Hero Librescu's son addresses Hotnews.ro readers
Joseph (Joe) Librescu, the son of Liviu Librescu, the teacher who protected his students at the cost of his own life in the Virgina Tech killing spree yesterday, sent a heart-felt message to all Hotnews.ro readers. "I am professor Librescu's son and I want to thank all those who wrote such beautiful notes about him", the letter reads. "Even though he left the country for a long time, he never forgot its beauty. We were supposed to meet in Predeal this summer, for a family reunion. Once again I want to thank you for all the beautiful things you wrote about him". Professor Liviu Librescu's gesture was widely commented on in the Romanian and international media. First announced on the Virginia Tech official site, the story soon reached the HotNews.ro English version, and was quoted by the blogs at the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statemanship and Political Philosphy. An Associated Press article was almost instantly quoted by all international media. CNN, The Times, The New York Times and Haaretz are just a few of the TV stations and newspapers that brought an hommage to the lost professor. Romanian media ware just as present as the international ones: "Romanian hero in mourning America", Evenimentul Zilei reads on the first page; "The Hero", is the simple and powerful title in Jurnalul National. "Romanian hero at Virginia Tech", reads Cotidianul. "Romania origin hero", is the headline in Romania Libera and so on. HotNews.ro, Apr 18, 2007 -- Original Source: http://english.hotnews.ro/Hero-Librescu%27s-son-addresses-Hotnews.ro-readers-articol_44751.htm
Cristian Pantazi (cristian.pantazi@hotnews.ro)
Va. Tech victims remembered by candlelight
Students and community members gather at MemChu to reflect, pray April 19, 2007 By Rahul Kanakia Several hundred Stanford community members gathered yesterday evening at a Memorial Church service for the 32 Virginia Tech students and faculty who were slain Monday by a gunman. Deans of Religious Life Rev. Scotty McLennan and Rabbi Patricia Karlin-Neumann presided over the service. "We come together as religious and non-religious people. As faculty, staff, students, alumni and friends, we are all part of one community here at Stanford University," McLennan said. "Many of us have been overcome with feelings of shock, sorrow, fear, incomprehension, anger and hopelessness since Monday, all mixed up together. We come here to offer all of that up in prayer and contemplation and thoughtful reflection." As Karlin-Neumann read the names of the dead, McLennan rang a bell. The tone hung in the air after each name, fading almost to silence before Karlin-Neumann read the next name. Some attendees looked upwards, some stared at the floor, while others fixed their eyes on the front of the church. Alyssa Battistoni '08 said she lost a good friend from high school, Daniel O'Neil, who was an environmental engineering graduate student at the Blacksburg, Va. university. "I don't know," she said. "I wasn't really there, to tell you the truth. I was just thinking about how much it all sucks. He just got married, my friend Dan." After the service, Takeo Rivera '08 drew parallels between the victims' lives at Virginia Tech and student life at Stanford. "Their lives were cut tragically short," he said. "And that all sounds cliche and such. But the fact that it happened on a college campus makes it all so real. For instance, one of the victims was an RA, and I'm an RA. It was one of those things where you kind of reflect on your own mortality." Calley Means '08, a Washington, D.C. resident who was at the service because many of his friends at Virginia Tech lost friends in the attack, said he was surprised that the events resonated so strongly 3,000 miles away. "There were so many people wearing Virginia Tech sweatshirts and crying," he said. "People who had gone to lecture in Norris Hall. People who had taken classes with those professors. It just shows the ripple effects of those 32 people. This event really showed me the magnitude of what had happened." McLennan told The Daily that the Office of Religious Life has been flooded with phone calls and emails requesting an organized gathering. "The scope of [the massacre] is unprecedented," he said. "This kind of thing usually does not happen in a college and university. And there is identification with the other students, faculty and staff and their friends. This touches pretty close to home; it could have been us." After Karlin-Neumann read a selection of prayers, attendees were given the opportunity to light candles in remembrance of the victims. Half of the mourners lined up and down the center of the church as the other half looked on. For more than 15 minutes the silence of the procession was broken only by a few people who delivered short messages after lighting their candles. One man, a graduate of both Virginia Tech and Stanford, read a statement taken from Virginia Tech Prof. Nikki Giovanni's speech at Tuesday's memorial service in Blacksburg. "We are sad today and we will be sad for quite awhile," he quoted from the speech. "We are not moving on. We are embracing our mourning. We are Virginia Tech. We are strong enough to stand tall tearlessly. We are brave enough to bend to cry, and sad enough to know that we must laugh again." -- Original Source: Stanford Daily - April 19, 2007
Permissions granted by James Hohmann Editor-in-Chief The Stanford Daily <jhohmann@stanford.edu>
A vigil for Virginia Tech, at the University of Virginia on Tuesday, April 17, 2007 Original source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/charlottegeary/463699620/ Photo Courtesy of Charlotte Geary
Permission: Charlotte Geary http://www.flickr.com/photos/charlottegeary/463699620/
A vigil for Virginia Tech, at the University of Virginia on Tuesday, April 17, 2007 Original source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/charlottegeary/463708138/ Photo Courtesy of Charlotte Geary
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A vigil for Virginia Tech, at the University of Virginia on Tuesday, April 17, 2007 Original source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/charlottegeary/463708130/ Photo Courtesy of Charlotte Geary
Permission: Charlotte Geary http://www.flickr.com/photos/charlottegeary/463708130/
Last night, a vigil was held at George Mason for those lost in the terrible tragedy on Monday at Virginia Tech. Original source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wirelessnic/466573792/ Photo Courtesy of Nicolas Tan
Permission: Nicolas Tan http://www.flickr.com/photos/wirelessnic/466573792/
Dr. John MacArthur discusses Virginia Tech Shootings (April 20, 2007)
64Kbps MP3 13.6M Executive Director of GTY [Grace to You] Phil Johnson has an open conversation with Dr. John MacArthur about the shootings at Blacksburg, VA. Does the Christian faith offer a viable answer to the question of why things like this happen without God's immediate intervention? This item is part of the collection: Open Source Audio Author: Grace to You http://www.gty.org Date: 2007-04-20 -- Original Source: http://www.archive.org/details/MacArthur_on_Disaster Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0.
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Report to the President on Issues Raised by the Virginia Tech Tragedy
Full Report (PDF) - 463 KB June 13, 2007 "We reflect on what has been lost and comfort those enduring a profound grief. And somehow we know that a brighter morning will come. We know this because together Americans have overcome many evils and found strength through many storms." -President George W. Bush -- June 13, 2007 The President The White House Washington, D.C. 20500 Dear Mr. President: In the wake of the Virginia Tech tragedy, you charged us to travel to communities across our Nation to meet with a wide range of leaders on the broader issues raised by this tragedy, and to report back to you what we learned, together with our recommendations for how the Federal government can help avoid such tragedies in the future. The enclosed report summarizes our findings and provides our recommendations developed through discussions with educators, mental health experts, law enforcement and other key state and local officials from more than a dozen states. We found great commonality in the themes that emerged from our meetings. Following the Virginia Tech tragedy and similar incidents of violence that have occurred in recent years, states and local communities are carefully considering whether they have properly addressed and balanced the fundamental interests of privacy and individual freedom, safety and security, and assisting those with mental health needs in getting appropriate care. Although state and local leaders recognized and underscored that these issues primarily must be resolved at the state and local level, these events make all of us ask whether there is more we can and should be doing. As we note in our report, our recommendations are not a panacea. Rather, along with identifying steps that we can take, the report serves to focus our attention on the issues that must be part of the ongoing national dialogue as we continue to protect the freedoms we enjoy in our society, while appropriately minimizing risks to public safety. We look forward to continuing our collaboration on the Federal level, as well as with states and localities, in our ongoing efforts to address these fundamental issues and take concrete steps to promote the well being and safety of all Americans. Sincerely, Michael O. Leavitt Secretary Department of Health and Human Services Margaret Spellings Secretary Department of Education Alberto R. Gonzales Attorney General Department of Justice -- Table of Contents Introduction Key Findings Canvassing the Nation Common Themes and Observations Findings and Recommendations Critical Information Sharing Faces Substantial Obstacles Accurate and Complete Information on Indivduals Prohibited from Possessing Firearms is Essential to Keep Guns Out of the Wrong Hands Improved Awareness and Communication are Key to Prevention It is Critical to Get People with Mental Illness Services They Need Where We Know What to Do, We Have to be Better at Doing It Conclusion Endnotes -- Original Source: http://www.hhs.gov/vtreport.html
Michael O. Leavitt, Margaret Spellings, and Alberto R. Gonzales
By Valerie Syverson, Co-Editor Thursday, April 19, 2007 As anyone used to following national news knows, there's nothing quite so tailor-made for TV news as a school massacre like last Monday's. All other news is immediately superseded for footage of the scene of the tragedy, speeches from every dignitary that can show up, and, when there's no new footage, endless rounds of analysis from every pundit who isn't already booked somewhere else. Naturally, opportunities abound for sensationalistic coverage, and to use words like "tragic", "senseless", "horrific" -- all of which, though of course applicable, have been diluted through decades of overuse and sadly no longer register as earnest sentiment. And, of course, there's the framing and the political football, and then the criticism of opponents for using a mass homicide as a football. Sound familiar? It should -- to anyone else who wasn't living under a rock during the 2001 Littleton shootings. So the editors of the Tech will, for this writing, refrain from adding one more to the long roster of responses expressing the obviously appropriate sentiments -- sympathy, concern, and grief. If you don't know the sort of thing I mean, you can read Dr. Chameau's article three columns to the right; his statement alone renders it superfluous to say anything of the sort in this space. Instead, the concern that motivates me is over the way the news media has covered the event and its repercussions. Although the majority of responses have, of course, been those of decent human beings, there is a certain subset of the responses that are rather horrifying. The first that comes to mind is the slew of columnists who have ghoulishly seized upon the opportunity to lambaste their favourite targets, be that violent video games for giving people ideas, atheists for not praying at memorial ceremonies, or foreign nationals for (apparently) existing at all. But, of course, these random hearse-chasing political creeps are just columnists, not Real News. More problematic are those news outlets which have seized on what, no doubt, they thought was a new and refreshing angle on the story by focusing on the first of his victims. Here we find headlines like "Gunman's Love Spat Sparked Massacre". However, the problem here is that the woman in question was never romantically involved with the murderer -- he just stalked her. That's right, the reporters mistook a stalking victim for a disdainful lover. Of course, there's a bit of overlap between the two as presented in many cultural narratives, but it should be possible to disentangle them in real life. when we can get different people's stories. The most political spinning, though, has come in the area of gun control. (I assume this is because there's no way to restrict college students' access to violent music and games, so that usually-fruitful bit of blather is verboten.) And in fact, it has become apparent that the gunman got his guns quite legally and aboveboard. The bafflement at this from foreign news outlets is an amusing commentary on how bizarre the U.S. gun culture is from any outside point of view. But the gun rights advocates jumped on the story too; there are those who claim the tragedy would have been averted if more students were packing heat. The debate, of course, rages. At least we can know that the world is the same old looney bin as always, because the Westboro Baptist Church is going to be picketing the funerals. Why? Unclear; their official releases say something about "the emissary of God's wrath". I assume it's just another chance for them to be on television. But I suppose the news media can rest assured that however inconsiderate, tasteless, and ghoulish they might be, they'll never outdo Fred Phelps. -- Original Source: The California Daily - April 19, 2007
