Handmade memorials for the victims
Handmade memorials were placed on one of the corners of the drillfield.
Jinfeng Jiao
2007-08-13
Na Mi
eng
Memorials in Squire Student Center
People came to the Squire Student Center with flowers and balloons to mourn for the victims on April 19.
Na Mi
2007-07-30
Na Mi
eng
People Mourned for the Victims
Because of the weather, Virginia Tech moved the memorials into the Squire Student Center. We can see the flowers and blessing words everywhere.
Na Mi
2007-07-30
Na Mi
eng
Students of Virginia Tech Prepared for the Memorials
On April 19, the Virginia Tech Association of Chinese Students and Scholars(VT-ACSS) organized a donation for the victims on the drillfield.
Na Mi
2007-07-31
Na Mi
eng
Mourners pack Tech after attack
<b>Community tries to come to terms with horrific attack</b>
Maria Tchijov, Cavalier Daily Life Editor
BLACKSBURG, Va.-- In a day filled with a constant barrage of media images of the shooter who took the lives of at least three of her friends and 29 others,Behnaz Bonyadian took solace as thousands of people patiently filed into Cassell Coliseum and Lane Stadium yesterday afternoon. The convocation ceremonyincluded remarks from U.S. President George W. Bush and Gov. Tim Kaine.
It was a "massive display of respect," the Virginia Tech junior said, observing the crowd. Nearly all entering the somber event wore Hokie maroon and orange as they donned memorial ribbons. During the ceremony, various public officials including Bush and Virginia Tech President Charles Steger offered words of solace to the community.
"No words truly express the depth of sadness we feel," Steger said after he received a prolonged standing ovation. "Words are very weak symbols of our emotions at times like this."
President and Laura Bush were in attendance at the event, and Bush addressed the university on behalf of the nation.
"We've come to express our sympathy," he said. "In this time of anguish, I hope you know that people all over this country are thinking of you and asking God to provide comfort for all who have been affected."
Throughout the southwestern Virginia campus, students, university employees and faculty members tried to comprehend the senseless tragedy.
Choices Monday morning
Senior Kate Stuck of Granby, Conn. was sitting in class in Pamplin Hall Monday morning when she heard about the situation. One of her classmates, who had a laptop, received the first e-mail sent out at 9:26 a.m.
"We knew something was going on," Stuck said.
Her fears were confirmed when her boyfriend, under lockdown in Randall Hall, called her cell phone.
Unlike Stuck, Chris Cooke learned about the shooting first-hand through the first e-mail sent out about the attacks by the administration, and he decided not to go to class. He e-mailed his professor and asked to make up the lab. He said at that point he felt his personal safety was more important then the inconvenience of an 8 a.m. Friday make-up lab.
"It kind of makes you wonder if you are safe anywhere," said Anthony Linkous, a 25-year veteran maintenance worker for Virginia Tech. He said his wife called him frantically every half-hour, begging him to come home.
Addressing the situation
Two weeks ago, Amie Steele took over as editor-in-chief of The Collegiate Times, Tech's student newspaper. On Monday, she found herself in the middle of an international media hailstorm as her phone rang off the hook.
"Breaking news isn't my forte yet," she said, explaining that she rose through the ranks on the production staff, specializing in layout and design.
During the 24 hours following the shooting, Steele managed to sleep for an hour and a half.
For her, the most overwhelming part of the experience has been the international media presence.
"We are trying to get our own stories, conduct our own interviews, and they keep on calling," she said. "It's difficult to juggle."
Overall, however, she said she feels the media has approached the issue with sensitivity and has been respectful of the personal nature of the evolving situation.
The intense media attention on the shooting has forced university administrators and police officials into the unexpected position of answering not just to their local community, but to throngs of media outlets and their readership. To resolve these concerns Gov. Time Kaine, at the request of Steger and Tech's Board of Visitors, has commissioned an independent panel to review the way the incident was handled.
"It's the most horrific thing that has ever happened," said Laurel Stell, a senior from Charlottesville. "At first everyone was angry at Steger for not locking down the campus, [but] they never meant for anyone to get hurt."
Stell noted that because the gunman lived in a dorm and thus had a dorm key, he could have easily gotten into any residential area.
While students like Stell do not assign blame to the administration, other students and media outlets have done so. Some groups and individuals focused on other issues, such as gun control, have also jumped on the issue. Gov. Tim Kaine expressed his disdain for this behavior.
"People who want to take this event 24 hours afterwards and make this their political hobbyhorse, I've got nothing but loathing for them," Kaine said in a press conference.
What next?
