ScienceWoman is an assistant professor in -ology. She blogs about the intersection of science and real life - primarily based on her first-hand experiences. Her older posts can be found 
Alice Pawley is an assistant professor of I just got back home after driving from West Lafayette. I heard on the radio about YET ANOTHER HORRENDOUS SHOOTING on a university campus.
My breath caught in my throat as I heard the NPR news staff interview the faculty advisor for the student newspaper at Northern Illinois University. I couldn't stop myself from actually crying in the car as visions of Virginia Tech ran in front of my eyes. I interviewed at Virginia Tech the week before the massacre there, was so terribly shocked by how close my visit had been, felt so terribly awful for the colleagues I met there during my visit.
A student in the class that I co-taught in the fall died in a car accident, in November I think. He was not in my section, I may have never set eyes on him, but I felt such grief for his family that I can hardly describe it. Teaching, for me, has opened me up to feeling intense empathy for complete strangers, has fueled a new will in me to treat my students with respect and humanity because their parents have entrusted them to my care, and simultaneously such a frustration when I find I lack the skills and resources to do so to the extend they deserve. I feel this personally.
And now here we have another university shooting. Another indescribably troubled person decides to rob young people of their lives. I feel grief for the families who lost a member so randomly, fear for my students and myself as I also teach large classes on university campuses, anger that the shooter did not choose to kill himself first and instead decided to take innocents with him, and guilt that such violence occurs all over the world and yet I do not grieve in the same way for those families. I know the horrors experienced by families in places like Iraq and Darfur would be so extreme as to shut my mind down completely. And yet, do they not also deserve to be grieved?
I dread hearing about the rest of this story as we find out more overnight. And I almost wish I were religious in such a way that believed those affected could be comforted by my prayers.
Comments
I too was shocked by the news - I have a friend who goes to NIU (she's okay) but as an undergrad (at Purdue, actually, and I'm from Illinois) it too has really hit me hard. It's so hard to come to terms with senseless violence, no matter its location or source. I really don't know what to feel, really. Numb, I guess.
Posted by: spits | February 15, 2008 12:15 AM
Two of my cousins go to NIU but they weren't there. I'm filled with anger and disgust over this. Time after time after time, the news brings us stories of gun violence. I'm ashamed that our country has a reputation for such violence, which it (sadly) probably deserves.
Posted by: ShellyD99 | February 15, 2008 6:53 AM
I'm so saddened by this, although I'm pleased that NIU seems to have reacted in a capable manner. In what I hope is just a coincidence, in both this shooting and the VT massacre, students in -ology were the victims. I just hope it doesn't signal anything deeper. My heart goes out to the NIU community and the families and friends of the victims.
Posted by: ScienceWoman | February 15, 2008 11:31 AM