 "Photo: MCT")
As the events of Monday morning settle in, college students nationwide are fully beginning to comprehend the deaths of 33 of their own, and sympathize with the others affected by the shooting.
However, as the tragedy begins to sink into the American psyche, questions simultaneously arise as to how such an event could happen, and how, if possible, it could be prevented.
With a population of 25,000 enrolled students, Virginia Tech closely resembles the University of Massachusetts population, but UMass student -and Fairfax County, Virginia native - Emily Trayers feels the resemblance is deeper.
"Virginia Tech and UMass are similar; both are large state universities with and international student communites, and we are both comforted by the comfort of rolling hills," she said.
Trayers, a native of the same county as a large number of the Virginia Tech students, also said that "the healing process for V-Tech students has already begun."
In light of the shootings and the parallels of Virginia Tech and UMass, UMass Director of Environmental Health and Safety and Special Assistant to the Vice Chancellor of A&F for Emergency Preparedness, Donald Robinson, commented on UMass' ability to respond to a shooting of that magnitude.
"The role of the EOC is to support the response to any incident," Robinson said. "This is referred to as an all-hazards approach.
"From the EOC we should have access to all communication modalities on campus," he added. "We are continuing to review and improve the communication systems and will closely monitor the VT situation to see if there are additional areas for us to improve upon."
Trayers reflected, "Terrorism and random violence know no race, no gender and no generation."
When asked about UMass' plan against something of this enormity, Robinson said, "We have spent considerable time on the issue of emergency preparedness."
He stressed the importance of informing the students as quickly as possible if such an occurrence should arise.
UMPD Chief of Police Barbara O'Connor said of the University Police officers' ability to react to the situation, "UMass police are trained in responding to active shooter situations, we have a plan and proper equipment as well as a full scale disaster plan. That said, as an open campus, we can plan, prepare and work towards prevention, but no one can guarantee complete security."
Deputy Chief of Police Patrick Archbald added, "if a person intends to do harm to themselves or someone else [be it one or in the case of VT, many others] and it's not brought to the attention of authorities before the harm is carried out, this is impossible for us to intervene to prevent the harm. Once the harmful act is being carried out our efforts at UMPD are then fully directed on minimizing and stopping the harm.
"To inform people on the scale that we are discussing here, one must use technology to be effective and timely," he added. "E-mail is, of course, the most likely method of notification. The use of dorm phones is not a good use of time/effort. Many students do not have their dorm phones set up. Each police cruiser is equipped with a public address system. This is a device that could be used if needed."
While the country may attempt to point a finger, Trayer said that "they [Virginians] are more interested in finding meaning, then finding blame.
"I have a renewed affection and appreciation to my home state."
Trayer said that everyone she knows is safe and OK. Speaking largely on the issues of their luck and the incident's affect on the nation, she declared, "We recognize that although this tragedy occurred in Virginia, it has a universal pain. If there is a lesson we can learn from this horror, perhaps it is to live our lives with greater purpose. We just cannot walk away from this next week, when the media coverage ends. We have to remember how vulnerable we are and how precious our lives are. Today I am a Virginian, as we all are."
"Events such as those at Virginia Tech touch all of us in higher education and remind us of the vulnerabilities that are present on any campus," said UMass Chancellor John V. Lombardi in a statement released yesterday.
"Although we have been spared the direct impact of this tragedy, we can nonetheless share in the pain of loss experienced by our colleagues at Virginia Tech," Lombardi added.
Will McGuiness can be reached at wmcguinn@gmail.com
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