should prevail on our lives.

Blame him because he defends the Second Amendment? Doesn&#39;t he has the right to? Or any responsable citizen?
Gun problem, is not on good people, but on bad people. This is the real problem, bad people. This people yes should never be able to get a gun. Unfortunately, it is happening all over the world.
It is not only an American problem, it is a world problem.

<i>By Jaime Pimentel Oliveira (not verified) at April 21, 2007 - 10:00pm</i>


--

Original Source: <a href=http://cornellsun.com/node/22960> Cornell Daily Sun - April 17, 2007 </a>

Billy McMorris

Cornell Daily Sun

2007-07-02

Sara Hood

Jonny Lieberman <jdl46@cornell.edu>, <lieberman.jonny@gmail.com>

eng

Vigil for Virginia Tech, Cornell University, April 19, 2007 - Program and Remarks

From: Thomas W. Bruce [mailto:vpcommunications@cornell.edu]
Sent: Thu 4/19/2007 3:58 PM
Subject: President Skorton, Provost Martin, and Dean Fuchs in Remembrance of the Virginia Tech Tragedy

Dear Friends,

This afternoon witnessed a gathering of the Cornell community in Sage
Chapel to honor the memories of the victims of Monday&#39;s tragedy at
Virginia Tech. I would like to share with our entire Cornell family
the program and the remarks of the three speakers: Dean W. Kent Fuchs
of the College of Engineering, President David J. Skorton, and
Provost Carolyn "Biddy" Martin.

A video of the service can be seen on the web at the Cornell
University home page: <http://www.cornell.edu>

Tommy Bruce
Vice President for University Communications


THE PROGRAM

A Service of Remembrance and Reflection
for Victims of Virginia Technical Institute and State University Tragedy

Thursday, April 19, 2007
12:30 p.m.
Sage Chapel, Cornell University
Ithaca, New York

Prior to the service, the chimes of McGraw Tower rang thirty-three
times in memory of each victim of the tragic shootings at Virginia
Tech on Monday, April 16, 2007.

Prelude: Master Tallis&#39;s Testament
Herbery Howells (1892 - 1982)
Professor Annette Richards, University Organist

Welcome and Remembrance
W. Kent Fuchs
The Joseph Silbert Dean of Engineering
Father of Eric Fuchs, Virginia Tech, Class of 2008

Music: &#39;In Paradisum&#39; from Requiem
Maurice Durufle (1902 - 1986)
Cornell University Glee Club and Chorus
Directed by Katherine Fitzgibbon

Message
David J. Skorton
President, Cornell University

Music: Panis Angelicus
Rev. Heewon Chun
Chaplain, Korean Church at Cornell University

Reflection
Carolyn "Biddy" Martin
Provost, Cornell University

A Time of Silence

Postlude: Fantasia in G Minor
J. S. Bach (1685 -1750)
Professor Annette Richards, University Organist

"We are strong enough to stand tall tearlessly. We are brave enough
to bend to cry, and sad enough to know we must laugh again."
Nikki Giovanni
Virginia Tech University Distinguished Professor, Poet and Activist



REMARKS BY DEAN KENT W. FUCHS

Today the Cornell family joins with the Virginia Tech family in
remembering the many students and faculty that unexpectedly and
violently died this week.

Our grief at this loss is profound because we are a part of the same
family of students, faculty, and staff. Like those at VT, Monday
morning we were in class, taking exams, giving lectures, and sharing
with Virginia Tech students and faculty in the hard work but great
joy of learning and teaching.

Many in the Cornell family have very personal connections to VT.
Some of you have studied, lived, and even have grown up in
Blacksburg. A number of you have degrees from Virginia Tech. Others
of us have colleagues, friends, sisters, brothers, daughters, and
sons now at VT.

My first visit to VT four years ago was with my son, Eric. He was
looking for a good engineering school, but one that wasn&#39;t too close
to his parents at Cornell. On that first visit Eric and I were
immensely impressed by the people of VT and the peaceful beauty of
the campus.

With Eric now studying Engineering at VT, I have come to greatly
appreciate the VT family. The students and faculty care greatly for
each other and have an immense loyalty to their university.