Permissions: Marissa Cevallos <tech@caltech.edu> editor-in-chief, The California Daily
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. -- Original Source: The California Tech - April 23, 2007
Caltech grieves for VA Tech student victims
By Jean-Lou Chameau, Institute President Thursday, April 19, 2007 We live in a time when tragedies occur almost daily in the world. They trouble us; however, many of them seem so distant that they do not affect us deeply, although they should. The tragedy experienced yesterday on the Virginia Tech campus is one that is affecting all of us more deeply because it took place in a community we understand and cherish. Violence of young people against young people is tragic--impossible to truly comprehend, but especially shocking in a university environment. The university years provide a unique period in the lives of young people, a period when they can learn, experience, and interact with others in freedom and safety. Our thoughts today should be with the Virginia Tech community, and especially with the families of the victims. We grieve for them. As we learn to adjust to this event, our commitment and energy should remain focused on assuring that universities like Virginia Tech and Caltech remain safe, free environments where young people can prepare themselves for life. -- Original Source: The California Daily - April 19, 2007
By Yang Yang Thursday, April 19, 2007 Some found out when they checked the morning news, only to be greeted with horror; others learned about it when concerned parents began calling. The rest discovered the gruesome news when fellow students began discussing it. By lunchtime Monday, every student at Caltech was well aware of the two shootings which left 33 dead that occurred earlier that day at Virginia Tech. "I first found out about this when my friend began talking about it at lunch," junior Henna Kermani said. "At first I couldn't believe it." For Ricketts RA Amy Eastwood, a Virginia native, the shootings struck a little closer to home. "My initial reaction was shock. I kept checking back [and] the number of casualties kept increasing and increasing. It was so sad, an RA was killed. He was a triple major, member of the band, 4.0 kind of guy. Why?" she asked. Inevitably, some began to wonder about whether such a massacre could happen at Caltech. "Obviously, I imagined whether or not it could happen here," sophomore Cliff Chang said. "It's the same as the reaction to Columbine, [you wonder] if any of the other students you don't really talk to is thinking about [shooting everyone]." To address potential concern, a campus-wide gathering was held on Tuesday. There, chief of security Gregg Henderson and director of counseling Kevin Austin addressed the handful of people who showed. Security looks to expand immediate notification list According to Henderson, Caltech is one of the safest schools in the U.S. The campus has rarely seen violence, much less deadly shootings. The last fatal incident on campus occurred in April 1994; no students were involved or harmed in the event. The Institute has emergency response plans for shooter situations, but Henderson could not disclose any details. Coincidentally, Caltech emergency dispatchers underwent training two weeks ago for emergency conditions such as a shooter on campus. "We just went through training with our dispatchers on those exact things, gathering information, making sure proper notifications [are made] to agencies outside of Caltech that we may need to bring in," Henderson said. New mass notification system being put in place A major concern raised by the Virginia Tech shootings is timely notification of crimes in hopes of preventing more harm. The Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act of 1990, better known as the Clery Act, mandates that universities "shall make timely reports to the campus community on crimes considered to be a threat to other students and employees ... that are reported to campus security or local law police agencies. Such reports shall be provided to students and employees in a manner that is timely and that will aid in the prevention of similar occurrences." In the case of Virginia Tech, mass emails were sent to students two hours after the first shooting, some argue that time gap was too long. Caltech recently began subscribing to a mass notification system called ConnectEd, which is capable of sending alerts through email, phone and text message. However, currently the system only sends notifications to members of the crisis management committee, a "representation from across the campus, from student affairs to faculty, to counseling," according to Henderson. Members include Dean John Hall, Assistant VP of student affairs Erica O'Neal, and Assistant VP of Campus Life Tom Mannion. There has been talk of adding the rest of Caltech to the ConnectEd system. "We anticipate beginning to populate ConnectEd with the entire campus, students, faculty, and staff in the near future," Henderson said. "[To do so] we will need community members to submit the various methods that ConnectEd uses for communication, including e-mail, home and campus phones, cell phones, and text to us. More information about the system will be provided as we move forward with the project." The best course of action when one suspects a shooter is to inform security, not trying to intervene, according to Henderson. "We are a very secure campus, I can provide security," he said. "I can put people out there to patrol the grounds... [but] people need to communicate with us, if you have something that feels suspicious, [if] your initial reaction is [that] something's not right, call us immediately, let us come in and figure out what's going on." Counseling center emphasizes help, not fear for mentally ill Austin emphasized prevention at the campus gathering on Tuesday. By identifying troubled individuals and getting them counseling and professional help, he said, violent incidents with trouble individuals can be prevented. Changes in one's behavior may highlight deeper issues. "It's easiest [to notice change] when you already have a relationship with a person, because you have a baseline of what's normal for them," Austin said. "Perhaps the person stopped going to class, stopped going to dinner, they seem much more pessimistic, quieter, less responsive [and] less interested than what they used to be." The counseling center regularly handles students, 20% of the undergraduate population has been seen by the center, according to Austin. Most go to just talk about their issues, but three to 10 students a year are hospitalized for their own safety. People with mental illnesses are not predisposed to violence and should not be treated like threats, Austin strongly stressed. These individuals need care, not fear. "If you look at the Virginia Tech shooter, he was a loner and had a mental illness," Austin said. "Those two things alone don't predispose people to violence... [Things which may cause violent tendencies] are extreme trauma: witnessing something horrific, being an object of abuse or [the person is] subjected to violence themselves." To reach out to someone who may be having trouble, Austin recommended opening a friendly conversation. Rather than trying to evaluate the person's mindset, just describe the changes the person is undergoing and express concern about the shift in behavior. Although one might think it's meddling to do so, the conversation may help immensely. "The strength of this place is that students look out for one another, they should continue to do so," he said. "But sometimes there is reluctance to draw attention to someone needing help, encourage them to take the next step." -- Original Source: The California Tech - April 19, 2007
April 17th, 2007 by Dan Gillmor (Note: This will appear tomorrow as an op-ed piece in the Washington Examiner newspaper.) Once again, horror has given us a glimpse of our media future: simultaneously conversational and distributed, mass and personal. The killings Monday at Virginia Tech brought to the forefront the remarkable evolution in media over the past few years. And as we move into a time in which we will be saturated with data, we need to be clear on some of the implications of democratized media. We've had any number of glimpses already in this new century. On Sept. 11, 2001, we read blog postings and watched citizen videos of planes smashing into the World Trade Center towers. During the Asian tsunami, tourist videos showed waves smashing onto shores. A man in the London underground, wielding a mobile phone camera, took the image we all remember best from that day. The scope of the media shift was clearer again on Monday. Some of the most widely viewed images came from a mobile phone camera aimed at the police response by a student, Jamal Albaughouti. His video made its way to CNN and other media, and was seen by millions. But others on and off the Blacksburg, Va., campus were also using conversational media in highly visible ways. Social network communications, blog postings, email and a host of other technologies were brought to bear by people who were directly and indirectly part of this huge event. The students' words were achingly poignant. They were straight from the source, not pushed through a traditional-media funnel as they'd have been in the not-so-distant past. They brought to mind a blog post I spotted after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks by a young man in Brooklyn, N.Y., across the river from the World Trade Center. He wrote, "Now I know what a burning city smells like." The democratization of media is not just about creation, though that has been the most notable aspect so far. Putting the tools into everyone's hands has produced an explosion of media creation, as blogs and sharing sites such as YouTube and Flickr show us. Traditional media think of distribution: making journalism or movies or programs and sending them out to consumers. This is inverted in a democratized media world, where we all have access to what we want, as well as when and where. I didn't turn on my TV yesterday except in the evening, to watch a national network's news report. I wanted to see a summary of what a serious journalism organization had to say about what it knew so far. Instead, during the day, I used the online media — including the major news sites — to get the latest information, sifting it, making judgments about credibility and reliability as I read and watched and listened. That, too, is the future in many cases. It's also worth noting that the citizen media component of this terrible event is not a new to the digital era. When President John F. Kennedy was gunned down in Dallas back in 1963, Abraham Zapruder caught the gruesome killing on a home movie camera — footage that became an essential part of the historical record. But the difference between then and tomorrow is this: In 1963, one man with a camera captured the event on film. In a very few years, a similar situation would be captured by thousands of people — all holding high-resolution video cameras — and all of those cameras would be connected to high-speed digital networks. That is different. Remember, too, that the passengers aboard the airplanes on Sept. 11, 2001, were making voice calls to loved ones and colleagues with mobile phones. What if they'd been sending videos to the world of what was happening inside those doomed aircraft? We will still need journalists to help sort things out. But the "burning city" words from 2001 revealed something. We used to say that journalists write the first draft of history. Not so, not any longer. The people on the ground at these events write the first draft. This is not a worrisome change, not if we are appropriately skeptical and to find sources we trust. We will need to retool media literacy for the new age, too. This entry was posted on April 17th, 2007 at 1:12 pm and is filed under Citizen Journalism -- General, News. -- Original Source: Center for Citizen Media Blog http://citmedia.org/blog/2007/04/17/virginia-tech-how-media-are-evolving/ Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0.
