A widespread phenomenon is sweeping the globe. After the recent horrendous events at Virginia Technological University, students from all over the world have been meeting on their campuses and also on Facebook to offer condolences and prayers for the victims and their families.   One particular group that I have joined and been monitoring for the last couple of days has grown since the events unfolded and I have watched it grow from a few thousand members to nearly 300,000 and the numbers continue to grow.   As I write this in the early morning hours of April 19, 2007, the group continues to gain members at the tune of ten to twelve a minute, this is at 4:30 am Eastern Standard time.   Never in the history of the world have students so uniformly banded together to show their support.

This one event will help define us in our college years as we continue to reach out to those who need support and pray for peace for those whose lives have been torn to shreds by what has happened.   Regardless of what happens next as we go our separate ways at the end of the semester, the seniors to jobs hopefully and on to the next phase of their lives, the rest of us to our summer vacation or work depending on the situation, we can never forget what has happened and what we have accomplished.   I don’t doubt that if anyone had told me two weeks ago that this sort of unity was possible among college students, I would have laughed them to scorn. Now sitting here watching it unfold in front of my very eyes I still cannot believe it.

We will break apart in the days to come, back to our own sectarian ways as athletic rivalries, national and regional disparities, again dominate our uppermost thoughts and school differences separate us. We will split into our camps for football season and basket ball season and hockey season and sometimes cheer our victories and moan our defeats. Yet through all of this we will look back to that one April day when a tragedy brought us all to our knees and united we rose up Hokies. If we stood united for only a moment, in that time, fleeting though it was, the world has been made better.

Be first to comment this article

Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register.

Powered by AkoComment Tweaked Special Edition v.1.4.6
AkoComment © Copyright 2004 by Arthur Konze - www.mamboportal.com
All right reserved