March 25, 2008
State Offers $100,000 Settlements to Families of Victims at Virginia Tech
A proposed state settlement would offer the families of the 32 people killed last April at Virginia Tech about $100,000 each, The Virginian-Pilot reported. The newspaper said that the proposal, which is intended to head off lawsuits and is still being negotiated, would also pay medical and counseling expenses for the families and surviving victims of the tragedy, in which a gunman killed two students in a dormitory and 30 students and professors in a classroom building.
The families have until Monday to decide whether to accept the settlement, the newspaper reported. In exchange, they would give up the right to sue the state, the university, the City of Blacksburg, Va., and other entities. —Charles Huckabee
Posted on Tuesday March 25, 2008 | Permalink | Comment [9]March 7, 2008
U. of Nebraska at Lincoln Bans 'Assassin' Game
In these violent and panicked times, airline passengers who utter the word “bomb” risk being arrested, and college students who carry toy guns may be disciplined by campus officials.
The University of Nebraska at Lincoln has banned the game Assassin, in which participants “kill” one another until one survivor triumphs, usually winning a pot of money, the Associated Press reported today. The game, borrowing from tag and hide-and-seek, typically involves stakeouts and chases with, for example, foam-dart guns.
“While this may be a game that is fun to play, it is extremely inappropriate in this day and age in which we are all too familiar with the Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University shootings,” Nebraska’s vice chancellor for student affairs, Juan Franco, wrote in a e-mail message to students, according to the AP. “I am asking student organizations to … make it clear that it will not be tolerated on campus,” Mr. Franco said.
Officials at Indiana University at Bloomington have also expressed concern about the game, the Indiana Daily Student reported today. Several campuses, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have student groups known as “assassins’ guilds.”
Last year students at Hampden-Sydney College, which is not far from Virginia Tech, canceled their annual game, USA Today reported. —Sara Lipka
Posted on Friday March 7, 2008 | Permalink | Comment [12]February 18, 2008
Tale of Campus Violence Will Make Delayed Big-Screen Debut This Spring
A movie about a disgruntled graduate student who turns violent at an American university will be released in April, its distributor told the Associated Press on Friday, a day after a former student killed five and wounded 16 in a shooting spree at Northern Illinois University.
The film, titled Dark Matter and starring Meryl Streep, was put on hold last year, “out of respect” for the Virginia Tech shootings, said the official, Gary Rubin of First Independent Pictures. According to the AP, the movie depicts a Chinese graduate student in science who becomes violent in dealing with academic politics at an American university. Ms. Streep plays a university benefactor who befriends him. —Andrew Mytelka
Posted on Monday February 18, 2008 | Permalink | Comment [5]December 12, 2007
Faculty Hero in Virginia Tech Shootings Is Named 'Most Inspiring Person' of 2007
Beliefnet, a Web site devoted to spiritual issues, announced today that its most inspiring person of the year was Liviu Librescu, the Romanian-born Holocaust survivor who as an engineering professor at Virginia Tech saved the lives of many of his students by barricading the door of his classroom against the gunman who killed more than 30 people on a terrible day last spring. Mr. Librescu, who was 76 years old, received 81 percent of votes from visitors to the Web site. The other nominees received, at most, 4 percent. Beliefnet said it would make a donation to the Liviu Librescu Memorial Fellowship at Virginia Tech. —Andrew Mytelka
Posted on Wednesday December 12, 2007 | Permalink | Comment [5]December 11, 2007
Virginia Tech Professor Leads in Vote for 'Most Inspiring Person of the Year'
Beliefnet is asking its readers to choose the most inspirational person of the year. They’ve narrowed it down to 10 people. At this moment, the leader in the voting, with 81 percent, is Liviu Librescu, a Virginia Tech professor who saved many of his students by barricading the door to his classroom during the shooting there that claimed more than 30 lives last April.
Mr. Librescu, 76, was shot to death by the deranged assailant, Cho Seung-Hui. The professor of engineering science and mechanics was a Holocaust survivor.
It appears that Mr. Librescu will win the contest by a large margin. His closest competitor, with just 4 percent of the vote, is Wesley Autrey, who saved a man who had fallen onto the subway tracks in New York City. In third place is Angelina Jolie, who is known for her humanitarian work, and for being very pretty. —Thomas Bartlett
Posted on Tuesday December 11, 2007 | Permalink | Comment [14]December 4, 2007
House Approves Tax Exemption for Virginia Tech Victims and Families
Washington — The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill today that would exempt relatives and victims of the April 16 shootings at Virginia Tech from paying federal income taxes on any payments they have received from the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund.
