My thoughts and prayers go out to the victims and their families of the horrible events on the Virginia Tech campus yesterday. It will take a very long time to recover, and I hope that everyone will remember that the grieving process is different for everyone. Patience, support, and understanding will be crucial for those involved.
We'll probably never understand why a psychopath decided to murder 32 people and injure (both physically and mentally) thousands more.
As I pulled into the parking lot of my college this morning and headed to teach my first class of the day, I wondered if my campus was prepared to handle a dire emergency. In the six years I've been teaching there, officials have never held an emergency drill, not even a fire drill. Community colleges have small law-enforcement staff members, most of whom are not armed. Why isn't it mandatory that all schools--including colleges and university--have disaster preparedness drills? Don't tell me it's due to lack of funding or manpower. Is it laziness or the belief that all is rosy on the campus? Even after an incident involving an escaped convict last year, officials at Virginia Tech did nothing to enhance security for its students and staff.
We need to wake up and prepare for events that I hope to God will never happen again. But since we live is troubled times, it will. Will we be ready, or will we make wishes and cross our fingers that everything will be just fine?
