<p>A great deal of how different campuses would respond is a function of the size of the institution. At a smaller college, someone like Cho would be known by all the student affairs administrators, academic affairs administrators, public safety officers, counselors, and housing staff, all of whom would know one another and speak regularly. I'm sure that given the size of virginia Tech, many of these potential stakeholders would not even know one another. As a Dean of Students at a university with about 4000 undergrads, I find that all the concerns that any of these staff and faculty have routinely converge at my desk. At a smaller institution, student anonymity also becomes less feasible. In general, the ability to act out without the concern that your behavior will automatically be connected to your name and follow you throughout the campus opens the door to antisocial behavior.</p>
<p>In a recent episode at my alma mater, a non-student friend of a current student, apparently a neo-Nazi, physically threatened a Jewish student, this after his friend posted what could only be deemed anti-Semitic posters (they were actually "Happy Birthday Hitler" posters) anonymously on students' doors. No action has been taken against the student, nor any effort made to bar the non-student from access to the campus. </p>
<p>Let's be clear, though - I doubt either of them poses a significant physical threat to the rest of the student body. </p>
<p>My greater concern would be how easy campus access to alcohol and/or other drugs can trigger psychiatric symptoms in those already inclined in that direction. Combined with access to weapons, it is a potentially deadly combination.</p>
<p>As many public schools do not, I have read that U of V does not require essays to be admitted.
I realize that the adcoms don't usually read essays to screen for mental illness, but from what I had read about Cho, his struggles had been ongoing and severe, I don't think that he would have been able to mask that in an essay or even have been aware he needed to.</p>
<p>Let's be clear, though - I doubt either of them poses a significant physical threat to the rest of the student body.</p>
<p>I read about that mini, but I would disagree in that I think it is an aggressive act, and may set the stage for subsequent accelerated behavior.</p>
<p>emeraldkity..did you mean U of Virginia? essays are very heavily weighed at admissions at Virginia. essays are not required at this time for admission to VA Tech although I am sure a guidance couselor letter is required.</p>
<p>yes that is what I meant- thanks</p>
<p>Yes there should have been a guidance counselor letter- I am wondering what it said- since from prior reports it sounded like he had had problems going way back, certainly something a counselor should have known about.</p>
<p>It didn't sound to be one of those cases that took everyone by surprise-
" He was always quiet and polite, a good neighbor" , but comments that sounded like he was holding a lot in.</p>
<p>The shooter attended a very very large high school in a highly populated and growing county of the DC suburbs. In fact, he shot at least two if not three..students from his own high school although he may not have realized this.</p>
<p>I don't believe Tech at this time requires letters of reference for admission beyond the guidance counselor letter. With time, we will find out more about whether or not his condition was observed in high school. It is not uncommon for serious psychosis to greatly advance in the college years as a full blown illness. I think we certainly as a society have got to teach everyone more and more about major mental illness, although I am certainly interested in the issue/mystery/questions re his pathology and its nature since he was mentally organized enough to commit a crime with a great deal of forethought and planning involved. </p>
<p>At the very least, we need to send our children to college with enough ability to set boundaries and to report concerns promptly, despite the code of honor that often covers up or stops kids from talking to adults and parents. Teachers should be able to refuse to teach students whose work is deemed to be beyond first amendment artistic rights and is instead deemed to violate both the honor and conduct code with gratuitous violent content and when they are also clearly harassing peers and defying teacher's stated limits and authority.
I don't know many schools that would accept a student telling a greatly respected teacher: "You can't make me."</p>
<p>No one can tell you how a school would have reacted for one reason and one reason only - security. Even in public forums, security issues are dealt with behind closed doors. No one wants the bad guys or anyone outside the "need-to-know-community" to know what they would do so they could try to get around it.</p>
<p>
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The shooter attended a very very large high school in a highly populated and growing county of the DC suburbs. In fact, he shot at least two if not three..students from his own high school although he may not have realized this.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Two - Erin and Reema, both first years. I would very much doubt he knew them, it's quite conceivable he had never even seen them except a few times in passing. I would find it very hard to believe that he recognized them as having attended Westfield, but I suppose it's possible. Like I said, he seems to have gone out of his way to avoid people he knew - unfortunately I have strong connections to a few of the victims and he certainly did not run in the same circles as these int'l relations and engineering kids at all. </p>
<p>
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With time, we will find out more about whether or not his condition was observed in high school. It is not uncommon for serious psychosis to greatly advance in the college years as a full blown illness.