The bill, HR 4118, was introduced by Rep. Rick Boucher, a Virginia Democrat, and six other Virginia representatives have signed on as co-sponsors. Identical legislation has been introduced in the U.S. Senate and is expected to pass before the end of the year.
Donations to the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund amount to about $8-million and are being used for scholarships and payments to the families of the 32 people killed and to others who were seriously injured in last April’s tragedy. Some recipients of the payments had been concerned that the money would be subject to federal income taxes. —Erin Strout
Posted on Tuesday December 4, 2007 | Permalink | Comment [2]October 31, 2007
Iowa Regents Vote to Arm Public Universities' Police Officers
In the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings, many universities have beefed up efforts of safety and prevention on their campuses. Today the Iowa Board of Regents approved a plan to put firearms in the hands of police officers stationed at the state’s public universities, according to The Des Moines Register.
Some board members disagreed, saying guns would not improve safety or help avoid problems stemming from drug and alcohol abuse, which are much more common and in need of attention. The board’s vote was 6 to 2. The new plan, which the University of Iowa’s president said she hoped to carry out in a matter of weeks, will reverse a no-gun policy that has been in place for 40 years. —Anna Weggel
Posted on Wednesday October 31, 2007 | Permalink | Comment [8]October 23, 2007
Senate Calls for Clarity on Colleges' Sharing Data About Dangerous Students
Washington — The U.S. Senate has approved an amendment that would require the Education Department to provide college administrators with better guidance on how to identify and report students at risk of committing violence.
The amendment, which was adopted last night during debate on an education-spending bill for the 2008 fiscal year, was prompted by the April shootings at Virgina Tech, in which a student, Seung-Hui Cho, killed 32 people and himself.
After the tragedy, a federal panel issued a report recommending that the Department of Education update its guidance on privacy laws, so that colleges would know when they could share information on potentially dangerous students.
The amendment, if it is enacted into law, would instruct the department to provide colleges with new guidance within three months. —Kelly Field
Posted on Tuesday October 23, 2007 | Permalink | Comment [3]October 16, 2007
Virginia Tech to Start Vast Community-Service Project to Honor Victims of Shooting
To commemorate the lives lost six months ago today in the Virginia Tech shootings, Charles W. Steger, the university’s president, is calling on students, faculty and staff members, and alumni — on his campus and others — to participate in a community-service initiative.
The project, dubbed VT-Engage, asks participants to perform at least 10 hours of service or service learning by the end of this academic year. “We believe that through this action, Virginia Tech will demonstrate to the world its unique character and steadfast values while integrating social responsibility into the learning experience,” Mr. Steger said in announcing the project.
The goal of the project, which officially kicks off this afternoon in Blacksburg, Va., is for campus participants to complete 300,000 hours of service, with a match from the alumni association that would total 600,000 hours of volunteer labor.
In his announcement, which appeared as a full-page advertisement in this week’s issue of The Chronicle, Mr. Steger reflected on the “outpouring of sympathy and offers of help” from other colleges and universities in the aftermath of the April shootings. He said that Virginia Tech would be “heartened” if other institutions around the world joined in volunteer service as well. —Anna Weggel
Posted on Tuesday October 16, 2007 | Permalink | CommentOctober 7, 2007
Shooting Report Was Fake, but Campus Notifications Worked
A report of a shooting at the College of New Jersey early today turned out to be a hoax, but college officials acted promptly to get out word of a possibly dangerous situation on the campus, according to the student newspaper, The Signal.
Matt Golden, the institution’s director of communications and media relations, told the newspaper that the campus police had received a 911 call shortly before 6 a.m. and that he was informed at 6:25 a.m. In a series of campuswide e-mail messages, starting at 6:38 a.m., Mr. Golden said, students were advised of the report, urged to remain at their locations, and later informed that the police had found no evidence that a shooting had actually occurred but were taking security measures. Finally, at 12:45 p.m., a message was sent confirming that the 911 call was a hoax.
In addition to the online warnings, police officers went door to door in the dormitory that the caller identified as the shooting site, accounting for its residents and giving students safety instructions. “They came pounding on my door at 7:45 a.m. and said there was a possible shooting,” Katie Ryan, a freshman, told The Signal.
The college, like others across the nation, has recently updated security procedures in the wake of the mass shootings at Virginia Tech last spring. Mr. Golden told the newspaper that the college had not put a new campus-notification system in place yet, but had achieved its goal of informing people about a potential emergency situation. The campus was not under lockdown this afternoon, but the police were continuing to carry out heightened security measures. —Charles Huckabee
Posted on Sunday October 7, 2007 | Permalink | Comment [4]
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