Folkerts on media and tragedy

The following column written by Dean Jean Folkerts appeared in the April 18 edition of The News & Observer.

Firing wide on campus security

The devastation on Monday at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg is a tragedy that will have long repercussions, especially on every college and university campus in the country. It would be a mistake to compound that tragedy by second-guessing every action of the Virginia Tech administration.

As a journalism school dean I am the first to encourage reporters to investigate the incident and authorities' response to it. However, one of the first questions to officials, even before the tragedy fully unfolded, was, "Why did you not shut down the campus?" One reporter said, to paraphrase, "Could you not have saved lives by alerting the students?"

As a member of the emergency response planning team at George Washington University in Washington in 2001, I and others struggled with our response to the events of Sept. 11 of that year. We struggled to plan our response should any similar activity occur in the future.

That day we canceled classes because we did not know whether the event would continue or whether students were still at risk. We discovered that canceling classes was a mistake. Students yearned for a setting in which they could talk to adults -- their professors. They wanted to think about what was happening in the context of history.

So students gathered anyway in the Media and Public Affairs building, so they could watch events unfold on the television monitors in the lobby.

I was a student at Kansas State University in 1963 when President Kennedy was assassinated. Just before canceling class that day, one esteemed history professor noted that John F. Kennedy's reputation would be evaluated in the context of history and that his record might be less stellar than expected. Students filed out the door, angry that they didn't have a chance to further discuss the statement and the tragedy that had struck the nation.

Can you imagine the chaos that might have occurred had Virginia Tech's president issued a notice that students should leave their classrooms because a shooter was on the loose on campus? Would that have saved lives -- or caused a dangerous panic situation?

It is easy to second-guess the actions of authorities in situations like this. But authorities are forced to make decisions as an action unfolds without full knowledge of what is taking place. From my experience, they do so in good faith and with interests of the campus community foremost in mind.

One tragedy of modern tragedies is the constant need to find someone to blame.

Today, every college president is wondering what his or her response would have been. And every university is doing its best to plan emergency responses. My sympathy is with those who did the best they could in an extremely difficult situation.

My hope is that journalists will use their talents to assist in gathering information that will clarify the cause behind this event and that will help authorities cope in future situations.