For Va. Tech, no sign of relief

Beleaguered campus confronts connection to another tragedy

BLACKSBURG, Va. -- As Americans scrambled to make sense of the life of Army psychiatrist Nidal M. Hasan, who allegedly killed 13 people and injured 38 more at Fort Hood, Tex., last week, one fact stood out for those living here: Hasan graduated from Virginia Tech in 1995.

"We were like, 'Oh, jeez, not again,' " said Liana Bayne, a freshman communications major who was in charge of writing about the shooting for the campus newspaper, the Collegiate Times. The paper's student editors quickly re-framed their story to reflect the school's connection to another tragedy.

It has been 2 1/2 years since the nation's deadliest massacre involving a single gunman unfolded on Virginia Tech's campus. That traumatic episode, in which senior Seung Hui Cho, who had a history of mental health problems, shot and killed 32 people before committing suicide, shocked the campus community and led to many months of investigation and debate about mental health care, campus security and the college's role in keeping tabs on its students -- a public relations nightmare that would threaten the reputation of any institution.

The grim news sometimes seems as if it won't stop coming: In January, a graduate student from China was decapitated by another graduate student with a kitchen knife as they sat drinking coffee in a campus cafe. In August, two students were found slain at a campground about 15 miles from campus. Police are still searching for a Tech student who disappeared outside a rock concert in Charlottesville in October. And now, Hasan's connection to the university.

Mutual support

But even as some students describe the tragedies as a curse and some parents worry about their children's safety, many students and professors say the already close-knit university has found unity and mutual support in response to the wrenching events. That unity could be one reason enrollment has steadily increased at Virginia Tech. Immediately after the 2007 shootings, the school received a record number of applications; the burst of popularity was so intense that the school was unable to admit any of the more than 1,400 students on its wait list. This year, enrollment increased again, a spokesman said.

More than half of Virginia Tech's current undergraduates were still in high school the day gunfire broke out on the peaceful campus in southwest Virginia, yet they have had to learn to deal with the school's name being associated with violence. Each time Tech's name appears in connection with some tragedy, sophomore Ellika Rasooly receives phone call after phone call, message after message, from relatives or friends at other universities.

"They are like, 'Oh my gosh, what is going on at Tech? What's wrong with the people there?' " said Rasooly, 19, who grew up in Oakton. "It's almost like they are joking. It's not as serious to them as it is to people at Tech."

Each time, Rasooly launches into a vigorous defense of the school she loves: How it is a beautiful campus. How bad things can happen anywhere. How people only pick up on the words "Virginia Tech" because of the shooting. How a tiny number of violent people cannot represent the overwhelming majority of students who lead peaceful, happy lives on campus.

Still, university leaders have become experts on tragedy, and after the shootings at Fort Hood on Thursday, about a dozen school officials briefed Pentagon officers and generals on how to sensitively communicate with and support victims and their families. Edward F.D. Spencer, the university's vice president of student affairs, said the school advised the Army to hold a candlelight vigil, which took place Friday, and reminded them to not "forget about [the uninjured bystanders] because they can deal with the long-term effects of it, too."

The series of violent incidents connected to the university has shocked PhD candidate Juan Carlos S. Sierra, 32, who is from war-torn Colombia and teaches a class on Latin American politics. Anytime there is a shooting anywhere in the world, Sierra said, he is taken back to the morning when he was traveling to campus on a bus to teach a Spanish class and learned that a gunman had gone on a killing spree.

Since the shooting, Sierra said, the university has taken the right steps to address student mental health issues and reach out to those who feel isolated or stressed. As the tragedies have continued to unfold, he wonders how one school can experience so many traumas in such a short amount of time. Blacksburg "is not exactly the place where you would usually find these situations," he said. "It's pretty weird."

'I knew they knew'

During his class Friday, Sierra saw that many of the students were carrying newspapers. "I knew they knew," he said, but he didn't bring up the Texas incident in class. He didn't want to say the wrong thing.

In another room, Susanna C. Rinehart allowed the 650 students in her introductory theater class to discuss the Fort Hood shootings. She found the underclassmen uneasy about seeing Virginia Tech's name "almost globally tied to these events," Those who were on campus in 2007 shared a collective sense of "Oh, please, no, let's please not have this man be connected to Virginia Tech," she said.

"It's almost surreal," said Rinehart, who is also the university's director of education for diversity and inclusion. "No one in their right mind would draw any straight line [from Virginia Tech] to what happened, but, on the other hand, it has created a significant amount of concern and conversation."

Ever since the massacre that began the series of recent tragic events at Virginia Tech, students have done everything they can to help each other, said Derek O'Dell, 22, a veterinary student who was shot twice in the arm by Cho during German class.

"The students have always come together on campus for the past couple of years, and we will keep doing so," he said. "We've always been resilient here."