Students chant "Lets Go, Hokies" at the University Commemoration and Candlelight Vigil on April 16, 2012 to honor the 32 fallen students and faculty.
For the first year, Tech will not have a candlelight vigil during the Day of Remembrance.
The decision was made by the April 16 Student Planning Committee after speaking to students, and the change is aimed at shifting the emotion of the day from mourning to strengthening community.
"There's not a simple answer to what they came up with," said Mark Owczarski, the assistant vice president of University Relations.
"The Student Planning Committee has been working on the Day of Remembrance 2013 for several months now, and one of the things they did was they went back to students, their constituencies…and said, 'What are you looking for?'" Owczarski said.
The two key themes the committee found that students wanted to remember were the lives and stories of the students and faculty that were lost on April 16, 2007 and the desire to use the day to bring the community together.
With that in mind, the committee decided to focus on the 3.2 to 32 Run for Remembrance and the community picnic.
The run — which will be held Saturday, April 13 this year — is a 3.2 mile long path through and around campus for which anyone can register and do at any pace.
"There may be 7,000 to 10,000 runners," Owczarski said. "It does take the time to reflect and remember by the 32 white balloons at the beginning, starting the run in silence."
The community picnic will be held on the Drillfield on April 16 and will be free to anyone who wishes to come, serving as a place where students can celebrate the lives of those lost and come together to celebrate the strength of the community, according to Owczarski.
One part of remembrance that proved important to students was the name-reading ceremony of the victims that previously occurred during the candlelight vigil. This tradition is being folded into the candle lighting and extinguishing that happens at midnight at the start and end of April 16.
"(The Student Planning Committee) felt that in those three events, they captured what people were asking for,” Owczarski said.
However, not all students are in agreement with this decision, such as Allison Rizzetta, a senior environmental resource management major.
"I don't like that," Rizzetta said. "I would assume they want to eventually phase it out, just like they don't have April 16th as a day off anymore, but no, I think it should remain."
Rizzetta still hopes that there will be a potential candlelight vigil, run by a different student organization.
However, this change was not completely unexpected, and even with the first Day of Remembrance, evolution in the process was anticipated.
“Back in 2008, when Virginia Tech was approaching the first day of remembrance on April 16th, 2008, obviously the question was 'What should that date look like in '08, '09, and the years beyond?'”
That is why the committee was initially formed, Owczarski said.
While this faculty and family-based organization maintained control over the event for 2008 and 2009, control was shifted over to the Student Planning Committee afterward, as it would best understand the wants and needs of current students.
"I grew up an hour away from here, so Tech has always been part of my family," said Emily Wilkinson, a Tech Alumnae and former member of the Student Planning Committee. "Going from having the vigil every single year to it not being there anymore will be different."
Wilkinson is still on the fence about whether the change will be positive or negative, having previously put so much planning into the candlelight vigil.
"I think that it's not necessarily a bad thing," she said. "It's a sign that the community is moving forward. I think that there's many ways to remember each individual in your own way. The jury's still out in my mind — it'll be different this year," Wilkinson said.
Wilkinson wants to be able to celebrate the lives lost rather than mourn them, and sees this as a way to move forward with lives, but still wants to make sure that April 16 is remembered for what it was.
The Day of Remembrance has evolved over time, and this is just another change for the better according to Owczarski.
"The day of remembrance really isn't a day anymore," he said. "It's becoming more than that, which I think is something that adds to the memory and reflection."
Follow this writer on Twitter @HokieRealist
A version of this article appeared in the Feb 28 issue of the Collegiate Times.
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I agree that the 16th should be used as a day to strengthen community, but it is a day of REMEMBRANCE as well -- I think it's extremely useful for the current community to come together for a moment to truly remember those who were lost and to be grateful for the lives that we have. I feel like the community taking merely a moment -- just a few minutes! -- to actually read out the names of those who were killed and a little bit about them is saying yes, we still honor you, we still remember you as part of the Hokie nation.
A picnic does not accomplish this goal. A run does not accomplish this goal. Creating a real space for remembrance on campus does, and that's what the vigil did.
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I had to go through that horrible experience and I completely disagree. It's time to move on. You can't remember the event if you weren't there to witness it. Experiencing it vicariously through a family member who may have been there or just watching it on TV doesn't really justify you participating in a ceremony. There are other people who have gone to VT and died from an unexpected turn of events downward and we don't create a ceremony to remember them. There are people who get shot every day and we don't take the time to remember them. There was a young woman who was beheaded at Tech the year after and we don't create a ceremony to remember her. You see my point? We can't live our lives in perpetual mourning. The monument serves as a great tool of remembrance for you everyday as you walk across the drillfield. Take a moment as you pass it by and think about how your actions and responsibilities to the current VT community could prevent tragedies like April 16th from happening again. But at some point, there ceremony needs to stop being an officially sponsored event. We want to remember Virginia Tech for it's great education and the great epxeriences we get from it. You should remember VT for what you made of your time there.
