On the third anniversary of the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre last Friday, federal law enforcement officers issued a study of violent attacks carried out on U.S. college campuses during the past century.
The study, "Campus Attacks: Targeted Violence Affecting Institutions of Higher Education," reveals nearly three-fifths of the 272 publicly-recorded incidents took place from 1990-2008 - 79 during the 1990s and 83 after the year 2000. It is possible larger student bodies, increased media coverage and stricter crime reporting regulations may have contributed to these growing numbers, the report stated.
In June 2007, former Cabinet Secretaries Michael Leavitt and Margaret Spellings and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales recommended the FBI, Secret Service and Department of Education to undertake an investigation of campus violence trends. The study was commissioned in response to the April 16 incident at Virginia Tech, when student Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 members of the school community before committing suicide.
"We initiated a collaborative effort to understand the nature of this violence and identify ways of preventing future attacks that would affect our nation's colleges and universities," according to the report.
Although the report simply offers general tips to prevent violence, it examines data that may help colleges identify trends in violence to better assess threats. For instance, 94 percent of perpetrators were male; 33.9 percent of incidents in which motive was determined involved an intimate relationship; and 29 percent of the attacks were accompanied by pre-incident stalking or harassing, verbal or written threats or physically aggressive acts.
Through various resources intended to promote student safety in case of emergency, the University hopes to be prepared to deal with any potential attacks.
The University Office of Emergency Preparedness was established officially in 2007, though emergency planning has been a priority at the University for decades, said Kirby Felts, assistant director of the Office of Emergency Preparedness.
Felts said the office's current priority is to "create and maintain partnerships with the surrounding community and work beyond the boundaries of the University to evaluate external threats."
The office's job is made difficult, however, when considering that only 121 perpetrators were students at the respective institutions where the attacks occurred, according to the federal report. Rather, many of the attackers either were loosely connected to the college or entirely unaffiliated.
"This is a huge obstacle and an ongoing challenge," Felts said. "We can't put up 20-foot walls all around Grounds. In our open community, everyone's eyes and ears can play a crucial role."
The Office of Emergency Preparedness works very closely with the University and Charlottesville police departments, Student Health and Hoos Ready, a student-run emergency preparedness organization, to ensure the safety of the University community.
Hoos Ready was founded by current Student Council President Colin Hood in the months after the tragedy in Blacksburg. The goal of the organization at the outset was to work very closely with University faculty and staff members to deliver safety messages to the student body.
"We want to remind students to take extra precautions in their safety ... because the University is an open community," Hood said.
Felts echoed this message and encouraged students to report to authorities anything that seems out of place.
"That information can be pieced together to help eliminate external threats," Felts said.
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