While coming to terms with multiple incidences of savage violence on our campus, one wonders what prescription might remedy the affliction under which our community is currently suffering.
The media are constantly bombarded with editorials on all sides of the issue, but each time the university response is the same.
On Feb. 3, President Charles Steger sent out a mass e-mail to the Virginia Tech community chiding those who dare to ask provocative questions about culture and engage in civil discourse. The moving prose with which he wrote harkened back to the days after the worst mass murder in the history of higher education. Long after those wonderful words, wane, pitiful platitudes persist.
I cannot begin to imagine the difficulties Steger has been faced with as of late, but I do have expectations regarding his responsibilities to my community.
A good leader does not inject political jabs during opportune moments. A good leader does not seek to quash inquiry. Most certainly, a good leader does not confuse reasoned dissent with moral disease.
Perhaps the only way to truly move on from this current anxiety is for the administration to reflect its community's anguish instead of offering to show it the error of its thoughts and ways.
Brian M. Erskine,
graduate student,
political science