After addressing the significant dislocation and emotional trauma caused by the incident, the Virginia Tech community must prepare to resume core educational operations. Yesterday administrators announced that classes would be canceled until at least Monday. Norris Hall, home of the civil engineering department, will be closed for the rest of the semester.
Christina McIntyer, a professor in the human nutrition food and exercise department, remains optimistic that the university community will emerge intact.
"We're a strong community," she said. "If anything, this will bring us closer. It'll be a day we remember."
Cooke, a civil engineering major, said in the long-term he was concerned not only about the future location of his department but about the outcome of his coursework and grades.
He said he had several exams in the next few weeks and he was not sure if they would be pushed back or canceled.
But, even in the face of uncertainty relating to his academic career, Cooke said he did not want to be "standing idly by."
He and fellow members of Pi Kappa Phi fraternity got together to donate blood yesterday to help stave off Blacksburg's severe blood shortage.
The charitable activities in which many students are engaging provide much needed hope.
But for graduating seniors, Monday's events place a permanent stain on the bright celebrations of future opportunities many had been looking forward to.
"Graduation is now more of a memorial than a celebration," said Andrew Stone, a senior from Charlotte, N.C.
Monday's events have not only left a mark on the students leaving Tech, but also on the many potential new members of the university community.
"It is going to make people think twice about coming to Tech," Linkous said. "People want to know they're safe."
One of the core challenges everyone sees in the response to the tragedy is moving forward in a manner deferential to the victims of Monday's massacre.
"We've got to get back into it sometime," Linkous said. "But we have to remember what happened."
- Alex Sellinger contributed to this article.
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Original Source:<a href=http://www.cavalierdaily.com/CVArticle.asp?ID=30193&pid=1583>The Cavalier Daily - April 18, 2007</a>
Maria Tchijov
The Cavalier Daily
2007-07-31
Sara Hood
Meggie Bonner <meggiebonner@gmail.com>
eng
Virginia Tech tragedy unites VU community
by Joan Brasher
News of the events of April 16, 2007 - a violent shooting on the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, Va., that resulted in the deaths of 33 students and faculty members - sent chills down the spines of all within earshot of a television, radio or the Internet.
University students, faculty and staff across the nation and the world watched the media coverage in stunned silence, as the death toll escalated and the convoluted details slowly became clear.
For many students, the first reaction to the shocking event was fear, said Vanderbilt Student Government Association President Cara Bilotta, a junior.
"As you watch the tragedy unfold on TV, you cannot help but think, 'Could this happen here?'" Bilotta said.
"Your initial reaction is fear of the unknown. The question is, could any university really prevent an incident like Virginia Tech? The good news is that Vanderbilt has always taken a proactive approach to security."
University communities nationwide, even those with no direct relationship to the victims, were hard hit, and campus administrators quickly convened not only to reach out to Virginia Tech's faculty, staff and students, but to re-evaluate crisis preparedness on their respective campuses.
Chancellor Gordon Gee communicated with the Vanderbilt community via e-mail shortly after the shooting, stating, "Words fail to encompass a calamity of such magnitude. At this raw stage, we can offer our attention, our consideration and our sympathy. We respond with the best part of ourselves."
He encouraged students to take advantage of the university's psychological counseling services, seek out religious life groups or turn to resident advisers for support. All Faiths Chapel on the first floor of Vanderbilt Divinity School was made available for reflection, meditation and prayer.
Two days after the shooting, a candlelight vigil was held at Benton Chapel. Vanderbilt chaplains, as well as representatives from Tennessee State University, Belmont University, Lipscomb University and Fisk University, conducted the service sponsored by the Middle Tennessee Chapter of the Virginia Tech Alumni Association. Mourners gathered to seek comfort and memorialize loved ones lost. Vanderbilt students who knew victims of the shooting also shared their stories and remembrances.
For Joshua Parlaman, a Virginia Tech alumnus who works as a research assistant at the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development, it was too soon to attend a memorial service. Instead, to assuage his grief he reached out to former classmates and family members. Having the support of his Vanderbilt colleagues was invaluable, he said.
"Being at Vanderbilt at this time has been both comforting and humbling," Parlaman said. "The solidarity expressed by Vanderbilt students, faculty and staff has really moved me. I realize how deeply this has affected us all, uniting everyone with those at Virginia Tech."
As Vanderbilt students, their parents, faculty and staff raised questions of security, Vanderbilt's administration quickly responded with explanations of the existing measures in place. Campus safety officials compiled and distributed a fact sheet that addressed concerns, such as identifying students with potential behavior problems, and included information on safety, law enforcement and emergency communications.
