EDITOR'S BLOG: We learned from Columbine, how about Virginia Tech?

April 16, 2007 11:30 pm

— By Jim Raykie
Editor, The Herald

I have been teaching journalism at Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pa. for 10 years, two nights a week, in addition to my regular job as editor of The Herald.
Of course, a portion of class on Monday night dealt with the tragic shootings at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg. We always talk about the news in class, especially when it’s a story of this magnitude.
As of 9:30 p.m. Monday, two people had died in a 7:15 a.m. shooting in a dormitory, and about two hours later, 31 students in a classroom building, including the shooter, died in a bloody rampage.
We talked about what security measures they thought might be implemented at Westminster in a case of what looked to be an isolated morning shooting. The discussion spilled into the area of the difference in being able to secure or lock down a campus the size of Westminster versus a large campus with thousands of students and commuters such as Virginia Tech, Penn State, Ohio State and others.
All of which begged an observation: After the Columbine shootings, strict measures were put into place at nearly all elementary and secondary schools in the country. Threats scribbled on pieces of toilet paper or in restroom stalls were grounds for calling police, fire and lock downs, immediately!
Do our colleges have such plans in place? Did Virginia Tech have a systematic way of letting students know, in a timely fashion, that an early-morning shooting had occurred? They tried e-mail two hours later, which most would argue that while it sends a message to everyone, it’s hardly an efficient way to inform people of a potential crisis.
During the class discussion, we wondered what do large schools have in place to notify the campus of the potential danger? Is there a specific siren, whistle or other warning that students and staff would recognize as an alarm for imminent danger and to stay indoors with windows and doors locked? Would such have helped at VT immediately after the 7:15 shootings at the dorm?
The real question of the night, given the society in which are living, was did Virginia Tech have such an emergency mechanism in place? Could the lives of the 30 other victims two hours later have been spared with a more cautious approach to the dormitory shootings? Should VT officials have notified the campus immediately about the 7:15 a.m. shootings?
In addition to much scrutiny that will be paid to the tragedy at VT, it will be interesting to see how other colleges react to the shootings (as school districts did after Columbine) to have every security measure in place to try to prevent such a senseless tragedy and loss of life from occurring on any campus, large or small, again.
These are genuine concerns and fair questions not only from some of my students at Westminster, but would be as well from students and parents all across the country.

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