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Virginia Tech shootings Bring Out Stereotypes
April 24, 2007 It was pointed out to me the other night that I'm a living, breathing embodiment of the stereotypical quiet Asian. I was among a few friends and some friends of friends in the bar at AT&T Park prior to a San Francisco Giants game. I was the only Asian American male in the group, but there was a loud, gregarious Asian American woman. The two Asians in the group seemed to be polar opposites, something that was apparent to everyone at the bar. I've been thinking about expectations and stereotypes since news broke that the gunman in the Virginia Tech killings was Korean American. My evening at the bar made me ponder it some more. Everyone else was more than a few drinks ahead of me, and I had driven to the ballpark, so I was nursing a beer. I was also concentrating on the game, which had started and was being shown on the bar's TVs, though this is no excuse for being withdrawn when among friends, and even friends of friends. It didn't go unnoticed by the others, who gave me a few jabs about being so quiet and that I should "keep it down." It was also very apparent that Unusually Loud Asian Woman, who I didn't know, was no quiet Asian. So much so that I was told to stand next to her so "osmosis" would quiet her down. After taking a place next to Unusually Loud Asian Woman and seemingly calming her down, a Friend and Friend of Friend asked me, "have you ever met a Chinese woman who's like this?" So on the one hand, I'm quiet so I'm Walking Stereotype, but on the other hand, Unusually Loud Asian Woman is just having a good time at a bar, but there seems to be something out of place with that as well. The comments and events I describe were all in good fun. We're all aware of our differences and perceived differences. It's what you do with that knowledge that can cause problems. There was no malice that night. I did start thinking more about stereotypes afterward. Reading Jeff Yang's analysis of Virginia Tech shooter Seung-Hui Cho's race in Salon.com gave me more food for thought. The article really hit home on the effect stereotypes can have. Yang's story and many others since the shooting also talk about the collective gasp that many Asian Americans let out when news broke that the killer was Korean American. As a journalist, I worried that the media would focus on Cho's race without any context, as Thomas Huang writes about at Poynter.org. Many Korean Americans felt a collective sense of guilt, as did many people in South Korea, even though Cho hadn't lived there since he was a boy. Emerson College journalism Professor Paul Niwa, quoted in Yang's article, has a viable explanation: Most of the perpetrators of mass school killings have been white. After those shootings, do you think white people felt guilty that the shooter was white? Do you think white people felt that since the shooter was white, that the shooter would give society a bad impression of whites? A shooter can be white and nobody thinks that race played a part in the crime. But when someone nonwhite commits a crime, this society makes the person's race partially at fault. I don't mean to belittle the killings at Virginia Tech by drawing an analogy to my night at the bar, but I think some of what Niwa says is at play. Sometimes I can have the personality of a cardboard box, so I'm Walking Stereotype, but for non-Asians who are socially awkward, they're just quiet. And Unusually Loud Asian Woman can't be herself, either, without being, well, Unusually Loud Asian Woman. There is nothing innate to being "quiet" and being Asian American. I know plenty of Asian Americans who are more like Unusually Loud Asian Woman, and at times envy them for their ease around people. But I am who I am. The cardboard box that once held the really quiet, painfully shy kid is open. I've been making my way out. Unfortunately, it appears that whatever was holding back Seung-Hui Cho burst to tragic results. Posted by harry at April 24, 2007 10:07 AM -- Original Source: Hyphen Magazine Blog http://www.hyphenmagazine.com/blog/archives/2007/04/virginia_tech_s.html Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 1.0.
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May 22, 2007 By Darren Franich Suicide is so much less embarrassing than homicide. Can you imagine the shitstorm maelstrom that would engulf our pretty campus if someone shot five people? Shot them so their blood splattered across the tables of Stern dining hall. Or their blood covered the pull-out desks in the chem building. Or their blood filled the fountains until the water sprayed dark bitter red. Five Stanford students dead. Hell, it doesn't have to be five. Make it three. Make it one. Think of the black cloud that would descend on our lives. Our own little Virginia Tech. The blood, damn it, the fucking blood! Pouring out of open wounds. Choked out of lungs that will never breathe again. On our campus. On our hands. Flowing out of pale bodies until the heart just stops pumping, tired, empty. Fortunately, people don't kill other people at Stanford. They just kill themselves. No one ever talks about the suicides, but everyone talks about how no one ever talks about the suicides. "Can you believe," we shake our heads, "four suicides at Stanford in one year, and nobody notices, nobody cares." Someone says, "I heard there were five." "That's what I'm talking about." Stanford is killing people. We shouldn't hold that against Stanford. There is so much joy here. There are thousands of students who live happy lives of quiet desperation, for whom suicide is never more than a passing fancy, the dream of an eternal vacation from one's own brain. But for a school that prides itself on its happiest-place-on-earth reputation, one suicide is a misfortune. Five is just awkward. To a high school senior, Stanford is the anti-Cornell: happy people living happy lives under the happy, happy sun. And now there is a suicide epidemic. Intelligent young people — who have worked hard their whole lives to get here, who have so much to look forward to — are eliminating themselves from the humanity continuum. Asphyxiation. It's not a good way to go. These people would have been great. Leaders of the world. And now they are memories tinged in eternal sadness. Take them off of Facebook. Cross them off your Christmas list. Destiny has clipped whatever wings they might have grown. Some people have expressed distaste for the University's handling of the suicides. A couple weeks ago, Hennessy wrote a letter to the editor. (In case you missed it, Boardman emailed you a link a few days later.) Half of the letter was about Virginia Tech. That event was a tragedy beyond all reckoning. But it has nothing to do with Stanford. Campus security is not the issue we should be debating. I saw eight police cars in twenty minutes last Saturday, and witnessed one brave officer fearlessly charging a dangerous minor for drinking quietly in public. A libertarian might argue that the overregulation on this campus is the problem. I will just point out that no one is killing us except ourselves. They're trying they're best, though, like bumbling parents desperately devoted to children they will never understand. They designed a cute Campus Climate Questionnaire with a stress tree and a stress quilt. They had a mental health fun day in White Plaza, with free massages. Everywhere you look there's a pamphlet for the Bridge. It's all utterly useless, but they're trying. It's the thought that counts, even if they appear to think we're in second grade. Our school's not to blame. It's us. It's who we are. It's the curse of our overworked generation. If you're here, then odds are you've spent the better half of your life attaining perfection. Extracurriculars, AP tests, trophies, student government, student newspapers, singing, dancing, studying, sleeping only when your body could hold out no longer against the dark unconsciousness. I always assumed that sort of life was over with high school; that once you got to college things slowed down. For most people, college is even more intense than high school: more work, more coffee. Our parents used science to make us the perfect worker bee study bots — but you can't just turn that off. If anything, you become even more type-A with age. We want it all. We binge on work, we binge on play, we binge. But it's never enough. We get to Stanford, which is supposed to be the fulfillment of all our dreams, and it isn't enough. We need a good med school, a good law school, a great job, the love and respect of our peers and our betters. My shrink described to me how kids like us — perfectionists, go-getters, workaholics — live our lives walking up an eternal slope without ever turning back. We never see how high we've come, we only see how much higher we still have to go. And we get depressed because there is no plateau; the mountain just gets steeper. It doesn't help that the whole world is going to shit. Or rather, that we are more aware than any previous generation of how shitty the world has always been. It calls to mind something AJ said a couple of weeks ago on "The Sopranos." How can you not be depressed? How can any sane person approach the world with anything less than horror and distaste and loathing? When AJ attempted suicide on the most recent episode, I found myself begging the Lord to spare him — as if he carried the fate of us all on his shoulders, as if whatever happened to him was going to happen to us eventually. The pessimism is everywhere. The '90s are seven years gone. Any dream of paradise on earth is gone with them. The planes flew into the towers. And that didn't even matter. Can you imagine? 