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Brent Jesiek
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Brent Jesiek
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2007-04-25
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Originally posted April 16, 2007, 9:03 PM on bluegnu.livejournal.com
<a href="http://bluegnu.livejournal.com/16802.html">http://bluegnu.livejournal.com/16802.html</a>
The day started normal enough - slogged to campus and got to my office around 8:15 AM, and spent the next hour and a half prepping for the class I was scheduled to teach at 10:10 AM. I wasn't entirely enthusiastic about teaching, as the cold I had been fighting off over the weekend was still hanging on. Around 9:30 AM I got an e-mail indicating that there had been a shooting on campus earlier in the morning. The first message urged caution, and a second message sent around 9:50 AM indicated: "A gunman is loose on campus. Stay in buildings until further notice. Stay away from all windows."
However, I didn't get the second message before leaving my building (Major Williams Hall) to head over to class. I collected my stuff, dawdled around a bit, tried to compose myself to teach, and finally left the building just before 10 AM. As I exited my building I encountered a student who was coming in - I let him pass through the door first, and didn't pay much attention to the anxious look on his face. Students often look anxious. But now I have a better sense for why. As I walked the very short distance to Torgersen Hall, I immediately noticed large numbers of students standing around outside and a fair number of police officers on Stanger Street. At first I thought that perhaps Torgersen had been evacuated, especially after bomb threats had closed the building twice in just over a week.
But then I looked across the clearing toward Holden Hall (located directly next to Norris Hall) and saw a line of students running out of a building. It was clear that some sort of evacuation was underway, and as I walked I found myself unsure of whether to head back to my office or try to meet up with some of my students in our appointed classroom. I decided on the latter, and found roughly twenty students hanging out in the room. We chatted on and off for the next little while, especially as new tidbits of information came through over cell phones and the Internet. After 10 AM the building was entirely locked down, and one of the building managers came through to make sure that the one outside door in our room was secure. Students from other classes slowly trickled in, and at some time after 11 AM one student offered to use his account to display a live CNN feed on the room's large A/V system (this was a large lecture hall with something like 300 seats). Somehow the time passed along, with some students occasionally stepping out for food or bathroom breaks, others watching movies on their laptops, and still others relentlessly looking for information online.
When the word came around noon that the campus was being evacuated in stages - and that those in our building were free to leave so long as they moved away from central campus - the details we had were quite sketchy. Most reports had confirmed one fatality and as many as seven or eight injuries. Another CNN report was indicating that as many as 17 had been injured.
I wished well to a few students and headed back to my office to retrieve my laptop and my lunch. By this time I felt reasonably safe, as it seemed the worst had passed and the mayhem around the building had abated. I followed a small trail of faculty, staffers, and students as they made their way toward the Schulz parking lot, where I found my truck and started home. Just on the other side of Main Street I heard a report on the local college station, WUVT, that as many as 20 had been confirmed dead, at least according to a press conference. I was skeptical, shocked, and dazed, and after getting home found that this grim report was indeed true. Little did we know that the total number of fatalities would climb to 33 by the end of the day.
At this point, I am not aware of any close friends or colleagues who were in Norris Hall at the time of the shooting. But I have since learned that one faculty member, whose office I regularly walk by, was likely among the victims. I didn't know him, but it really is profoundly sad to think that I had seen him working away in his office just a few days prior. Tomorrow we will likely find out whether any of the students in our ~120 student class were among the victims. And then, of course, there may be victims among the many former students who I have had the privilege of working with. We are already starting to brace for when we must next set foot in the classroom and dealing with this tragedy. The remainder of the semester will not be easy here.
I know not what lies ahead, but hope that this community can come together and find some way forward, out of this mess. For those outside of the community, please be thinking of us. We need all of the positive energy you can spare.
--
UPDATE for April 16 Archive (4/25/07)
After the names and biographies of the deceased were released, I realized that I did know the German instructor. Jamie Bishop's office is two floors down from mine, and I first met him a year or two ago when we were both working in Torgersen Hall. In fact, we had many mutual colleagues over there. I didn't know him well, but I remember him as a kind and friendly individual. Learning that Jamie was among the victims made this tragedy that much more personal for me. My heart goes out to his family and friends.
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eng
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VT Tragedy - My Account
april 16
blog
instructor
memory
monday
teaching
torgersen
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Sara Hood
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Sean Moroney
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2007-06-24
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By: Sean Moroney
Posted: 5/17/07
Other than being two of the most-read playwrights in history, Sophocles and Shakespeare share another common thread-a knack for writing gruesome but also unforgettable scenes.
Likewise, Cho Seung-Hui, the Virginia Tech shooter who was a senior majoring in English, graphically described murder and violence in two plays he wrote for a class in the fall of his senior year.
One difference between the well-known playwrights and Cho, however, was that their words stayed on the stage and Cho's played out in real life.
Since the Virginia Tech massacre April 16, critics have questioned whether university administrators and professors could have taken further steps to prevent the shooting. Specifically, they have focused on Cho's two plays-"Mr. Brownstone" and "Richard McBeef," in which a 13-year-old threatens to kill his stepfather.
"There is that understood latitude in creative writing," Duke English Professor Deborah Pope wrote in an e-mail. "There has to be that room to reach deeply. Not least of all because some of the greatest writers we know have written about quite disturbing events and characters. Many of the Greek plays and Shakespeare, as just two examples, are full of gore."
In the English department at Duke, students can take a number of courses that either integrate creative writing into the curriculum or focus solely on it. Pope, who teaches creative writing, said she is not aware of an official policy on regulating a student's creative writing.
"I don't know how there could be," Pope said. "It must rest with a teacher's individual judgment."
