Katie Tobin
@ Tattoo
Q:How do you keep your life clean?
A:"I don't own any cars and I do almost all my shopping from farmers markets."
IT WASN'T SUPPOSED to be this way for the ACC.
Three years after completing its expansion to improve its football reputation, there is only one ACC team in this week's AP top 25.
Raise your hand if you thought Wake Forest was the best team in the conference.
OK, No. 20 Wake may not be the ACC's best at year's end, but the league is a dud so far.
Continue Reading "More or Less, ACC Lags Behind in Football" »
"IT SENDS A MESSAGE that even out of the worst tragedy that one can imagine, you can build something that is very positive."
— Mark G. McNamee, the provost at Virginia Tech, on the school's decision to turn part of Norris Hall, the site of the shootings that killed 30 students and faculty members in April, into a Center for Peace Studies and Violence Prevention.The peace center will take up 1,000 square feet of the building's 4,300-square-foot second floor, where the rampage took place, The Post's Theresa Vargas reports. The rest of the space will be used by the Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics for seminar space, conference rooms and " a state-of-the-art communications technology section that it will share with the center," Vargas writes.
» "Va. Tech's Norris Hall To House Peace Center" [WaPo]
VIRGINIA TECH OFFICIALS should have issued a campus-wide alert that a gunman was somewhere on the Blacksburg campus earlier on the day this past spring that student Seung Hui Cho went on a shooting rampage killing 32 people. That's one of the many conclusions an eight-member review panel came to, as detailed in a highly anticipated report on the Tech tragedy and response, released late last night.
Still, as The Post's Sari Horwitz and Tim Craig write, "the report reaches no conclusions about what many people are wondering: What Cho's motives were for the rampage April 16 and what triggered him."
Additionally, the report said that Virginia Tech counseling services failed to properly treat Cho for preexisting mental health issues. It also issued this broader criticism: "Virginia's mental health laws are flawed and services for mental health users are inadequate."
You can read the report for yourself here and get a summary of key findings here.
» "Va. Tech Criticized In Massacre Probe" [WaPo]
» "Report of the Virginia Tech Review Panel" [Gov. Tim Kaine]
» "Virginia Tech Review Panel: Summary of Key Findings" [Gov. Tim Kaine]
DISTURBING NEWS out of Blacksburg, Va., has become an unfortunately familiar occurrence this year, and details about the writings of Seung-Hui Cho, the Virginia Tech senior who shot and killed 32 people and himself earlier this year, have been nothing but.
The Post this morning brought news from anonymous sources that a paper Cho had written for an English class bore a chilling resemblance to his April 16 attack, the deadliest mass shooting by an individual in U.S. history.
Reports The Post's Sari Horwitz:
The protagonist in Cho's story plans a mass school murder but in the end does not follow through, the sources said. Some of what Cho wrote was echoed in the words he spoke on the videotape he made on the morning of the shootings, the sources said.As has been a theme in this case, the story in question is known to some involved in the Cho investigation, but not to all. The panel appointed by Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine only received a copy recently. State police have a copy, but federal officials don't, Horwitz reports.
As the Cho investigation continues, college life has returned to full swing in Blacksburg, where the new Tech fall semester began last week. However, the memory of the April shootings still appears to be fresh in students' minds, as one might expect. A memorial to the shooting victims, pictured at right, was dedicated on August 19, a day before the first day of classes. The student newspaper, The Collegiate Times, continues to feature regular updates on the investigation. And the link on the Tech homepage that once said "Health Center" now reads "Health/Counseling," and leads students to a counseling center that's offering an expanded slate of one-on-one and group sessions to discuss the shootings, the Collegiate Times reports.
Continue Reading "New Cho Details Emerge as Tech Classes Resume" »
WHENEVER WE POSE a Poll Center question about gun rights, the comments pour in. Today's question — "Should college students who have permits be allowed to carry guns on campus?" — is no different.
In the wake of this year's shooting rampage at Virginia Tech, some are asking whether having expanded rights to carry weapons would have prevented the tragedy. Virginia law currently dictates that individual colleges and universities are the ones that decide whether students can carry concealed weapons on campus. As the Associated Press recently reported, there's a new push to prevent colleges and universities from prohibiting students from arming themselves.
Others say such a plan is foolish. Chimes in Poll Center commenter Red Dog:
Oh sure, let hormonal and drunk college kids walk around packing heat. Great plan. That will certainly solve the problem of violence on campus.What do you think? Vote on today's question (and leave your comments) here and see how your fellow commuters weighed in, station by station, line by line.
» "Poll Center: Aug. 13" [Poll Center/Express]
» "Students Push for Guns on Campus" [AP via WT]
AS THE VIRGINIA TECH community and the nation at large continue to confront the layers of tragedy surrounding Monday's horrible events in Blacksburg, a question that continues to surface is this: Did university officials respond appropriately after two shooting victims were discovered in a residence hall early in the morning?
Should the campus have been shut down? If students and faculty hadn't been in class, would the death toll have ballooned from two to 32 people, as it did after the gunman attacked classes in Norris Hall?
The Virginia Tech community had an answer of sorts during Tuesday's memorial convocation: The school's much-respected president, Charles Steger, pictured at left, was greeted with a 30-second standing ovation. On the mourning campus, there are more important things to deal with right now. The answers to the what ifs of Monday will come later.
As will the Virginia government's opinion. As The Post's Michael D. Shear and Alec MacGillis report, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine announced that a former state police superintendent will lead an independent review of the university's response to Monday's killings.
For today's Poll Center question, though, we turn the questions over to you: Did Tech officials respond to the shootings correctly? Go vote (and comment) here and see how your fellow commuters weighed in station by station, line by line.
» FULL COVERAGE: "Virginia Tech Shootings" [WaPo]
» "Va. Gov. Kaine Orders Independent Investigation" [WaPo]
» "2-Hour Gap Leaves Room for Questions" [WaPo]
Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images
Addison Road