9/11 doesn't even matter. It's a blip in the radar. People were suffering before; people are still suffering. Our world is broken, dying. We killed it. Global warming is God's next flood. Wipe the slate clean. Maybe the cockroaches will do better. Or so we think, sometimes, when the sunshine feels cold, when death feels so close. You know what? There's a way out. And you don't need CAPS or the Bridge or the Office of Religious Life. You have to fail, and you have to want to fail. Skip a class, or miss a meeting. Whatever you think you have to do, do the exact opposite. Try to become everything you're afraid of becoming: fat, stupid, alone. Admit weakness. Find someone who makes you happy and tell them everything that makes you hurt. Especially the stupid shit. Because suicide, in the end, is stupid. Living is the appropriate response to life. We owe it to our honored dead to learn from their mistakes. We owe it to them to live every day like it's the start of forever. And we owe it to them to try to change our life if our life isn't working for us. Darren Franich will be celebrating his 21st and 22nd birthdays on Friday and insists that his devoted underage fan base come and get illegally plastered. Email him at dfranich@stanford.edu. Comments on this article: Cat - 5/22/07 Wow, great piece! Just finished the Campus Climate Questionaire and found it hokey. L - 5/22/07 Cute rhetoric but you aren't taking the whole situation into account. It isn't necessarily Stanford or our parents or our type-A personalities that are, as you say so many times, killing us -- there are innumerable nuances to these situations, including unglamorous non-Stanford-related roots like clinical depression. Also, for some crazy reason I find myself unable to trust the guy who begs god to spare AJ Soprano to genuinely have all of our best interests at heart... J - 5/22/07 Darren, if you truly want to help then go out and fail, fail big, and write a column about it. Help show how to redefine success. Otherwise this really is rhetoric, as empty as the trees and quilts in the campus questionnaire. Eric - 5/22/07 Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling too on every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and the headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned softly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead. Jason Kerwin - 5/22/07 This is exceptional writing. I've learned to expect far less from the Daily. L is right about the clinical depression angle. It's very common here, as on many college campuses. Most researchers think there is a direct link between depression and intelligence/creativity, so the high rates of depression here are no accident. David - 5/22/07 Darren's articles shouldn't have blogs after them because they just sap the energy out of what I always find to be exceptionally powerful and interesting writing. Next time I finish reading one of Darren's articles and I see that dreaded "comments on this article:" line, I'll stop, close my computer, think of the craziest and trite shit that I can to post, open my computer again, and sure enough, I'll find my work already done for me. s - 5/23/07 Just a quick note - The Bridge did not have anything to do with the corny Campus Climate survey. I wanted to kill myself 2 - 5/23/07 And it's not because of myself, I would have if I were able to do such thing. But it's because the way Stanford treats me every day (and especially the incompetence of student housing). So, since we're paying so much for health insurance anyway, they should include eutanasia for students. That way they wouldn't have to deal with usbickering after getting so much abuse from this university. Nicole D - 5/23/07 I think it's really easy to blame our parents or our high schools or our societies for making us into the "perfectionists, go-getters" and "workaholics" you seem to think everyone at Stanford is. It is my hope that students here are smart enough to transcend that bullshit and to realize for themselves that perpetually jumping through hoops will never yield lasting satisfaction. Instead of blindly climbing that slope your therapist so poetically described, we all need to completely reevaluate what we've been programmed by the afforementioned forces to think is important. We all need to ask ourselves whether the values we use to structure our lives are truly ours or not, whether they make us happy or not, whether the standards of achievment we had in high school are the ones we want cling to all our lives. It's a really uncomfortable thing to do, but it only this sort of continuous self-evaluation that can ensure that we're living the life we really want by standards we set for ourselves. This is where I think therapy comes in. I'm a huge therapy enthusiast. If I were president, i would mandate free therapy for everyone. My parents are both psychotherapists. Fuck, all my parents friends are therapists (I'm from Brooklyn, NY, okay)! I, myself, saw a therapist for a little over a year before I left for college when my boyfriend became clinically depressed and suicidal. I don't think therapy is a miracle cure, but it was certainly one of the best thing I've ever done. Not only did she help me deal with the stress of being in a relationship with someone who was depressed, but she also helped me rationally approach so many issues I had never even realized affected me so profoundly. I don't know if there's a stigma about seeking out mental help here at Stanford because, quite frankly, I've never really heard the subject discussed among students. I come from a family in which the offer to talk to a mental health professional about whatever I wanted has always been on the table, and I'm a firm believer that the majority of the American population needs to change its attitude towards mental health. I think it's important for people to approach their mental health in the same way they approach their physical health. You go for routine check-ups to make sure your body is working smoothly and get even small ailments checked out as a precautionary measure. People need to realize that chatting with a mental health professional regularly is not a diagnosis of insanity, but a normal and wonderful way to begin to straigten out the jumble of things that is in most of our heads. People need to understand that any issue, not matter how seemingly insignificant, is a legitimate reason to talk to someone. I say, if you can afford a private therapist, take advantage. If not, try out the Bridge Center or CAPS, Vaden's Counseling and Psychological Services. It's easy to demonize Stanford, or society, or the College Board and blame them for all of our problems. Ultimately, though, we are just as responsible for our own mental health as we are for our own lives. happy birthday and have fun getting shitfaced, nd -- Original Source: Stanford Daily - May 22, 2007
Op-Ed: An open letter to President Hennessy
May 14, 2007 By Lisette Rimer Dear Dr. Hennessy, Thank you for your op-ed piece May 4th on preventing future tragedies such as Virginia Tech. It was forwarded to me byone of your students who suffered the loss of a friend, my son Patrick Wood. Patrick graduated from Stanford in 2005 with distinction in math. He loved the school, had many friends there, and was even treated for depression there. In January before he graduated, he was hospitalized for, as he explained to me, "having thoughts of suicide." He was committed to the Stanford hospital for five days, but proclaimed that he was OK, mostly bored, and didn't belong there. The psychiatrist in charge at the hospital agreed that Pat was OK and should be permitted to return to school as long as he continued therapy. He saw a therapist and a psychiatrist on campus and renewed his medication. His mood was up and down, but he continued an active social life and good communication with us. He was excited about an internship at Siemens in Berlin, Germany, which he began after graduation. He had applied for the internship through the Stanford Center in Berlin. He suspended his therapy for the summer with plans to return in September for the computer science co-term program, but he loved Berlin too much to leave just yet. Another friend from Stanford was arriving to work in the American Embassy there, and so Patrick obtained a leave of absence and continued to work at Siemens through the fall. All the while, he made many friends, spoke and wrote fluent German, went to concerts with colleagues at Siemens, and maintained close contact with the Stanford Center. He could often be heard playing the piano there just as he had done at Haus Mitt. He wrote about a "mini-depression" before he came home to Connecticut for Christmas vacation. We thought a medication refill would be the answer. His twin sister and older brother were home, along with cousins, aunts, and uncles. It was the usual busy but fun time. Pat later told friends it was "relaxing" and that it was good to get away from the city for a while. On December 27th, he went to New York City to see another good friend from Stanford. He returned to Berlin on the 28th. In January he wrote about a "mini-breakdown." We had many emails. I called, but could not contact him by telephone. His last email to me was on January 26th. Humboldt University had requested additional information on his application as a grad student there. He took it as rejection, told me he might be returning to Stanford, and asked me to wish him luck. He answered no more emails after that. He saw friends on the weekend of the 28th and 29th. He did not return phone calls after Tuesday the 31st. His friend, who worked at the American Embassy and who lived a block away, became worried. He called and went to Pat's apartment several times the following weekend. He called the Stanford Center on Monday morning. They called the police to break into the apartment. By that evening, the police found Pat. He had died of carbon monoxide poisoning on Tuesday, January 31st. Patrick was one of many graduates that June. He was one of many more who were going on to graduate school. The school cannot be responsible for every student on campus or every new graduate. I am under no illusions about who was responsible for his treatment and for what he did. It was Patrick alone who decided to stay in Germany, who decided to suspend treatment, and ultimately who decided that suicide would relieve his depression. I have tried to retrace his steps continuously in my mind ever since we were notified on February 6, 2006. On that day, his friend and others from the Stanford Center identified him. They called a Stanford residential housing director in Palo Alto, and he called us. Both the Stanford School in Berlin and Palo Alto had memorial services for him in February and March of last year. As you can see, the school was very much involved in both the life and in the death of my son. Please do not mistake my comments for blame. Maybe no one could have prevented his loss, but I have learned that it is the very nature of his disease, and of Cho's at Virginia Tech, that should cause us to be hyper-vigilant. Students who are depressed, even brilliant and loving students like Pat, cannot function reliably because the source of their decision-making process is under attack. They are making flawed decisions because the very same mechanism used to make these decisions is malfunctioning. There is an anatomical difference between a healthy brain and a depressed brain. It is a detectable, visible difference, and yet it is only a part of the brain, for many decisions appear "normal." It is those normalities which lulled me into thinking that Pat would get help, that he would take care of himself, that he would certainly see how magnificent he was, that he had just graduated from Stanford with a 3.9 average and a major in math, that his friends loved him, that he had had the best childhood we could provide, that he had the brightest future of anyone. How could he not be happy? The answer is because depression does not operate on the same assumptions. I have had to change my own notions of well-being because they failed Pat. He did not get help in Germany because he could not. The decisions he needed to make were not possible with the oppression and pain he was feeling. Although he was physically able to get to a doctor or call a therapist, just as he had done