Students and faculty gathered on Wednesday in the Cannon Memorial Chapel to mark one year since the death of 33 people at Virginia Tech with words of reflection from President Edward Ayers, Acting Chaplain Kate O'Dwyer-Randall and Matthew White of the Office of the Chaplaincy.
O'Dwyer-Randall opened the service by thanking the people there for attending, and asking them to think about the events of the past year. Ayers offered reflections on the various ways he viewed the shootings, as a father, professor and president. Ayers said he had watched in awe as Virginia Tech's president Charles Steger both managed his own grief and led the university through the tragedy.
The purpose of the campus memorial was to give people an opportunity to consider the event and to serve as a call to action, White said. The people who were left behind should honor the memory of the victims of the Virginia Tech shootings by ending social injustice and violence, both in the nation and the world, White said. "We wanted to make sure that we are not just mourning those who were lost," he said, "but, to ask ourselves, 'what is our responsibility?'"
About 65 people, a mix of faulty, students and staff, attended the service. People read the names of victims aloud, including the name of the shooter. As the names were read, images of the chaotic day, the aftermath, and the many candlelight vigils were displayed on a screen in the front of the chapel.
The majority of the service included a variety of classical music pieces played by students and faculty. The service ended with a performance by Signs of Faith, a student group that uses sign language to interpret music. The group performed John Lennon's "Imagine."
Yesterday marked the one-year anniversary when Virginia Tech student Seung-Hui Cho killed 25 students and five faculty members as they attended morning classes, in what became the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history. Cho committed suicide before police could arrest him.
In the days after shootings, students at colleges throughout the state and nationwide wore orange and maroon, Virginia Tech's school colors, to show solidarity.
"The amazing thing was that it was so spontaneous," White said. "It's important to realize that there is a spirit that unites all the universities. They are all trying to do the same thing: To educate and to learn."
Students marked the anniversary by reflecting on the impact the Virginia Tech shootings had on them.
"It was important for me to be a part of the service today because I am a student," said Katie Kearns, a freshman and member of Signs of Faith. "The story had a huge impact on everyone. It's scary to think of something like that happening on a college campus."
The University of Richmond has responded to the shootings by bolstering security on campus. A campus-wide emergency messaging system was installed last year, and classrooms telephones were directly linked to the campus police department.
Nonetheless, the best deterrent against violence has been peer involvement and students using support systems on campus, said Beth Simonds, University of Richmond deputy chief of police.
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"I think we have a good support system, but people need to take advantage of it," she said. "It can be difficult to cope in this stressful environment.
"You are stressed out, and when you see somebody who looks stressed or upset, you think that they will be able to cope like you. But they may not be able to.
Simonds said that students need to act when they sense that someone is having a hard time. Students who knew Cho, including his roommates, said they knew he was struggling mentally and emotionally, but failed to communicate their concerns to campus officials.
"It's not easy to come forward and report that someone else is troubled," she said. "But we need to start thinking what we need to do on a day-to-day basis to prevent this sort of thing from happening.
"It may be stepping forward to report someone, or it may just be approaching a friend and telling them to seek help." Some students said that they would feel comfortable reporting someone.
"It's just my personality," Westhampton freshman Xauntasia Johnson said. "If I see something that I think is wrong, I'm going to address it."
The Residence Life team is also serving to deter campus violence. Having a centralized dean's office makes it easier to identify possibly troubled students, said Patrick Benner, associate dean of residence life.
"If we get an e-mail from a professor saying that a resident has missed the last two classes, that may not mean anything," he said. "But, if I get a report from an RA that nobody has seen the resident since Monday, then we might have an issue. The pieces of the puzzle start to fit together and we can start to address the problem either ourselves or through CAPS."
After the Virginia Tech shootings college students across the country questioned how safe they really were.
"It was like 9/11," junior Ramon Bullard said. "It made me start to think about vulnerability."
University settings are inherently vulnerable places, Ayers said in an interview after the memorial.
"The classroom is a sacred space," he said. "We remove ourselves from the world so that we can talk about it and learn about it. We do this so we can be better members of the community when we go back out.
"We are vulnerable, but we make ourselves that way. You walk into a classroom and say 'I don't know you very well and you don't know me, but I'm going to tell you what I think about religion, politics and a whole host other things.' It's a trusting environment. That's why we felt so violated by what happened at Tech. It violated that sacred space."
In the wake of event, people needed a face to direct their anger and feelings toward, Ayers said, and people directed much discontent toward Virginia Tech's president, Charles Steger. Specifically, people were upset about the delay in administrative response after two students were killed two hours before 30 more students were shot and killed. Ayers related to the president's role in these events.
"This is a very joyful job... But if there is an accident or something goes wrong, the buck stops here, Ayers said. "Ultimately, I have the responsibility."
Ayers sits at the head of the campus Emergency Management Team that prepares for and responds to any emergency situation on campus. He keeps a laminated copy of response procedures and contact numbers in his wallet.
"A lot of thought has been put into what happened at Virginia Tech," he said. "I think the team has done a good job of thinking through the scenarios and making sure we are prepared. But you can never be sure; it only takes one to go unnoticed. The trick is, how do you make us feel guarded without feeling too guarded?"
Last April, every college campus in Virginia supported Virginia Tech. Students cried for students they had never met. They signed cards and held vigils. "There was a real sense of camaraderie among the commonwealth schools, and I think that remains," Ayers said. "It was Virginia at its best"
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