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I completely understand where you are coming from, but I really think the university should have gotten more student opinion on this. I took a survey and of 400 random students, they all said they wanted the vigil kept out of everything. And every person I have ever asked always says they would want the vigil to remain. The problem with the vigil is that it's started to become a school spirit event for those that weren't there and had no ties to it. If that makes sense... what I mean is, and this isn't necessarily a bad thing, but student go to be moved emotionally by the essence of the Hokie Community and Hokie Nation. And it truly is moving. It's inspiring. But the vigil should be to HONOR those that died and remember them moreso than just to be moved by the "Let's Go Hokies" at the end. However, I think through the remarks made on each individual of the 32 helped accomplish that for the most part. All in all, I think if we just changed small aspects of the vigil, it could have been a highly successful, powerful, and a true "remembrance" event. Like someone said in these comments, you can't remember them through a picnic or in a race. To some extent, you can, but not to the extent of the vigil. I would hope a student leads it somehow since the university cannot sponsor it.
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So much for neVer forgeT...
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Remember when class did not go on? Staff still had to go that day
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While I slightly agree with the latter part of what you said
I still think that the university should mark the significance of the event.
I know personally one of the victims' family that went through April 16.
Yes there is something that can be said that 'time heal all wounds' but you had to be so callous in saying that those that did not go through April 16 or witness it can't begin to understand it? You call it living vicariously through others and that is your opinion.
It is 2013 and while some people have moved and will students attend VT and graduate it cannot change what happen.
Your attempt to create a moral equivalence of between the death of one student and the death of 32 people.
It was two different events. Yes, everyday people are taken away from the their love ones by a gun.
So what you are saying we should place a value on the lives of people? Having a monument or a vigil is in fact such that?
So you went through April 16 and that sole distinction places you in a position to say how others should mourn and recognize 4/16/2007?
That distinction [like a badge of sorts] merits that you know what is best for different people?
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Perpetual mourning is what you called the vigil?
Since you decided to make comparisons allow me to make my own
Should people forget the genocide of 6 million Jews?
What about Rwanda? What about September 11 2001?
I did not personally go through those events.
I did not personally go through April 16 and current students did not go through it as well.
I admit I am a hypocrite for comparing such events especially on the extreme scale of the aforementioned events but in the end murder is still murder.
There something that can be learned from tragedies and how to them prevent as you stated.
While I will not debate such things as 'politics' realize that while everyday life must go on and as does time
A simple acknowledge like a vigil can’t hurt. I am sure sometimes that reminders some of which are everyday do hurt.
While I have taken the time to at least entertain your argument I am skeptical that you will extend the same courtesy to me and others.
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I never said that people should forget (note my 3rd to last sentence). I said that a school-sponsored ceremony for remembrance has outlived its purpose since April 16.
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This is the only relevant and appropriate comment here. Thank you.
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Yes, it is time to move on. No, the 32 will never be forgotten, but as the First Lady said in her commencement speech last spring, talk about VT should be about its great education, its dining program, other positives -- not the fact that it is the site of the largest school shooting. The continued court suit that keeps dragging on, the mention of VT whenever there is another shooting, the hoopla surrounding the date -- its like picking the scab off a wound and not letting it heal for those of us who went through that day and the days that followed. No, we won't forget the victims, but let's put the act well behind us.
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Exactly, well said.
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As an alumnus, I made a personal promise to always wear our colors on 4/16, no matter where I was in the world.
I do a substantial amount of international travel, and no April 16th has passed without at least one person approaching me and striking up a conversation about the tragedy. And then, following that, about Tech.
For many reasons on many levels, I truly do regard Tech as my "Other Mother". She was hurt that day, and all these years later I still bleed maroon and orange. Proudly so.
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I think a student out there should head up and lead the vigil. Student sponsored vs. university sponsored might be better. After all, I think the real reason why the vigil isn't being held is actually not being made public. I have a feeling that the vigil isn't being held because the families don't want it to be held anymore. Or that the university doesn't think it is right to have students who "weren't there" at the vigil. But there are still so many of us that were there. Faculty members too. I think the vigil should go on. Unfortunately the university doesn't. Thus, I think it is up to a student to head up the vigil and try and make one happen with a FB event or something. I can guarantee you a cadet would volunteer to play taps and people would bring their own candles. We are Virginia Tech. You're not gonna stop us admin, just warning ya
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