at Stanford, those functions needed motivation, and it was his motivation which had been destroyed. All the drive, the talent, the brilliance that had won him a full scholarship to Pomfret School, that had gotten him perfect SAT's, that had made him a valedictorian, that had made him a merit scholar, that had gotten him into Stanford, that won him a scholarship there, that had gotten him into the Krupp Internship program in Germany and then into Siemens—all the motivation he needed to achieve academic and social success was no match for this disease. He had sought treatment, and it had not worked, so he turned inward until he isolated his thoughts, his wants, and his pain, until he was feeling nothing but the sense of control which suicide brings. I think your comments about psychological services are a welcome response. Pat's life was saved the first time he had major depression and was hospitalized by one of the counselors on campus, and I am deeply grateful. But I would hope, in the wake of Pat's agonizing loss and the frightening possibility of another Virginia Tech, that we come away with a few additional realizations. I have spent every day trying to do the same thing. Mainly I hope that we understand that suicide victims are not insane. They function as well as they need to function. Almost everything about Pat was normal on the outside, even the relationship problem that preceded his death. A truth I have learned too late is that we have to go to them. Pat needed someone to take him for help. Just because he did it the first time didn't mean he would do it again. As a matter of fact, there was less chance he would get help because he was weakened from the first depressive episode. Because I have learned that depression is a terminal illness, I would hope that we could change the meaning of the term from a saddened state of mind, to the dangerous, insidious threat that it is. Most people who commit suicide have been depressed and have attempted it beforehand. As I think Patrick and the Virginia Tech incident made abundantly clear, we are ill-equipped to detect the severity of the disease and, therefore, the likelihood that these victims will complete a suicide. Anatomical detection would give us empirical data that we need to make a more accurate diagnosis, certainly more accurate than relying on a patient to rate himself on a depression scale as is now commonly the case. How many other diseases have to be self-diagnosed when a patient is least able? And finally, a thought about treatment. A newspaper article last year pointed out that patients who were "cured" had to endure an average of four combinations of medication and therapy before finding one that succeeded. That means a great deal of trial and error at a time when any failure can be misconstrued as a reason for hopelessness and self-harm. The implications for a university are complex. How much do you reach out, especially if the patient does not seek treatment? How do you know the severity of the depression? If we are relying on averagely intelligent people to pick up on the cues, we will never succeed. I know because I am one of those failures. I will hate myself forever for what I did not know about depression, for what I missed, for what I did not do for my son, but I also know that there are a lot of people saying the same thing about Cho. They are all blaming themselves, just as I am, because what passes for non-threatening behavior before suicide becomes pockmarked with danger signs afterward. I should have gone to Berlin. I should have called his friends. I should have done a lot of things and so should they who knew Cho. But we don't because we don't know they are necessary. We don't know they mean life or death, and we will not know until we have reliable detection. Maybe the lesson that arises from Patrick, a favorite son of Stanford, is that students within Stanford programs should be better monitored no matter where they are. Whether they are in Palo Alto or Germany, follow-up and care (and this is most important) should be initiated by the school. Why? Because seriously depressed students are less likely to seek treatment. They consider themselves to be defective instead of legitimately sick because that's what depression does. It convinces them that there is no hope, and therefore no cure, but that is really depression talking. We have to break through that. We have to go to them, physically and mentally. If you go to the website for The American Federation for Suicide Prevention, you will see their advice for preventing suicide. The suicidal person cannot be expected to independently seek treatment. Somebody must take them. If we can come away with any insight from Patrick and Cho, it is that follow-up was woefully lacking. I shudder to mention their names in the same sentence, but similar questions in their aftermaths compel me. Why didn't the school follow up on Pat's treatment in Germany even though he was in a Stanford internship program? The answer: Stanford was relying on Pat, and so was I. That cannot continue. When students become patients, the school must monitor them as long as they are connected to the school and wherever they are connected. Depressed students — even the best, like Pat — are simply not capable. Depressed students don't seek treatment because they are, not surprisingly, depressed. This is how depression kills, and in the process, it robs functioning until there is very little on which to rely. How do we know when that functioning is gone? We don't, and that is why it is up to us to know more. It is simply in our own best interest to detect and treat more actively and accurately. If I have come away with anything from the loss of my beautiful son it is this: Depression will kill anybody, but the burden is on usto know whom. When Pat graduated in 2005, our whole family came to Stanford to wish him well: my husband and I from Connecticut, his older brother Colin and Colin's friend Julie from Washington State, his twin sister Libby from Vermont, and his grandparents Dr and Mrs. David Rimer from Los Angeles. We all came to congratulate him, and we were impressed with the beautiful ceremonies and meaningful events, but as I read your op-ed piece, the memory of meeting you at graduation stood out the most. You seemed like a caring person, even during the brief moments in which we had our photograph taken with you. We commented afterward how welcoming you and your wife had been, even though you were probably exhausted from shaking hands and posing for several hours. And now I write to ask you to bring that caring sensibility to the forefront of this issue. Suicide is the second leading cause of death for college students. It weakens parents' confidence in the safety of their children on campus — parents, who, by the way, are already feeling excluded from the well-beings of their children because of confidentiality. We cannot see grades, get psychiatric records, get tuition bills directly, or intervene on students' behalf. Everything is left up to the student, and, as we have seen with Patrick and Cho, we risk too much isolation. Again, thank you for your interest in this issue, and thank you for promoting the psychological well-being of your students. I appreciate your focusing Stanford's public attention on these avoidable catastrophes. Patrick loved Stanford dearly. He was grateful for the services you did provide, and now, in his stead, we are grateful for your continuing efforts to protect our children. I invite you to visit the memorial blog set up for Patrick by his Stanford friends at: http://patrickwood.blogspot.com/ Sincerely, Lisette Rimer, Pat's mom Pomfret Center, Connnecticut Comment on this article Jon Bell - 5/14/07 Ten day ago, a newly-admitted Freshman to Stanford went on yet another in a long-time-series of verbal abuse tirades against all the people who loved her; wished that they were all dead; that she hated all people, especially the rich--and that after Stanford she wanted a career in public relations. This person is now getting help--if she allows it. The University has been informed and has been fabulous. Ted Rudow III,MA - 5/14/07 There is no reason to doubt the generous impulse behind the work of professional psychologists and social scientists. Most of the experts who guide the psychological society have good intentions. But there may be reasons to doubt the competence of psychological helpers. A willingness to help does not guarantee a helpful result. Sometimes, as Thoreau wryly observed, the result is the opposite: "If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life." The fact that psychologists are trying to help people often keeps us from asking whether they know how to help. We think it's bad manners to ask a man who is trying to help us if he really knows what he's doing. Of course, it's not just manners that prevent us from questioning psychology. It's also faith--the kind of faith that makes us believe that school teachers are doing what is best for our children. Or the kind of faith that tells you that the man in the clerical collar won't knock you down and steal your wallet. Just the same, we ought to be asking if psychologists really do know how to help. A good deal of research suggests that psychology is ineffective. And there is evidence pointing to the conclusion that psychology is actually harmful. The first indication that psychology might be ineffective came in 1952 when Hans Eysenck of the Institute of Psychiatry, University of London, discovered that neurotic people who do not receive therapy are as likely to recover as those who do. Psychotherapy, he found, was not any more effective than the simple passage of time. Additional studies by other researchers showed similar results. Then Dr. Eugene Levitt of the Indiana University School of Medicine found that disturbed children who were not treated recovered at the same rate as disturbed children who were. A further indication of the problem was revealed in the results of the extensive Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study. The researchers found that uncounseled juvenile delinquents had a lower rate of further trouble than counseled ones. Other studies have shown that untrained lay people do as well as psychiatrists or clinical psychologists in treating patients. And the Rosenham studies indicated that mental hospital staff could not even tell normal people from genuinely disturbed ones. It is possible to go on with the list. It is quite a long one. But I hope this is sufficient to make the point that when psychologists rush in to help, they are not particularly successful. Ted Rudow III, Scientologist - 5/14/07 Hey Ted, what exactly do you mean by, "psychology is actually harmful." That's a pretty nice blanket statement there. What you're meaning to say is, clinical psychology isn't always effective. The studies you list aren't indictments of psychology as a discipline, but specific methods of treatment. And none of them conclude, "Therefore, nobody should trust any psychologists, because of what we have tried to show." Seriously. Neurosis is not as widespread or specific as depression. Psychotherapy was always hackery and has little to do with modern-day depression treatment methods. Children's developmental processes are also moot in this discussion, be they abnormal or normal or whatnot. There are lots of studies showing a lot of things. You have to look at the whole body of the discipline and then inform yourself, not take the good and pointed studies relating to specific areas and discount the entire field. Why did you even give her space? - 5/14/07 At some point, you just have to let go, lady. Get a grip. Stop projecting your woulda-coulda-shoulda parental replays to compensate for everything you didn't do, just to make yourself feel better and ignore what really did happen, most of which probably wouldn't have changed even with all the nannying you suggest. The Real BadgerNation - 5/14/07 I agree... and President Hannessy's fake smile and politically correct image are a clear sign that he cares. Same way G.W.'s visits to Iraq and shaking of those people's hands, taking pictures and putting up a big baboon smile show that he also cares... about sending America's sons to die. Why is this letter in the Daily? - 5/15/07 I agree with WDYEGHS - it's not very helpful to expect that CAPS could be able to 'follow-up' on GRADUATES (who aren't eligible for their services any more, anyway...