Creative writing in college is a delicate issue because professors oftentimes encourage students to express themselves freely in their writing but at the same time must recognize when highly imaginative writing signals problems in the personal lives of the student.
"I read both of [Cho's] short plays. I was pretty horrified and disgusted because I hate violence," said senior and English major Stephen Lee. "I haven't written anything equally violent or disturbing."
Lee said he sometimes feels self-conscious about sharing his writing that is particularly grotesque due to fear of how other students might react. He added, however, that his creative writing professors have never censored a student's work just because it was violent or disturbing.
"At Duke, I have read some disturbing stories written by fellow students, but I've never felt remotely endangered because the author has always been able to explain and defend his or her creative choices," Lee wrote in an e-mail.
A senior in Cho's playwrighting class, Steven Davis, told The New York Times that after reading Cho's play "Richard McBeef" one night, he turned to his roommate and said, "This is the kind of guy who is going to walk into a classroom and start shooting people."
After noticing a pattern of odd behavior from Cho-which included taking pictures of women with his cell phone camera in a poetry class in his junior year and a taciturn personality, Lucinda Roy, chair of the English department and co-director of the creative writing program at Virginia Tech, began to tutor Cho privately.
Roy and other professors took further steps to ensure that counseling was sought for Cho, who was ordered to attend a psychiatric facility in late 2005. But their actions were not enough to prevent the shooting.
"Fortunately, I have never had to deal with writing that struck me as truly psychotic or sadistic," Pope said. "When I heard that the Virginia Tech's writing teacher, of all people, had raised red flags, my first reaction was, 'My god, it must have been something really, really, unsettling-it must have just been completely over the edge.'"
English major Melanie Garcia, Trinity '07, said the way she approaches writing is to write about things that mean a lot to her.
"By writing things down that are personal, I make them permanent-they become something outside of me," she said. "If it were a painful memory, it would not be as painful."
--
Original Source: <a href=http://media.www.dukechronicle.com/media/storage/paper884/news/2007/05/17/News/After.Vatech.Violent.Creative.Writing.Raises.Concerns.On.Campuses-2904875.shtml> Duke Chronicle - May 17, 2007</a>
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eng
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Duke Chronicle
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David Graham <david.graham@duke.edu>
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After VaTech, violent creative writing raises concerns on campuses
duke
teaching
violence
writing
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Adriana Seagle
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Ynetnews
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2007-06-20
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<b>One of victims in Virginia Tech shooting rampage Monday is Prof Liviu Librescu, senior researcher at university. Librescu was killed after he stayed behind his class to block door and protect students. Massacre claimed lives of 32 people</b>
Yitzhak Benhorin
Latest Update: 04.17.07, 17:04 / <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/home/0,7340,L-3082,00.html">Israel News</a>
<b>WASHINGTON</b> - Prof Liviu Librescu, a <a href="http://www.esm.vt.edu/php/person.php?id=10023">senior researcher and lecturer</a> at Virginia Tech, is among the 32 people who were killed during a <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3388734,00.html">shooting rampage</a> at the university Monday.
His wife, Marlina, and two sons, Arieh and Joe, have already begun making arrangements for his burial in Israel.
The Virginia Tech Police Department identified the campus gunman as Cho Seung-Hui, 23, a student and native of South Korea.
An official at the South Korean Foreign Ministry said that it could not rule out that the shooter was from South Korea but said it had not received any such notification from the US Embassy.
One of Prof Librescu's students, Alec Calhoun, who was with him at the classroom when the shooting started, told AP that at about 9:05 am, he and classmates heard "a thunderous sound from the classroom next door, what sounded like an enormous hammer."
When students realized the sounds were gunshots, Calhoun said, they started flipping over desks for hiding places. Others dashed to the windows of the second-floor classroom, kicking out the screens and jumping from the ledge of the room.
Calhoun said that just before he climbed out the window, he turned to look at the professor (Librescu), who had stayed behind to block the door.
Librescu's wife drove him to work on Monday, and he was killed about an hour later. His daughter-in-law Ayala, who is married to his son, Joe, told Ynet: "I heard he blocked the door of the classroom he was teaching... he must have realized that the murderer was approaching. He saved his students and was killed by gunshots."
"He has been teaching there for 20 years, and was a senior, world-renowned lecturer. He is the professor with the highest number of publications in the history of Virginia Tech. In the past, he taught at Tel Aviv University and the Technion," she added.
Ayala said that her father-in-law was passionate about his research and a dedicated family man.
<b>A true gentleman</b>
Prof Librescu and his wife are both Holocaust survivors who immigrated to Israel from Romania in 1978.
Librescu was an accomplished scientist in Romania, and the Communist regime had tried to prevent him from making aliyah to Israel. He was allowed to leave the country only after the Israeli prime minister at the time Menachem Begin appealed the matter to President Nicolae Ceausescu.
Several years later, Librescu left for a sabbatical in the United States and has remained there since. His first son, Arieh, lives in Israel, while his other son, Joe, resides in the US.
"I understand from friends that my father was a hero," the son Joe told Ynet. "In fact, by blocking the door with his body he saved all the students who were in the classroom."
Joe said that his parents were very happy in the United States, where they have been living since 1984. "He and my mom led a simple life, at a pastoral place in West Virginia, between hills and mountains, and he loved the school in which he taught."
"He is scientist who did not work for money, but for the pleasure he got from his occupation," he added.
<b>AP contributed to the report</b>
First Published: 04.17.07, 07:17
--
Original Source: <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3388753,00.html">http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3388753,00.html</a>
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eng
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Efrat Yaari,Marketing Manager,Ynetnews (Efrat-ya@y-i.co.il)
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Israeli killed in Virginia massacre
classroom
librescu
student
teaching