Nearly 1,000 miles separate Baldwin City and Blacksburg, Va., but after the shooting rampage at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, the distance doesn’t seem so big.
Virginia Tech student Cho Seung-Hui opened fire Monday on a group of his peers, killing 32 before also killing himself.
“My heart goes out to the whole Virginia Tech campus,” Baker University President Pat Long said. “All I could think about the night afterwards was what the school must be going through. This is a tragedy of unbelievable proportion.”
Another question on Long’s mind in response to the shooting is how Baker University would respond to a tragedy of this magnitude.
“I think incidents like this always heighten our awareness,” she said. “We’ll all be taking a look at our response plans and re-evaluating their effectiveness.”
The first step Baker administrators are taking to help prevent a crisis from happening here is organizing a meeting for prominent university faculty members and the Baldwin City Police Department.
“We have already discussed emergency plans for Baker and for the other schools in Baldwin,” Cpl. Christy Dymacek said, “but after the Virginia Tech incident, we will have to discuss whether or not there are things we can do better.”
Even though Dymacek said a re-evaluation of the crisis response plan is in order, Director of the Physical Plant Gary Walbridge said communication between Baker and the police department is strong.
“The city of Baldwin already had an emergency response plan that I gave to Baker,” he said. “Someone from security interacts with the Baldwin City Police at least once or twice a month, sometimes once a week.”
Walbridge said an obvious alliance exists between the university and the police department, and Baker also has other strengths – size being one.
“The big difference between here and Virginia Tech is that Virginia had 1,000 commuters, and we don’t have that,” he said. “We would be able to communicate between buildings by phone and e-mail to control a serious situation.”
Walbridge said because of Baker’s small size, students should be able to better identify suspicious behavior.
“Typically a student can spot someone who is dangerous or does not belong on campus by his or her actions,” he said. “If they seem to be lost or looking for something or they are not wearing proper identification, then a student should report them to security immediately.”
Not only can students help by reporting people who don’t seem familiar with the campus, but Director of Counseling Center Kelly Bowers said students could also contact her or administration if someone is making threatening or harmful statements.
“I don’t think it is the students’ responsibility to prevent events like that of Virginia Tech,” she said. “But a lot of students don’t have an outlet and feel victimized by a lack of social support from their parents, teachers and friends, and in that case, it is best to get as many people as possible involved.”
One person Bowers suggests students turn to in case of an emergency is his hall director, but resident assistant Amanda Luthi said she doesn’t feel prepared to handle a situation like the one at Virginia Tech.
“We were trained to spot concerning behavior, but we weren’t trained to deal with a shooting or other mass incidents,” she said. “I think a lot of times in training you are taught how to deal with things based on specific events, but since a large shooting has never come up on a college campus, we haven’t really addressed it.”
Even though past training for RAs has not included an in-depth emergency plan, Associate Dean of Students Shelby Coxon said she is working on new training exercises that will help RAs should an incident occur.
“There’s always situations that make us realize that more needs to be done to protect students,” she said. “And we’re trying to create a plan for next year to prepare RAs and hall directors for emergency situations.”
In response to the Virginia Tech shooting, Coxon said she is already organizing a phone tree to help foster communication among residence halls.
Although the Virginia Tech incident has affected the way administration looks at the current emergency response plan, it has also affected the way students look at each other.
Freshman Will Baum, who has a good friend who attends Virginia Tech, said the event made him think about students at Baker who might be struggling.
“I was shocked that something of this magnitude could have happened on a college campus,” he said. “I think we should be more serious about college violence because something like this could happen anywhere.”
Baum, whose friend is a freshman at Virginia Tech, said he found out that she was safe the night of the shooting, but other Baker students were not as lucky.
Junior Brett Ferrell’s ex-girlfriend attends the school, but he was unable to reach her until the day after the shooting.
“I was in the library looking at the news when I read about the shooting,” he said. “I tried to contact her, but she didn’t respond until the next day.”
While Ferrell was waiting to hear from his friend, he said a million thoughts were running through his head.
“It was constant worry,” he said. “I didn’t get too much sleep that night, and I was really distracted throughout the day. I wanted to know if she was all right.”
Another Baker student who felt somewhat connected to the shooting was freshman Marcia Hillman, who had an old friend at the school.
“I did know someone at Virginia Tech, but I think no matter how close or far you are from something like this, it is going to affect you,” she said. “I just think the shooting is so sad, so horrible.”
Even though the shooting was a horrible event, Ferrell said such incidents as this can bring people together.
“There is definitely more unity now,” he said. “Just like after September 11, the country came together to support each other, and that is what is happening now.”