*ahem*), not to mention when they are 9 time zones away. Aside from the logistical (think personnel, funding, time and money spent tracking down Stanford students abroad) impossibility of this operation, how would that be funded? A third of Stanford undergrads go to CAPS at some time in their career here - keeping tabs on them to follow up is just not feasible with the way the service is set up at the moment. Also, when would treatment end? If we were to promote a regime of following up on everybody after every psychological event had been resolved (something that closely resembles nannying...which health services can't do to people once they are of age without their consent) then it risks wasting the time of professionals who are already over-stretched and underpaid. Finally, CAPS psychologists are not permitted to practice in Germany because they are licensed in the state of California. This guy's story is really tragic and it makes me really sad to have read this piece, but the answer, if there was one, would not have lay at Stanford no matter what obligations the mother wants to impose on the university. A more sympathetic response... - 5/15/07 I think the three posts above me are not giving this well thought out article enough credit. I don't think she's advocating for a CAPS conselour to commute to Germany to make sure a graduate is doing ok, but some sort of follow up with the family or student to make sure they are getting some sort of help. Yes, a third of the student body may go to CAPS, but a much smaller fraction of the student body would require this follow up - - those who attempted suicide, were committed to the hospital against their will, etc. While this article does suggest that Stanford should have remained involved in Pat's mental rehabilitation, I think the more important thing to take away is the author's useful view into the life of a mentally depressed student, and hopefully raises awareness of what our peers are going through - peers who you see next to you at dinner, walk by in white plaza, sit next to in class. while pat did not take his life while at stanford, many others have, and that fact needs a lot more attention from ALL OF US at stanford. Alyssa O'Brien, PWR Instructor - 5/16/07 As a Stanford instructor who knew Pat as a student years ago in PWR "Comic Rhetoric," I am deeply saddened to hear of his death. My heart goes out to Lisette and to all Pat's friends and family members. I still remember his gentle smile and quick wit. I hope anyone reading this realizes that suicide is a lonely and terrible solution -- there are people who will grieve and miss you with a deep ache. May 17 is the first annual Stanford Wellness day. Make a pact on this day to reach out to others and not give in or give up. Grateful - 5/17/07 Thank you for sharing your painful and most personal experience. Your letter points out the difference between sadness and depression. Don't ever let go of your search for meaning and your determination to help others. Even if some miss the point (as evidenced by a few of the responses), to me and to others your words are precious. No man is an island. Thank you. Lisette Rimer - 5/20/07 Dear Mr. Hohmann, Thank you for being so generous with space in the Daily for Pat's picture and story. You gave prominence to an issue which has apparently troubled Stanford both on and off campus and, judging by the responses to Pat's story, drawn the full range of reaction. I found it interesting that I shared all views at different times in my life. Before Pat died, I agreed completely that schools cannot be traipsing all over the globe to protect students from themselves, that we could not make students live if they didn't want to. As a matter of fact, it is probably that kind of thinking that put me in this situation today. Now that he's gone, I can only say from experience that the nature of the disease demands more from us. There is no better proof than Pat that depression is a terminal disease and that it operates outside the realm of logic. How do we know when a student has crossed that line? We don't, and so it stands to reason that we should take a conservative approach. As my doctor has told me many times since Pat's death, depression is like cancer, only worse in the sense that it attacks the very decision-making ability that students need to seek help. If you can't depend on the students, and the parents are three thousand miles away and getting the "I'm OK" side of the story, who is left? It is only the professionals who know that depression does not "heal" after the first "episode" Even on medication, it takes longer to recover with each setback. Severely depressed patients do not "learn" from past failures. They get worse. They become more vulnerable. They are chronically ill, and even if they sought hospitalization once, as Pat did, they may be less likely to do it again because they will think they are beyond hope. My therapist tells me we can assume one thing about suicide: the person is in so much pain that death is a mandate. It's not like they went to a psychological shopping mall and unexplainably picked that choice. I have learned that it is a severe, agonizing, psychological torture, which constricts them internally but allows enough external composure to carry out their plan. Pick up any book on the subject and then think about it as I have done every day for fifteen months. If the school is sincere in improving its psychological services, follow-up after hospitalization is essential. Nobody else is equipped to do it, and the consequences may be fatal. I am not removing blame from myself or from Pat, and I appreciate those who wrote and understood that. My letter is not about finding fault. It is simply stating a fact: the school must be proactive. The psychiatric services are excellent on campus. As a friend once told Pat, "Stanford is one of the best places to have a breakdown." Extending those services is simply a matter of a phone call, in Pat's case, to the Stanford Center in Berlin. Most importantly, thank you to "A more sympathetic response," "Alyssa O'Brien," and "Grateful." You knew Pat (Was it you, Mrs. O'Brien, who nominated him for a writing prize for his paper on Juvenal? He was touched that you liked it.), and you knew how depression works. It's a thief, and it robs you blind. You cannot see your prospects unless professionals pry your eyes open. Thank you, Stanford, for the wonderful care you did give, and thank you again for continually working to improve those resources. Lisette Rimer, Pat's mom Pomfret Center, CT 06259 -- Original Source: Stanford Daily - May 14, 2007
May 4, 2007 By JOHN HENNESSY On April 16, 2007, our country suffered a terrible tragedy when a troubled student killed 32 members of the Virginia Tech community. Such tragedies are unfathomable. Words, as eloquent and sincere as they may be, fail to convey the shock and sadness we all felt upon hearing that news. At Stanford, I was struck by the deep and sincere evidence of sympathy and concern throughout campus, from the moments of silence at many meetings to the cards signed in dining halls to the moving ceremony at Memorial Church. Today, Stanford's condolences stand among those of more than 300 other colleges and universities on the Virginia Tech website. Ours is a caring community, and that fact was never so clear as it was on April 16 and the days immediately thereafter. Not surprisingly, I have been asked about emergency protocols here at Stanford. I want you to know that in the wake of the Virginia Tech tragedy, a group has been convened by Vice President Randy Livingston to review all of our emergency protocols, as well as our methods of communication. Stanford has had an emergency management program in place for many years. The emergency plan has evolved from one primarily focused on earthquake preparation and response and now includes an "all hazards" approach. We practice annually for all types of emergencies, including intentional acts. In addition, we have various methods available through which to communicate with the entire campus, but we are seeking to improve the speed and efficiency with which we can do so. Our emergency protocols are good, but the realities of today's society demand that they be even better. As important as they are, emergency protocols are unfortunately after-event procedures, and therefore only part of a necessary dialogue. As has been made very clear in the days following the tragedy at Virgina Tech, the challenge of how society addresses mental health issues is serious and complicated. We pray that what happened at Virginia Tech was a horrible aberration that will not be repeated anywhere. We know in retrospect that more must be done to recognize the warning signs of mental distress, including its potential for violence. We know we must learn more about how and when to intervene appropriately. The deaths at Virginia Tech are a tragedy of national proportions, but college campuses are experiencing smaller, quieter, yet profoundly distressing tragedies every day — young people who have chosen to take their own lives. The Stanford community has been no exception in this regard. Since the beginning of the academic year, we have lost several Stanford students. As we think through the maze of mental health challenges, we must also confront the problem of suicide — openly, constructively and with determination. For many, the imponderability of suicide may make us feel powerless to know where to begin in addressing such a painfully personal issue. So perhaps the place to start is in the recognition that we all do indeed have a role to