On April 20, a free emergency alert text-messaging service was set up for students, faculty and staff, made available through Vanderbilt's existing text-messaging service, MobileVU.
"The recent tragedy at Virginia Tech has highlighted the importance of rapid and accurate communications during emergency situations, and particularly the value of cell phone text messaging to relay important information," said Michael Schoenfeld, vice chancellor for public affairs. "With 330 acres, 233 buildings and as many as 40,000 people on campus during a busy work day, reaching every individual presents a challenge. Emergency text messaging ... is an important addition to the existing communications channels."
At noon on April 23, a week after the incident, a moment of silence was observed on Vanderbilt's campus as the bells at Kirkland Hall tolled 32 times, once for each person slain by gunman Seung-hui Cho. Students, dressed in Virginia Tech's school colors of maroon and orange, congregated at the Sarratt Promenade, where representatives of Vanderbilt's student government distributed commemorative ribbons, while students, faculty and staff wrote words of encouragement in a leather-bound book emblazoned with the Vanderbilt seal, a gift for the Virginia Tech student government. A banner hanging behind the signing table read, "Today we are all Hokies."
"There were those who had friends (at Virginia Tech), or friends of friends there, and because of how connected we are through the university community, people wanted to reach out," Bilotta said. "Some students simply signed their name, others wrote detailed messages, saying 'I knew someone there, I feel for you.' I think that was a great way to help students heal and begin the recovery process."
"Fortunately, I did not know anyone killed or injured on April 16," Parlaman said. "This tragedy does, however, take a personal toll. Virginia Tech and Blacksburg were my home for four years. ... I feel a sense of sorrow knowing that what was my safe haven is now forever scarred with the memory of these horrific events."
Though the recovery process will take time, Bilotta said she feels hopeful about what is to come.
"I think Virginia Tech is starting to move forward," she said. "We are grieving, but we are moving forward to get beyond this awful tragedy and hope for a more peaceful future."
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Original Source: <a href= http://www.vanderbilt.edu/register/articles?search_string=virginia+tech&x=29&y=9&id=34395>Vanderbilt University Daily Register - April 17, 2007
Joan Brasher
2007-07-11
Sara Hood
Joan Brasher <joan.brasher@vanderbilt.edu>
eng
Page pranks Fleming cannon
By Natalya Kostandova
Monday, April 23, 2007
The student body awoke Thursday morning expecting the day to bring much change to campus, largely in form of a couple hundred prefrosh who arrived throughout the day. Not many, however, expected to see the Fleming Cannon turn blue.
The colorful change, accompanied by the sounds of "Blue (Da Ba Dee)" by Eiffel 65 coming out of a boom box across the Olive Walk, was quickly attributed to be Page's doing.
"We were very, very happy about how it worked out," said former Page president Sean Mattingly who, along with a handful of other Pageboys, painted the cannon. "We were afraid the color would come out turquoise, but it turned out a perfect blue. We were all amazed at how perfectly it matched our shirts. And I think the cannon looks better in blue than red."
Not everybody, however, was amused. Almost immediately upon discovering the prank, the Flems put on their reds, blared their own speakers at Page, and started stripping the blue paint off the base of the cannon.
Although the initial plan was to quickly paint the cannon back into its original red, the cannon was instead painted maroon and orange, colors of Virginia Tech. Rob Hunter, Fleming President, said, "We would not have otherwise considered painting it this way, but we took advantage of this opportunity to make a gesture towards Virginia Tech."
While some people have voiced their concern about the message that having a big gun painted in VT colors conveyed, Hunter explained that the cannon was meant as a tribute. He said, "The cannon is incredibly important to our House, and it is a symbol of honor. It is the most we have to give."
According to Mattingly, the timing of the prank, the idea for which had originated in the end of second term, did not have anything to do with the Prefrosh Weekend. "It just kind of worked out at that time," said Mattingly. "We had paint and we thought we should just do it." The painting started late Wednesday night and was finished before the wee of the hours on Thursday. The prefrosh arrived to Caltech campus later that day.
The cannon will now undergo a process of restoration to its original state. According to Hunter, all of the paint on the base has to be stripped off and the base has to repainted. In addition, some of the blue paint landed on the barrel and wheels of the cannon, which may require sanding of those parts.
"That was accidental," said Mattingly about the splashes on the wheels and barrel. "We tried to wipe off everything that we could see, but it was a hasty job and it was dark."
The Page prank was complete with three notes that Pageboys attached to the barrel of the cannon. One of the notes read "This is definitely a note," signed "Page," which is Page's signature on most of its pranks. The other two notes established the cannon as a Page House Phallic Symbol. The notes were removed by the Flems immediately upon their discovery of the prank.
