A series of events on campus since the fall of 2006, when a young county jail prisoner escaped custody and shot and killed two people, one on the edge of campus, have lately given many people pause, just as have events elsewhere in the world.  The April 16th murders that followed those deaths the next spring, the murder of a graduate student on campus in January 2009, and the recent shooting deaths in the nearby national forest of two campus sophomores have stirred strong feelings and thoughts for a number of us.   It can be difficult to manage such feelings and questions, but we can begin to gain a handle on them. Let's take a look at some.

Is Tech, or some part of it, cursed?  No.   Bad things happen in many places and over time nearly all of us experience tragedy, sometimes more than once.   The small country of Finland experienced two mass school shootings in less than a year but that does not make them prone to anything other than bad luck. There have been several mass murders in the U.S. in towns that have also had a relatively large number of individual killings, including Pittsburgh and Binghamton.   The large number of handguns in the United States (along with other countries) and the willingness of people, especially young men, to express their anger through violence toward others is a better explanation than the supernatural.

It feels like April 16th again. For many it certainly does, though for others April 16th has no particular emotional meaning.   Great traumas sensitize us to subsequent events.   Yet it's important to try to sort through our feelings rationally and not let them overwhelm us.   

Some superficial similarities are indeed there - two Tech students murdered by gunfire with few clues and, at least in the first day or two, no clear idea who had killed them or why.

Yet there are many important differences.   Thus far at least, there have been no other attacks and the killings themselves took place relatively far from campus, in the heart of a national forest several miles away.  The media frenzy which followed the April 2007 shootings is far more muted; the campus is not swarmed with television satellite trucks and far fewer people have been directly affected, though any death of likeable young people means literally hundreds and hundreds of people beyond their immediate loved ones may deeply mourn their loss.

Over half of our current students were not enrolled in 2007, and at least some of our staff are relatively new as well.

This all suggests the grieving process will be much different from the grief our community grappled with after April 16th. These losses will likely be treated more personally, and more privately, which may make them easier for our community as a whole to cope with.  Our prior experience also means we may be able to reach out more quickly to those people affected and they in turn may be better able to turn to others for help.

Won't the killing ever end?   Unless there are great changes in our society, probably not.   Before April 16th there had been several largely pointless murders of students or staff over the years, some from frustrated relationships, some from simple anger and misogyny, at least one from typical male posturing in a restaurant.   And, as is true throughout the U.S., many other members of our area are killed every year in various ways -- jealously, greed, officers killed in the line of duty, not to mention accidents and disease. Great tragedies make us more aware of them, but these problems have been with us periodically for some time.

How can we cope with all this?   Stay connected. Reach out to friends and neighbors, roommates, classmates, colleagues, teachers, supervisees. Talk about feelings and be open to listening to others' experience.  There's no such thing as feeling the wrong way.  

Some of us may not have strong feelings at all and that's ok. Others may have extremely deep feelings. That's ok too.    If you feel you need to talk with someone about how you feel or about your thoughts, call our Center at 231-7201 (or just request an appointment online) or take advantage of any of the many other therapeutic resources available on and off campus -- Cook Counseling Center for students, Psychological Services Center on Price's Fork Road, New River Community Services on University City Boulevard, and any number of private therapists in the telephone book.   Our Center accepts anyone as clients -- students, faculty, staff, members of the general public.

A few other words of advice: be patient with yourself and those around you.  Grieving, or just feeling a little low, can take time to process.   Grief isn't simply about knowing something bad has happened and feeling bad about it -- it's also about simply listening to your feelings and figuring out what you're unhappy about.  It isn't always straightforward.  Don't rush yourself.  Journal writing can be helpful, as can reading, working out, listening to music, going to the movies, going for a walk, spending more time with friends.

If you're a teacher, try to be sensitive to your students. If you're a supervisor, the same is true for your employees.  If you're a parent, listen to your child, but try not to intrude. If you're a partner in a relationship, be sensitive to your other half.   If you're single, be sure to treat yourself well and stay close in some form to others.

Remember too that part of the purpose of grief is not to simply get over a particular event, but to also learn better how to cope with future stresses.   As we have learned from studying communities torn by ongoing war and apocalyptic disaster, all of us are designed to cope with multiple tragedies, immensely painful as that sometimes is. Sometimes our efforts even produce real beauty and larger benefit, as we strive to give meaning to the lives of those we lost and to try to help improve our world in general.  Each of us has something undiscovered and unique to offer those around us, and ironically, sometimes it takes great loss to bring it out.  While that never can justify or make us feel good about our bereavement, it at least can help us make such losses meaningful.  In searching for our gifts, we honor those we have lost and push ourselves to live more deeply than we may have before.  It's a search, in fact, that is always worth undertaking, whatever events may unfold around us.

If you have any further questions, call us any time and we’ll do our best to help you - 540-231-7201.