play. A university is a deeply intimate community — what touches one, truly touches all. That means that as a community we have a set of responsibilities to each other. We have the responsibility to understand, to comfort, to reach out and, in some cases, to act. Mental and emotional distress know no bounds of gender, background or color. I am hopeful for a day when the stigma associated with depression and other mental health problems — whether imposed by others or one's self — dissipates and goes the way of other misplaced fears and biases. Helping each other overcome that stigma is an important first step. This stigma, which often results in a reluctance to seek help, implies an additional responsibility: We must share a commitment to be compassionate, to not turn away from seeing and acknowledging a difficult circumstance, and then take the opportunity to reach out to help — or even seek help ourselves. There are many resources available at Stanford, including Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) at Vaden Health Center, the Bridge Peer Counseling Center, the Office for Religious Life, the community centers and residence staff, among others. But these resources can only be brought to bear if they are engaged. Last fall, Provost John Etchemendy appointed a group to examine issues around the psychological well being of our students and assess the services we offer in this area. Other colleges and universities are taking similar measures in the face of an increasing demand for mental health and well being services. Some of you will be asked to participate in focus groups this spring or to take an online survey, and I hope you will choose to participate. It goes without saying that one suicide is too many, and we must look within ourselves to be certain that we are doing everything we can to prevent such tragedies. I have been gratified by the strength and compassion of students, faculty and staff in the last few weeks. I hope and believe we can build on that to create an even healthier, safer and more caring community. John Hennessy is the president of Stanford University. -- Original Source: Stanford Daily - May 4, 2007
April 27, 2007 By Editorial Board It is a tough line to walk: simultaneously respecting those affected by tragedy and reassuring the community in a time of crisis. This year has seen numerous examples of the administration's sincere efforts to negotiate that line with the handful of student suicides and most recently with its response to Stanford students on the Virginia Tech shootings. But in each of those cases, we wish the administration would have spoken directly to all of us, or in instances in which they did, perhaps spoken sooner. An unknown number of classmates have taken their lives this year with no acknowledgement at all by the administration. Last week, it was more than 24 hours until we received an official response to the Virginia Tech tragedy. Undoubtedly, many factors go into the process for announcing a death in the community or responding to a tragedy at another school. In phone and email conversations, Director of University Communications Alan Acosta and Vice Provost for Student Affairs Greg Boardman said that the issue of family privacy rights should not be overlooked. While Acosta acknowledged that "there are a number of things you have to do right away" when dealing with tragedy, we don't understand entirely how the University's support network of Counseling and Psychological Services, the Bridge Peer Counseling Center or the Office of Religious Life assists students who are merely trying to determine if the rumor of their classmate's death is true or not. This year alone, rumors of numerous suicides plagued the student body, and in those times it was hard to find a student who really knew the truth of what was happening at Stanford. Boardman's email to the student body the day after the Virginia Tech shooting was appreciated. Students needed to hear his support — we just wish it had come a little earlier. Those who live and work here expect Stanford to be there for them. The student body was never notified after some suicides. We do not expect a front-page story in the Stanford Report from the administration, but we do hope for a brief message to acknowledge a friend has passed away. Comments on this article: Stupid editorial - 4/27/07 What exactly is the editorial board asking for? The administration to send out mass e-mails detailing every aspect of a community member's death? The Stanford News Service already acknowledges (in a tasteful way!) Stanford community members who pass away. Maybe it was a slow news day today, but the Stanford Daily needs to realize that a student death is a rare occurrence, but if one does occur, the utmost sensitivity is required and respect for the families should be a top priority. This is obvious to everyone but those intrepid Daily writers? We need to remember that these are very private, delicate matters and families might not wish to broadcast all kinds of details to the world. That is perfectly understandable and, absent any danger to campus safety or any other issue that might require the immediate attention of the campus at large, there is no reason why the widespread dissemination of all details surrounding a particular death ought to be required for Stanford News Service. The following line from the editorial is particularly ridiculous: "This year alone, rumors of numerous suicides plagued the student body, and in those times it was hard to find a student who really knew the truth of what was happening at Stanford." So the paper is basing this whole editorial on rumors? What evidence does the paper have that a particular death was never acknowledged by the administration? Sometimes it seems like the Stanford Daily editorials are written hastily and with little regard for common sense. Re: Stupid editorial - 4/27/07 I totally agree that this is a stupid editorial. The Stanford Daily was recently criticized for a long delay before they reported the death of Mo Morsette. And even when they did report it, it was not the top story of the day. It looks like, after some soul searching, the editorial board has decided that Stanford Administration is to blame, because the administration doesn't acknowledge student deaths quickly enough. After all, if someone doesn't tell the Stanford Daily that there's a death on campus, then how are they supposed to know? It's not like they're a NEWSPAPER with JOURNALISTS who are supposed to so FOOTWORK before they print stories. Daily is grasping at straws - 4/27/07 The Daily's editorials have been going downhill for quite a while now. This one is perhaps one of their worst ever. What exactly is the benefit of criticizing the administration's response to the VT massacre? Brave Editorial - 4/27/07 Stupid Editorial, it's your kind of overly sensitive, well-meaning but ultimately silly thinking that lets Bush get away with banning the media from soldier's funerals. I can understand respecting the family's privacy, but Mo Morsette was also a fellow member of this community - I would expect a complete investigation into what led him to take his own life, not in the interest of airing dirty laundry, but in the interest of helping other people who feel the same emotions that plagued him. This school is an intense psychological environment filled people whose incredible intelligence often dovetails with complete social maladjustment - it does not reflect well on Stanford to sweep things like this under the rug in the interest of "privacy." -- Original Source: Stanford Daily - April 27, 2007
Ethnic identities questioned after Virginia Tech
Korean community reacts to blame and guilt following massacre April 24, 2007 By Aram Hur In the aftermath of last week's Virginia Tech massacre, the national Korean-American community has reportedly suffered a backlash similar to that unleashed against Muslims in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, but Asian Americans on campus largely agree that they are being treated with respect and sympathy and credited the media's portrayal of the attack as objective and fair. A number of Facebook groups, such as "Cho Seung-Hui does NOT represent Asians," are continuously amassing new members, while a YouTube post with the words "I belong in Korea" over Cho's face is receiving hundreds of hits per day. While the Virginia Tech shooter, Cho Seung-Hui, was South Korean, other ethnic groups have expressed empathy for Asians in the wake of last week's attack. Ahmed Ashraf '07, vice president of the Muslim Student Awareness Network, said he had similar fears before the identity of the shooter was disclosed. "I know that when I first heard about the Virginia Tech tragedy, I was very, very nervous about the gunman's background," Ashraf said in an email to the Daily. "If a Muslim student were involved in the massacre, it [would have] hit way too close to home." Media coverage of the shootings has drawn an ambiguous reaction from Asian students and faculty members at the University. "This shows that race and ethnicity is still a key source of collective identity in the United States," said Sociology Prof. Gi-Wook Shin. "Non-white ethnic groups and females can be self-conscious and extra careful precisely because they are still minorities in American politics of identity." Others said they were pleased with the focus on Cho's mental state, rather than his ethnicity. "The media has been pretty good at being neutral," said Kenny Kim '08, co-president of the Korean Students Association. "As a member of the Asian-American community, I was inclined to think of the worst possible outcomes, but the discussion has now turned more to Cho's mental health than to his ethnic background." "This, sadly, is not a new crime in America and is not seen in new terms now that the latest perpetrator is of Korean origin," Shin added. "Experts have compared him to the Columbine shooters, saying that he fits the same profile. This is a judgment about mental state and behavior patterns that have nothing to do with race or ethnicity." In South Korea, reaction to the Blacksburg, Va. tragedy brought up deeper, cultural issues. Shortly after the shooter's ethnicity was revealed, the South Korean government and media went into a frenzy, debating whether Cho's actions warranted an official national apology. Such a phenomenon has raised discussion of collective guilt. Yet Kim emphasized the importance of a clear-cut distinction between guilt and shame. "Koreans are a unique race," he said. "We often blur the lines between the nation and the people. Thus when we found out that the shooter was Korean, every Korean felt a bit of shame that one of 'us' committed a horrible act." "However, this is not to say we feel any guilt for what happened," he added. "The act that Cho committed is an isolated event and has no linkage with him being Korean or Korean American." On campus, students and faculty said they have faith in the community's power to overcome the blame and guilt. "This tragedy was not