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Original Source: <a href=http://tech.caltech.edu/TECH/04_23_2007/article1.html> The California Tech - April 23, 2007</a>
Natalya Kostandova
2007-06-14
Sara Hood
Permissions:
Marissa Cevallos <tech@caltech.edu>
editor-in-chief, The California Daily
eng
Memorials are a positive force after tragedy
Published: Thursday, May 3, 2007
Opinion articles
Danielle Tumminio
Guest Column
4/17/07. When students from Virginia Tech struggled to make sense of the horror that struck their campus last week, they erected a banner on their student center with the date of the massacre. It provided a reminder of a time and a place, a way to express a trauma through white lettering on black canvas. It was an attempt to remember.
Theirs is not the first — nor, unfortunately, will it be the last — commemoration of a tragedy. This desire to remember seems built into us. We sing, sculpt, hold one another, dance, write poems and pray in order to find solace in our most tumultuous moments. Using these forms, we try to incorporate trauma into our lives so that we can give meaning to events that feel meaningless. If we're going to move forward from the horrors we experience, this process seems essential. Otherwise, evil becomes something like a dangling participle not properly integrated into a sentence. It hangs there, and it has, quite literally, the last word. There's no hope in a worldview like that.
So through our memorials, we try to find meaning. Perhaps that's why our nation's capital is peppered with commemorations of wars and those who represented our country in them. Through carved stone, we remember our history. Likewise, after the Columbine shootings, students draped flowers over Rachel Scott's car and sat on its hood, sobbing in grief. Leaning against red Acuras, we remember our loves. Or following Hurricane Katrina, memorial services were held in worship spaces across the country. In our religious homes, we remember the possibility of hope.
But if there are right ways to remember, there are certainly wrong ways to remember as well. "Just move on" and "It's time to get over it" are common phrases in our culture, and they imply that the only way to recover from a traumatic event is to forget it.
The trouble with these cliches is that they conflate remembering with reliving. Reliving traps us in the past, keeps us from existing in the present and building hope for the future. But remembering is different: It is the means by which, again and again, we try to defeat pointless horrors by giving them some perspective. That's the transformation that must occur if we are to prevent the dangling-participle problem.
This power of memorializing is something I've experienced in my own life. I was a junior at Yale on Sept. 11, 2001. I remember that the phone lines were down, and I couldn't call my family. When the trains were running again, I returned to the New York suburb in which I grew up. I felt isolated and frightened. When the Amtrak drew near Manhattan, the train slowed and passengers huddled near the windows, gazing upon a skyline that had changed forever. It looked tilted — just like my reality — even though rising grey smoke held the place where the towers once stood. Then the conductor asked us to keep a moment of silence, and it became our memorial, our remembrance of a horror that shaped our lives. They were strangers on that train, but they shared something with me — they were mourning, too — and they became my community at a time when I felt profoundly protected. In that memorial, I was offered a sign of hope that I was not alone. I will never forget that, nor should I.
In the aftermath of Sept. 11, I, and so many others, observed endless memorials. Some were noble, some bittersweet and some gut-wrenching: signs for missing people in Grand Central Terminal, military planes that kept watch over Manhattan with their deafening drones, chaplains for the cleanup crews and the putrid stench from the pyre of the Twin Towers. Those memorials challenged and changed our understanding of a horror. The same goes for the students at Virginia Tech. As they wear their school colors and attend candlelight vigils and invite a nation to mourn with them, they bear witness to nightmare. That experience will transform them, in their grieving and their remembering, in their hope and their search to make sense of the insensible. To forget the tragedy would be to forget who they were, who they are and whom they will become. But how they remember is their choice.
9/11/2001. 4/20/1999. 8/23/2005. 4/16/2007. These are the dates that form us. These are the dates that are seared into our memories. These are the dates we cannot — and should not — forget.
Danielle Elizabeth Tumminio is a 2003 graduate of Yale College and a fourth-year student at the Yale Divinity School.
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Original Source: <a href=http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/21058> Yale Daily News - May 3, 2007 </a>
Danielle Tumminio
2007-06-11
Sara Hood
Yale Daily News, Editor-in-chief - Sarah Mishkin <sarah.mishkin@gmail.com>
eng
Memorial Day
Mark Washenberger - May 8, 2007 - 8:19am
It's Memorial Day and I'm in the office, so of course I'm looking for ways to procrastinate. New post time!
After the VT tragedy, a local church put up 32 (by my count) flag poles in memorial. Each pole is flying a flag of the state that was somehow associated with one of the victims. So, as you can imagine, there are probably 25 or more American flags flown, as well as an Indian flag, an Israeli flag, and several others I couldn't name off the top of my head.
