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Closure to a Lost Semester
April 19, 2007
Virginia Tech students who were killed during this week's shooting rampage will receive diplomas posthumously during the commencement weekend of May 11-12.
Family members will be able to accept the diplomas personally, attend private ceremonies or make individual arrangements, a university spokesman said.
In an unprecedented move, Virginia Tech also will give its 25,000 students extraordinary latitude in deciding how they end what is becoming for some a lost semester.
Virginia Tech President Charles W. Steger sent an e-mail this morning to the members of the university community to thank them for their support and strength this week.
"During the horror of the last few days, the one bright light in the darkness has been the strength and spirit so prevalent across campus," he wrote. "As both President Bush and Governor Kaine noted, and as the world has seen, Virginia Tech is a community in the truest sense of the word. I know I speak for many others when I tell you how proud I am of you, and from the bottom of my heart, I thank you."
Steger noted that in the wake of the traumatic experience of Monday’s mass homicides, "it will be difficult to resume our lives and duties. But start again, we must. By working together with the spirit and bond strengthened by this tragedy, we will move forward in a way that will honor the memory of those we have lost."
Steger reminded the community that classes will resume Monday and commencement will proceed as scheduled May 11.
"Our graduating seniors and their families need and deserve this time to mark their accomplishments and to start the next phase of their lives," he wrote. "All of the deceased student victims will be honored with posthumous degrees."
He closed his letter by echoing the words of Nikki Giovanni, Virginia Tech’s popular poet and English professor, at Tuesday’s prayer service that drew tens of thousands of mourners: "Through all our sadness . . . we will prevail."
"I thank you," Steger wrote, "and again ask that you take care of yourselves, your families, and each other."
Choices for students
One option: Leave campus for all or part of the remainder of the school year without academic penalty.
But Tech officials are encouraging students to remain and continue learning.
That's the option that 22-year-old senior Brad Kehoe of Frederick, Md., is taking.
"I'm staying. This is where my friends are, and where I need to be," Kehoe said. "I love Blacksburg, and I want to stay here as long as I can."
Kehoe is scheduled to graduate in May with a degree in mechanical engineering.
Another option Virginia Tech is offering students is to take the grade they've already earned in a course without any other tests or exams.
"Right now, I have all A's in my classes. So I think I'm going to take the grades that I have, after I talk with my teachers," said Kelly Seidel, a 20-year-old junior from Frederick, Md.
But she said her brother Jeff, 19, who is a freshman at Virginia Tech, has some B's and C's, and he'll probably do some extra work to try to raise his grades before he leaves for the semester.
Removing pressure
Yet a third option is a chance to withdraw from a course up until the last day of class.
"I think giving students all the options is the best thing the school could have done," Kelly Seidel said.
It took a lot of pressure off students who might have been worrying about what was going to happen next, she added.
Garrett McGuire, a 22-year-old senior from Washington, D.C., said he thought Virginia Tech acted wisely in deciding not to cancel the rest of the semester.
"It wouldn't have been the right thing to do," he said.
Classes this week were canceled soon after Monday morning's rampage, which left 32 students and teachers dead.
Classes are scheduled to resume Monday, and students will be presented with their options for the rest of the term.
Under the university's calendar, the final day of classes is May 2. The semester ends May 9.
Posthumously awarded diplomas will reflect the academic program students were enrolled in at the time of their deaths.
In a letter yesterday and during a news conference, Provost Mark McNamee said the Virginia Tech community was "overwhelmed and saddened" by the tragic events of the week.
The faculty, he said, wanted to act in ways that would be in the best interests of students' physical and mental well-being.
Sophomore Jesse Johnson of Atkins said he'll stay on through the end of the school year.
"I don't think it's right to connect leaving to the shootings," said Johnson, 20. "My personal feeling is that I'm not going to let what he did affect what I'm here for, and that's to get an education.
"I think disrupting us is exactly what he hoped to do."
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