about Korean or Asian Americans, and I am sure the Stanford community is well aware of that," Shin said. "In a sense, Cho himself was a victim and we have social responsibility to make sure that this kind of tragedy won't happen again." Comments on this article: Joe - 4/24/07 Muslims were not the brunt of the 9/11 backlash. Ignorant Americans labelled all brown-skinned US CITIZENS as Muslim, and acted accordingly. East Indians, who are as far away from the middle east as the US is from Brazil, were killed in retaliation. Cabbies, convenience store owners, even an old man sitting on a park bench "had his turban ripped off his head and his face slapped" by two white females. The Korean community can have some solice knowing that Americans will ignorantly take their anger out on Chinese and Japanese CITIZENS of their country. a - 4/24/07 I really don't fear any backlash against the Asian-American community, because Cho's actions do not fit with the stereotype of the quiet, polite Asian. People are always unwilling to throw away their stereotypes, so in this case, the preexisting stereotype will work against a development of hatred against the community. Whereas, if the shooter were Muslim, it would be a disaster for that community. Gary - 4/24/07 Joe, why would Koreans take solice in the reprisal against other members of the Asian community? Next time, try to bring a point to your post. Zangief - 4/24/07 The difference between the Korean response after Cho and the Muslim response after 9/11 is very telling. Korean leaders *rushed* to decry and distance themselves from Cho. Muslim leaders became terrorist apologists. The sad thing is, even moderate Muslim leaders cannot learn from the Korean experience. Because, if a moderate Muslim leader speaks out against fundamentalist Islam, he will almost certainly be assassinated. Joe - 4/24/07 Gary, I guess my point is that if there is a backlash, it will not just affect Koreans, as 9/11 did not just affect Muslims. Thus, fewer Korean-Americans will be terrorized by the caucasian Americans, just as fewer Muslims were (partly because Muslim men do not wear turbans like Osama, and so it's harder to pick them out, and partly becaue Americans want to live in ignorant bliss, believing that they're patriots when they terrorize recent immigrants, ignoring that unless they are Native Americans, they are relatively recent immigrants as well) Wang - 4/24/07 Joe are you suggesting that caucasian americans are now terrorizing Koreans? Give me a break. Koreans feel collective shame becauses if this crime was committed in Korea, Koreans know that they would hunt down any white person and hang them. Just look at how Koreans acted in 2002 when two young girls accidentaly got run over by a "tank". Koreans attacked every foreigner they could get their hands on. Don't start painting koreans as victims of some kind of terrorism in the USA. Joe - 4/24/07 Wang - no, I'm not saying that the whites are terrorizing Koreans. I said *if* there's a backlash, it won't affect just Koreans. Who knows what will happen. Who knows what Koreans would have done if it happened to them at home. I did say, however, that caucasians in the US *are* terrorizing brown-skinned Americans, and that is unjust. Those are the recent immigrants I refered to. East Indians had nothing to do with 9/11, but just because they kinda sorta almost look like arabs, they're walking around with targets on their backs. All I'm saying is that the author shouldn't have said that Muslim-americans faced the backlash after 9/11. That gives undeserved credit to the American people, whose ignorace and hate is causing suffering not just to Muslims, but to anyone who looks remotely similar to them. question.... - 4/24/07 why is it okay to make blanket statements about a certain group acting violently, but not others? do caucasians (or 'americans', as some posters have curiously chosen to use the term interchangeably) need to start facebook groups telling others, 'not all white people are violent bigots'? yes there are some quite ignorant whites who have done horrible things to innocent people, with racism as the primary motivation. however, i would argue that most (or at least a significant enough majority of) whites do not see this the virginia tech massacre in terms of racial identity, and it has been those who are preemptively trying to avoid a backlash that have framed the issue as such (i do not say this to deny the injustices of the certain amount of backlash that has been felt). just as it is wrong to blame koreans or korean culture because of the actions of one person who shared their national identity, it should not be tolerable to make judgments upon all americans (and/or whites) and their culture because of the comparatively few violent bigots who happen to share their ethnic/national identity. yes, there are deep-seated racist tendencies in american culture, discrimination was once the status quo, and racism is still a huge problem that demands everyone's attention. nevertheless, i would argue that many posters have shown the same sort of prejudices that they fear by painting an entire group according to actions of some individuals. this is unnecessary; it would not be thoughtlessly denying the injustices committed upon the victims to show care when naming the aggressors. yes, the effect of some white people being mislabeled as bigots due to blanket statements is a far lesser injustice than members of minority groups experiencing violence as result of racism. this, however, is not a complaint of "reverse-racism"; what i mean is that by casting all members of a group as victims and those of another as the aggressors, many people are reinforcing the social roles of various ethnic groups that lead to prejudice. i'm not demanding that all people who rightly rail against prejudice adopt PC language...i just mean they often are just cementing the 'us vs. them' mentality that buttresses an ideological atmosphere that leads to such injustices. yes, there are historical precedents that lead people to speak in blanket terms...but by allowing their speech to be informed by the past in such a manner, i would argue that they are merely perpetuating it. citizen - 4/25/07 Wang. The case of the 2 girls involved alcohol and reckless driving and the 2 perpetrators got away scot free by an all american jury. It also followed several rapes and violent crimes that were committed by the military (which again went unpunished). No foreigner was killed as a result of the anger. The military folks got the "evil eye" and that's about it. You're way out of line in bringing up these examples. you are just full of hate and want to get something ugly started. -- Original Source: Stanford Daily - April 24, 2007
Va. shooting prompts Univ. policy review
Police trained, armed with special weapons, for crisis April 20, 2007 By Rahul Kanakia A new Stanford committee will conduct an evaluation of its emergency protocols in the wake of Monday's shootings at Virginia Tech University. The protocol review, which will be led by Vice President for Business Affairs Randy Livingston, was announced in a statement concerning the massacre by President John Hennessy. A University Department of Public Safety community service officer records the SLAC protest with a video camera and carries a camera with a telephoto lens to photograph activists. "The terrible ordeal suffered there reminds us how precious life is and how important it is that we all redouble our efforts to prevent such tragedies in the future," Hennessy said. "At Stanford, we plan to review all of our emergency response protocols. The safety of the Stanford community will always be a top priority for us." Police at Virginia Tech have drawn criticism for their decision not to lock down the campus after the initial shootings in West Ambler Johnson Hall, a dormitory. Chris Cohendet, a deputy at the Department of Public Safety (DPS), said the police train for what he called "an active shooter situation." In such a case, officers would call together nearby agencies and attempt to control the situation. "There's obviously a lot of things that go through your mind," he said. "You want to be sure the community is safe. But you've got to figure things out. For instance, at [Virginia Tech, officers] received what they thought was a domestic dispute call earlier on. And within that time frame the police department [was] getting numerous calls with differing information. It's really hard for a police department to filter all of this information." For these kinds of situations, Stanford's police cruisers carry a variety of weapons in addition to the standard issue handguns. They are also equipped with non-lethal weapons, such as tasers, as well as more powerful alternatives, including shotguns. "Basically, if there's something going on where someone is going through buildings and shooting away, law enforcement has to grab teams together and react," Cohendet said. "We would have to engage the suspect, in this case." Greg Boardman, vice provost for student affairs, said the University would take Monday's incident into account while reviewing its policies for students with mental health issues. The Virginia Tech shooter, Cho Seung-Hui, had previously been committed to a psychiatric facility by the Blacksburg, Va. university but was released when two female students he had harassed decided not to press charges against him. "In recognition of the increasing prevalence and complexity of student mental health issues both nationally and here at Stanford, we have been in the process of studying the University's policies and procedures as well as our campus climate through the work of the Mental Health and Well Being Task Force," he wrote in an email to The Daily. "Created in October 2006, the task force is composed of students, staff and faculty, and it has been meeting regularly since the fall in order to assess our current policies and determine where we can make improvements." Associate Vice Provost for Student Affairs Roger Printup was unsure what changes would come from these initiatives. "I am sure that not only Stanford but every college and university will be considering what this event means for a large number of issues," he wrote in an email to The Daily. "Campus security and mental health [are] the two most obvious issues. But it is way too early to speculate on what specific actions might be taken before institutions have an opportunity to examine those issues thoughtfully and in depth." Betts Gorsky, who was on campus for Admit Weekend and whose daughter will attend Stanford next year, said that the shootings did not change her view of campus security. "I think that it's very difficult for any school to protect against random acts of violence like that," she said. "Maybe it will make individuals a little more observant and willing to react if they see or hear something from a student that seems out of the ordinary or depressed. But it's always easy to have 20/20 hindsight." -- Original Source: Stanford Daily, April 20, 2007