I have also come to appreciate, through my son, what it means to have
a Turkey as your school mascot, to have statues of a Turkey in town,
and to call yourself a Hokie, which my son does with enormous pride.
He loves the campus, his studies, and the people of that university.

The unspeakable tragedy of this Monday morning in Norris Hall and
West Ambler Johnston Hall is particularly difficult to comprehend,
because of its scale, because of its stark contrast to the peaceful
beauty of VT&#39;s campus, and the love and care demonstrated by VT&#39;s
students and faculty. The tragedy is also an enormous contrast to
the common mission that we share in the joy of learning and teaching.

It will take many years before we will be able to see how the good
resulting from this tragedy could possibly be greater than the pain
of this week. Although I have not experienced the depth of loss now
present at VT, I do pray that I will become a better person because
of this week. I pray that I will value more greatly the enormous
privilege of being at a university with students, staff, and
colleagues. I pray that I will more dearly love the students, staff
and faculty on this campus and will work more diligently to serve
others.

I will close by reading a few words from my colleague, the Virignia
Tech Engineering Dean, Richard Benson. I have been in his office on
the 3rd floor of Norris Hall, the floor above where most of the
deaths occurred. I was at a meeting with Dean Benson Monday morning
in another city when he received the urgent message about the first
shootings. Here is a part of what Dean Benson wrote to his
Engineering students and faculty:

"My heart aches for the lives of the students lost. These bright
young men and women were in the prime of life, planning for rich,
fulfilling futures. They came to Virginia Tech to acquire an
education; an education that would forever change their lives...

"The murdered faculty members had devoted their lives to scholarship
and education. They so beautifully embodied Virginia Tech&#39;s motto of
Ut Prosim - that I may serve.

"Virginia Tech is a noble place. It is a nobility born of our great
Land Grant tradition, a nobility born of a place of learning. Young
women and men - many of modest beginnings - come here to learn. We
ask that they work hard - and they do

"While our loss is huge and our grief unbearable, the nobility of
this great community of scholars is undiminished. Those of us that
survive, and those that will come after will continue to dedicate
themselves to teaching and learning. And we will never forget the
friends that we lost. As long as there is a Virginia Tech they will
be remembered. They are more than friends. They are family."

We are here as members of the Cornell family. But this week we are
also members of the VT family. This week it is an honor and a
privilege join with those at VT and to call ourselves Hokies.



REMARKS BY PRESIDENT DAVID J. SKORTON

We Are One

We are one; one community, one people, one planet.

We are here today to affirm that one-ness and to draw strength from
each other, to find peace in each other, to care for each other and
to share our love.

We are one.

We are here to bear witness to the passing of the 33 members of our
family at Virginia Tech University who have met an untimely and
terrible fate.

We are here for all of those who are gone, for all 33.

We are here for the 32 who have passed from the immediate to another
place, not by their own choice.

We are also here for the 1 who has also passed.

We are one.

We are here to join arms and hearts with the families, friends and
colleagues of all of these individuals.

We are here to join with our friends in the Korean and Korean-
American communities for we are all one family, most especially today
we share the same sorrow and the same need for comfort and reassurance.

We are one.

We are here to recognize that there are many issues to discuss, many
plans to be made, many disagreements to be settled, causes to be
sought, remedies to be conceived -- but not today, not now. Now, we
are here to comfort and be comforted, to remember.

We are one.

We are here to seek meaning, to make sense out of the senseless, to
somehow find a way to move forward.

We are here to find courage, to find a way to still believe in
tomorrow, a tomorrow without fear, a tomorrow that still has endless
possibilities.

We are here to affirm the importance of openness on our campuses, the
openness that permits us to be together in this way, in this place,
at this time.

We are one.

We are together today to look both backward and forward, to look both
within and without, to look at the person next to us and at
ourselves, to find our bearings, our place.

We will stay together, we will go forward together, we will never
forget our loss.

We are one.