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</p>
<p>Interesting article in the Washington Post had some evidence that you are correct in this theory. Although kids who knew him in high school said he was quiet, he was not quite as much of a loner. He joined clubs and was motivated to participate in them - they said he attended science bowl competitions and on one occasion had figured out a complicated formula that led to them winning. When he first started at Tech, people report he wore Tech gear and again, was quiet, but he would smile along with the rest of the class. The reports from his older roommates make him sound generally strange, but generally less disturbed and violent. He started out majoring in Business Information Technology, a very competitive and career driven path, but then changed his maor to English, though he didn't seem to be above average in that area. </p>
<p>Another article in the Washington Post today covered the situation regarding mental illness and how it's handled in all of Virginia. It was about what I suspected. As I said, UVA can say what they wish, and I'm sure they're trying their best too, but Va has a lot of privacy laws, loopholes, and general confusion that make mandating treatment difficult. Only 8 states I believe, require someone to have an extreme level of mental illness (I forgot how they termed it) before they have to seek treatment - Virginia is one of them. In fact Cho was ordered into mandantory outpatient treatment, but he didn't get it. The Post spoke to the courts, their statement was, after we make the ruling it isn't our problem. So they spoke to the treatment agency/center - if the individual doesn't come, it isn't our problem. Somewhat disturbing, however I was not surprised. Last year, two Fairfax County police officers were shot in a parking lot outside the station by a mentally ill young man who had also slipped through treatment- in fact if I am not mistaken, he was a graduate of Westfield high school, not that it means anything, huge school in the area. Vicki Armel, one of the officers, was well known for advocating closing some of these loopholes, ironically. </p>
<p>We unfortunately have some problems as an entire state - north, west, east, south - remember Cho was also from Northern Va, supposedly enlightened and wealthy, yet there was no significant life altering treatment for him here either, despite the fact that for four years he came home for breaks. So while it is nice to hear the other Va universities are commenting on the situation, thinking, starting a dialogue - I do not believe many of the bigger ones are really any safer than Tech now, and I don't think they were safer three weeks ago. These are mainly relatively safe schools anyway but I do not accept without qualification that UVA won't have problems with this. Part of the problem with the Cho was not fully the university, it was that the court system doesn't work with the university. They mandate the person to seek treatment in an on campus clinic, but there's no accountability or communication. This really is a problem that could have hit any of these schools. Last year VCU was "unsafe" because of the Taylor Biehl case, but it wasn't really the university, again there were other laws in Va as a whole that failed there (IIRC). She literally could have gone to any state school and faced the same fate, as it was a pre-existing relationship with someone unstable who had again slipped through something or the other.</p>
<p>
[quote]
No one can tell you how a school would have reacted for one reason and one reason only - security. Even in public forums, security issues are dealt with behind closed doors. No one wants the bad guys or anyone outside the "need-to-know-community" to know what they would do so they could try to get around it.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I have often thought, that in some ways you're proverbially damned if you do and damned if you don't. In the age of "lockdown drills" at the high school level, any student knows what the emergency procedures are. At this point, I feel that if someone were to make a threat or open fire, they would do so in passing time or at lunchtime, when in the chaos of having so many people in one place at once would make it impossible to secure everyone fast enough. No one likes to think they're sitting ducks - that's why lockdown procedures have become so popularized. They are carefully explained to parents to show how thorough the school is. But I really think that our best shot is probably aiming to stop these things before they are set in motion. The implications for circumventing a lockdown procedure are too grave to naively accept that as the best or only line of defense. The people who commit these crimes have been shown to generally be, well above average intelligence. They carefully plan these attacks. I believe that it seems some of them, until the very last day when they decide to go through with it and kill themselves, are looking for someone to stop them. That's why I don't believe the line that gun control won't stop anyone - I think longer waiting periods might just stop someone. Why else would he save money to go buy a gun legally, doing everything supposedly right? If he was going to resort to illegal channels, he would have just done that. It defies logic that he would start with a channel that he HAD to know as a reasonably intelligent person would be more than just being handed a gun. </p>
<p>But it would be relatively easy in the midst of a lockdown to shoot just as many or more people. Consider that some were saved by barricading doors - had he been absorbed into a room with many kids who were out that day, they would have literally no line of defense. This is the more likely scenario on a huge campus than everyone getting safely to their own dorm room in 30 seconds. It would be a 15 minute walk for some people. Similarly I believe it would be easy for a high school to be caught at a vulnerable time. My impression of Columbine is that it did not occur during class time, which is when a lockdown is going to be the most effective, since the teacher can account for everyone's whereabouts and be assured that no one in the room is the armed person. There was a middle school around here that had an incident where a boy brought a gun in during class time and the lockdown was successful - however I do not think this boy at any time actually planned on shooting anyone, since the opportunity presented itself and instead he voluntarily handed over the weapon to the person who talked him down.</p>