I spent most of last year commuting between the University of Pennsylvania, where I teach, and Northern Illinois University, where I was helping to develop a comprehensive academic plan. The commute was horrible, the experience exhilarating. A great university often starved for funds and never sure it would get the respect it deserves was reaching out — to all its constituencies, all of its neighbors, and to a world that had made northern Illinois a true global portal. It was a process without cant supervised by a planning committee whose members knew their institution and what it was capable of. Now those truly good people are consumed by a tragedy that is beyond comprehension, beyond purpose, and certainly beyond planning.
There is little I can do to lessen their pain. But I can — and do — wonder when are we going to stop asking whether the shooter had taken his medicine and instead concentrate on where he got his guns and ammunition?