REMARKS BY PROVOST CAROLYN "BIDDY" MARTIN

On Monday morning I was in my native Virginia at my mother&#39;s home
when word began to break of the shootings at Virginia Tech. On the
local Roanoke news, there were anchors who were graduates of Virginia
Tech, and we received the news from people who knew and loved the
campus. One of the many things that struck me in the coverage that
day was the dignity of the students who were approached for
interviews--their humility, their respect, their unwillingness to
offer superficial commentary, and their resistance to easy analysis
and the assigning of blame. In their responses to questions, they
made a plea, sometimes implicitly, other times directly. What did
they ask of the journalists and, also, of us? That we not reduce
their university or their experience of it to this horror, this
unspeakable tragedy, that Virginia Tech not be defined only by that
spectacular phrase that we have heard so often since Monday-"the
biggest massacre in U.S. history." In their efforts to defend
against this stain, the students kept open a space of thought and
reflection.

The media rushes, understandably, to cover the event, and the events
become spectacle, compounding the effects of depersonalization as
journalists and the public press for immediate and abbreviated
responses and analyses. How extraordinary, under those
circumstances, were the efforts of the students and alumni to express
their love of Virginia Tech, of one another, to hold open the gap
between their experience of the place and the violence and death that
were coming to define it. They had been robbed of friends, of
classmates, and of teachers; they had had the taken-for-granted
safety of the dorm room and the classroom shattered. They have lost
for now a sense of safety in the thrilling openness of university
campus. They did not want, in addition, to be robbed of their
experience of the place or their attachment to it; did not want their
murdered friends, classmates and teachers to be remembered only for
the horrifying way in which their lives were taken. Just as the
names and stories of the victims began to give a human scale and
texture to an otherwise surreally traumatic and depersonalizing
event, so, too, the students&#39; reserve and their claims to the
totality of their experience and attachment began to restore to them
all that they have learned and loved at Virginia Tech. In their
expressions of pride, they fight to have life and attachment prevail
over the isolation, illness, and rage that appear to have been major
factors in this horror.

It is not difficult for Cornellians to answer the students&#39; call, to
attach to Virginia Tech, out of compassion, and with a capacious
understanding of what Virginia Tech is and what it represents. Like
Cornell, it was founded in the 1870s as a land grant university, and
it is beloved throughout the state of Virginia for its remarkable
contributions for over a century and a quarter to the state, the
nation, and the rest of the world. It is nestled among some of the
most beautiful and gentlest mountains in the Appalachians, and even
in this cold Virginia April, has already displayed wild profusions of
yellow forsythia and daffodils (or jonquils, as my mother would say),
pink and white dogwood, and the beginnings of that splash of color
that only azaleas can produce in the turn toward Spring.

It is a university with a great faculty and great students, proud, in
particular, of its Agriculture and Life Sciences, its engineering,
and creative writing, the liberal arts, and its outreach and
extension, proud, too, of its legendary athletics teams. It is
beloved, as I have said, not only by students, faculty, staff and
alumni, but by the entire state of Virginia, even those who choose
the University of Virginia in the great rivalry between Virginia Tech
Hokies and Virginia Cavaliers that is one of Virginia&#39;s great
sports. This week, everyone is a Hokie fan. Already on Monday and
then on Tuesday and Wednesday, counties all over Virginia were
covered with Hokie colors, Virginians having donned Virginia Tech
sweatshirts and hats, some spontaneously, some at the urging of the
churches that were holding vigils.

At the convocation in Blacksburg on Tuesday, poet Nikki Giovanni used
her poetic genius to invoke, indeed, to activate a healing sense of
community and of perspective, linking the tragic deaths and injuries
at Virginia Tech to other tragedies in other parts of the world, and
emphasizing that none of them was deserved, also repeating, as
incantation, the words: "We are Virginia Tech," the emphasis on the
word "are," signaling the fact of being, of continuity, and a
commitment to life and to community. "We will prevail," she said,
but not by moving on, not by denying our shock or the many dimensions
of grief. We will prevail, she seemed to be saying, by going
straight through the effects of horror, together.

Here at Cornell let us remember what unites us in our shared
humanity, our shared vulnerability, our capacity, indeed, our
responsibility to attach to others, especially the most isolated.
Let us also risk even, and today, especially, a certain hokiness.
May life and attachment prevail over isolation, social deaths,
physical death, and violence, everywhere.

Please join me in a moment of silence in remembrance of Monday&#39;s
victims.

Thomas W. Bruce, W. Kent Fuchs, David J. Skorton, Carolyn "Biddy" Martin

2007-05-03

Brent Jesiek

eng