This memorial is a profound statement of how ridiculous our symbolic landscape has become. Note the process: individual -> nationality -> state; this memorial manages to conflate all three. In this process, it demolishes the individuals, with all their variety and independence, far more thoroughly than any bullet.
Let us not forget that these were real, living people. No symbol or category could contain them, because like us, they were unpredictable and ever-changing. Should we now try to box them up in symbols to serve our own fears, our own perverse anxieties?
As individuals, we all need to understand the total process of authority and what a silly game it is. If we can get past the barriers it creates, perhaps we will be able to appreciate each other fully before the next tragedy, whatever it may be, rather than being left with only regret and emptiness.
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Original Source: <a href="http://one-shoe.blogspot.com/2007/05/memorial-day.html"> One Shoe Missing</a>
Mark Washenburger
2007-06-01
Sara Hood
Permission Contact: mwashenb@vt.edu
eng
Mourning Tech on Facebook
If you don't know what Facebook is, you've probably heard of it, especially if you have children in high school or college. It's one of those social networking sites that parents, lawmakers and educators discuss when they're concerned about cyber bullying or child predators. But after the Virginia Tech tragedy on April 16, the site truly brought the world closer together in the most remarkable scene of solidarity and compassion I have ever seen online.
Within a day of the shootings, the most common symbol on Facebook was a combination black hope ribbon and maroon "VT" logo. Most Facebook users have default profile photos of themselves posing with friends, at parties, on vacation or with their significant others; almost overnight, most were replaced with the Hokie hope ribbon. It was heartwarming to see students from across the world join together in mourning - e-mourning, you could say.
Many Facebook users posted on their profiles or in common-interest group bulletin boards the Hokie hope ribbon accompanied with their school's mascot or coat of arms with the phrase "Today we are all Hokies."
And we all certainly were.
Facebook usually is used to keep in touch with friends, post and share photos, organize and publicize events and find other people with common interests, and all of those features were used in the days after the tragedy to report breaking news and new information, organize vigils and charities, post photo illustrations and sketches commemorating the shootings and even share poems Facebook users composed. Only a handful of users have discussed politics; it seems most e-mourners are first and foremost focused on their grief and sympathy, and how they can help.
In the first frantic and confusing hours and days after the tragedy, one group was dedicated to posting updated information on the event and its aftermath, and others sprang up declaring "Nationwide Orange and Maroon Day," "April 16, 2007 - A Moment of Silence" and "Prayer Group for Va. Tech," for example.
When the media reported that the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan. - a cult of hatemongers who have picketed military funerals with inflammatory banners - would show up at Tech victims' funerals, a protest Facebook group emerged to organize and voice opposition. The congregation eventually did rescind their plan to protest the Tech funerals, but not before the Facebook group's membership swelled to more than 59,000.
Perhaps the most touching Facebook group I've discovered was "All Schools Unite for Virginia Tech," created by a University of Tennessee student. The goal is to tally one volunteer representative from 1,000 different schools and then engrave those names on a plaque that will be presented to Tech; I'm representing my alma mater, the University of Delaware. Students from schools I've never heard of, even schools in Canada and high schools from across America, have joined and shown their support. More than 725 colleges and high schools are represented on the list thus far.
Facebook groups also have been dedicated to the victims as a place for users to share funeral and vigil information and messages about - and to - their lost friends. I didn't know any of the victims, but I did join a group dedicated to Mary Read, since she attended my high school in Annandale, Va. Mary was remembered most by friends for her friendly, heartwarming smile, and many of her friends have replaced their Facebook profile photos with photos of Mary. "Look Mary, there are so many people that love you," one person wrote on the message board, referring to Mary's profile on The New York Times Web site. "I love you and can't wait to see you again in Heaven."
As Blacksburg tries to return to a sense of normalcy, so is Facebook. Many users have reverted to their former profile photos, and Tech commemoration groups are being updated less and less.
But like the gravestones at Arlington or memorials in the nation's capitol, the posted messages of compassion and heartache on Facebook will always be there; the photos of America's college students at vigils and donning orange and maroon in a show of solemn solidarity and hope will always be there; the photos of empathetic banners signed by countless students in a time of mourning will always be there; and the photos of memorials, flowers and notes on Tech's Drillfield will always be there.
Facebook helped to document history that week, and none of us will forget when we were all Hokies.
Mike Fox is a copy editor with the Bristol (Va.) Herald Courier.
Originally published on Sunday, April 29 in the Bristol Herald Courier, of Bristol, Virginia.
Mike Fox
2007-05-02
Mike Fox
eng