Megan Carney (right) with Aren Drehobl at the 2005 GLSEN Awards. Pic by Andrew Davis________
In the wake of the tragedy at Virginia Tech that claimed 33 lives, a student with ties to Chicago has sent messages regarding the state of the campus.
Megan Carney—a theatre arts student who was involved with Chicago's About Face Theatre—has sent at least two mass e-mails in response to numerous inquiries about her well-being.
In one message sent April 17 ( the day after the shootings ) , Carney stated that 'I am searching for words to share a bit of this with you. It is so sad here.' She then described various goings-on, from an April 16 candlelight vigil in which the media were 'intruding ... with no regard for the occasion' to a project she just finished called ' [ Classified ] : Untold Stories of Virginia Tech,' which she created in response to various incidents of campus harassment.
In a missive sent April 19, Carney said that 'We are deeply sad, but we are not scared and if you are feeling scared, I think you should turn off your television.' She also described what others are doing to cope with the situation and to remember the individuals killed. In addition, she commented on the so-called 'Hokie Chant' that is shouted at the school's football games and was used at a recent vigil: 'For this school, for where we are and what we know, for all the sadness and all the hope, what rises up out of stillness is a hokie chant. It comes from a good place. It is what we know right now.'
Classes resumed April 23.
Nikki Giovanni's Convocation Poem
Revered writer and Virginia Tech professor Nikki Giovanni spoke at the school's address on April 17, one day after student Seung Hui Cho took the lives of 33 students and instructors, including his own.
What follows is Giovanni's poem:
We are Virginia Tech.
We are sad today, and we will be sad for quite a while. We are not moving on, we are embracing our mourning.
We are Virginia Tech.
We are strong enough to stand tall tearlessly, we are brave enough to bend to cry, and we are sad enough to know that we must laugh again.
We are Virginia Tech.
We do not understand this tragedy. We know we did nothing to deserve it, but neither does a child in Africa dying of AIDS, neither do the invisible children walking the night away to avoid being captured by the rogue army, neither does the baby elephant watching his community being devastated for ivory, neither does the Mexican child looking for fresh water, neither does the Appalachian infant killed in the middle of the night in his crib in the home his father built with his own hands being run over by a boulder because the land was destabilized. No one deserves a tragedy.
We are Virginia Tech.
The Hokie Nation embraces our own and reaches out with open heart and hands to those who offer their hearts and minds. We are strong, and brave, and innocent, and unafraid. We are better than we think and not quite what we want to be. We are alive to the imaginations and the possibilities. We will continue to invent the future through our blood and tears and through all our sadness.
We are the Hokies.
We will prevail.
We will prevail.
We will prevail.
We are Virginia Tech.