The University of Alabama at Huntsville is mourning the loss of three faculty members in the Department of Biological Sciences who were killed Friday when Amy Bishop, an assistant professor there, went on a shooting spree at a faculty meeting.
The dead are Gopi K. Podila, department chair, and Maria Ragland Davis and Adriel D. Johnson Sr., both associate professors.
Three members of the department were also injured. Joseph G. Leahy, another associate professor in the department, was in critical condition at Huntsville Hospital Sunday night. Stephanie Monticciolo, a staff assistant, was also in critical condition there. Luis Rogelio Cruz-Vera, an assistant professor, was released from the hospital Saturday.
Comments
1. 11270009 - February 15, 2010 at 09:43 am
I just can't help but wonder how race politics played into these tragic shootings. All three victims were people of color. Were these shootings racially motivated?
2. omarricks - February 15, 2010 at 10:04 am
Four if one counts Prof. Luis Rogelio Cruz-Vera.
One wonders if it was a department with a disproportionately high percentage of people of color and they just happened to be in the way when the shooting started, or if Bishop was specifically gunning for people of color. Or both.
3. decidermeister - February 15, 2010 at 10:47 am
Four of the five people of color in a department of 14 active faculty members were shot, one of whom is still alive. If you are a junior faculty member or student of color do not be alarmed; the academy has always been a violent place.
My saying this is not mere "identity politics." This violence has a real institutional impact. The victims are people with families; they are also crucial links in a network that was successfully bringing women and men of color, among others, into an already hostile academy and providing guidance on how to get through it.
And now they're just gone.
Others will have to step in to take their place, but they have to know that being an object of violence is one of the risks.
It is because I want to be such a link that I am training and willing to go through what I have to go through to get my PhD and land a tenured position. I have to be aware that my pursuit may result in my death. But if I can face that, I can create and be part of a network of people of color and empathetic whites who know that academe has never been meritocratic, has never ceased being white supremacist, and are working to change things.
Whether Dr. Bishop was motivated by racial animosity, overt or covert, is of little concern to me because the academy has always been a physically violent (including institutional, social, and psychic forms of terror that manifest in the body as physical/emotional breakdowns, tumors, ulcers, etc) place for people of color. Dr. Bishop may have been collateral damage of the academy. But she became an extension of an already powerful network of violence toward people of color in the academy.
If interested you might check http://newinfo.uah.edu/biology/faculty.html to see pictures of the departmental faculty. Whether Dr. Bishop intended to or not, she destroyed crucial parts of a mentorship network. Now we begin rebuilding. Again.
4. cynical_1 - February 15, 2010 at 04:15 pm
RE: "Race" or "People of color". One "wonders" if these phrases are being thrown about because of the location of this incident...Alabama. Tenure issues get ugly, folks. Please note Dr. Bishop is not a native Alabamian. Please, let us remember the lives lost over a polital, not racial issue.
5. drneecie - February 16, 2010 at 05:43 pm
omarricks - February 15, 2010 at 10:04 am
Four if one counts Prof. Luis Rogelio Cruz-Vera.
omarricks wrote: "One wonders if it was a department with a disproportionately high percentage of people of color and they just happened to be in the way when the shooting started, or if Bishop was specifically gunning for people of color. Or both."
I think it is interesting that you would consider this department "disproportionately high" with people of color. I wonder if you think the same way for just about ANY other college or university department that has a "disproportionately high" white population.