Finger Pointing And Program Cuts At Virginia Tech
I wrote an article in April predicting program cuts at Virginia Tech as a result of the $11 million settlement with the families of the shooting victims. Today the Roanoke Times is reportingthat the college is facing a budget shortfall and planning to cut a total of $11.2 million from academic and cooperative extension programs. The bulk of these cuts will be on the academic side, and President Steger has indicated that the permanent elimination of some programs may be necessary.
Another Roanoke Times article that appeared on Monday describes a series of meetings between members of the Virginia Tech administration and families of the shooting victims. These meetings were scheduled as part of the settlement agreement and were intended to give the family members an opportunity to review changes to the response plans for future campus emergencies. From the description in the Times, it sounds like the bulk of the meeting was spent pointing fingers and attempting to place the blame for the tragedy on someone other than the shooter.
I have stated before that I have nothing but sympathy for the victims and their families, but there is no amount of finger pointing that will bring them back or undo the events of April 16th. Blaming the school for failure to prepare for an unforeseeable event, or for failure to somehow instantly notify 40,000 people is simply foolish. Hindsight is always 20/20, but none of the critics of the administration response could have better anticipated or prepared for the tragic event.
Call me heartless if you will, but there is a time to grieve and there is a time to get on with your own life. None of us can put ourselves in the shoes of the victims or their families, but this does not mean that their experience makes them experts in emergency preparedness. The same can be said for the families of the 9/11 victims, many of whom seem to believe that they are somehow better qualified than the architects and the urban planners to guide the reconstruction at Ground Zero. Seven years after the 9/11 attacks, the former WTC site is still a massive hole in the ground. Will the families of the shooting victims still be hounding Charles Steger in 2014?
I spent the morning of April 16th in a panic trying to get a hold of my sister who attended Tech at the time. I also spent 9/11 anxiously waiting to hear from my Uncle who worked at the Pentagon. In both instances I was very lucky to have both loved ones be alright. Because of those experiences I feel a huge amount of sympathy, empathy, etc for the families of the victims of both trajedies.
That being said I don’t see how throwing money at the problem will help them heal. I can understand funeral expenses, tuition refunds, money to help cover grief counciling and the like. I can understand the families wanting the school and state to find better ways to deal with/assist students with obvious mental and/or social disorders. But enormouse settlements are just going to make the students and faculty of Tech suffer from the budget cuts. Sadly, I imagine this will cause an even larger focus on the football program because of it money making abilities at the cost of programs that should be the focus of an acedemic institution.