Yesterday was the first day in a 6 day appeal process for American native Eric Volz. Eric Volz, the son of one of the deans who I worked for at Belmont, was convicted of murdering his ex-girlfriend. However, evidence, witnesses, phone records, etc indicate that he was in another city, 2 hours away the entire day.

Please make your friends, family, neighbors, media outlets aware of this situation. You can find all the details and facts of the whole ordeal on the following pages:
www.friendsofericvolz.com
www.myspace.com/freeericvolz and this week's People Magazine.

Most of all, please pray for Eric and his family.

Yesterday one of the most horrible massacres in the history of our country happened on a university campus. I have been enthralled with the news reports from the small town surrounding the VT campus. Virginia Tech is a very comparable institution to Texas A&M. The two are entrenched in tradition that can often be linked to being a campus that a city was built around, and the presence of a Corps of Cadets. My heart is just broken over this whole thing.


As a hall director I have found myself wondering how I would have responded had the first shooting happened in my residence hall. How would I have handled things, and what it must be like to feel completely powerless to protect your students. This could have happened at any university, and honestly, there isn't much that you can do to prevent this type of thing. That's a terrifying thought.

My heart of course goes out to the students, friends and families of the community. But my heart is broken for the things that the administrators will have to do over the next several days, weeks, months and for the way that they will constantly be questioning themselves and the decisions that they have made. In retrospect- maybe they should have closed the campus after the first shooting. But based on the information they had at the time- that would have been a drastic measure for what appeared to simply be an angry boyfriend. Regardless of the facts at the time- they will no doubt be under fire for their actions, and possible even be sued by a grieving family. (Texas A&M is still in court over the bonfire collapse which happened in 1999.)

It scares me to think about how this type of incident happens, and how easily it could have been anywhere else. I know that I will have to deal with some sort of crisis management and I have no idea what that will be like, and hope that when those decisions are made, right or wrong, I will have the necessary support to deal with the aftermath. Just as I hope the administrators at VT will have.

So today, as I try to finish my last two 20 page papers (which are supposed to help me be prepared to be a student affairs administrator), I will listen to CNN, and through my tears remind myself that life goes on. I will pray for all of those affected by this horrible act of violence. And try to remember that everything is ok in the end, if it's not ok, it's not the end.