Houses Lead Support Efforts After Shooting

While most other Ivy League universities issued letters of condolence to their communities in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings on Monday, Harvard’s top administrators have remained largely silent and left the job of consoling students to the undergraduate Houses.

The University’s decision not to issue a letter immediately following the events left some students critical of the approach. Harvard officials yesterday posted a statement of sympathy online and announced a service to remember the victims at 10 p.m. tonight in Memorial Church.

“Whether we should have gotten together to have a service Monday night or Tuesday night is a question worth probing. I’m really happy we’re doing it this week,” said Kent M. French, a Seminarian and Epps Fellow at Memorial Church. “I’m also happy we’re going to have the church open all night, which is what happened during 9/11.”

Undergraduate Council (UC) President Ryan A. Petersen ’08, who called on Monday over House e-mail lists for the University to respond to the events, said he wasn’t sure whether the administration had erred in its decentralized approach.

“They look to the resident deans in the houses to provide support,” he said. “They are looking for a more localized way to reach out rather than a more global way. So I think it’s more of a decision on the administration’s part. I’m not sure whether it’s better or not.”

Information about counseling, including a drop-in session tomorrow, was given to the Houses for distribution to students, according to Richard D. Kadison, the chief of Mental Health Services.

By Tuesday night, each of the seven Ivies had either posted messages of sympathy on their Web sites extending condolences to the Virginia Tech community or announced plans for vigils to commemorate the victims, if they had not already held one.

UC Representative Jon T. Staff V ’10 criticized the administration’s approach.

“Harvard certainly hasn’t done enough to respond to the tragedies that have happened in Virginia over the past week,” he said. “It is the responsibility of the administration to send some sort of message to the Harvard community and the Virginia Tech community about what happened.”

Interim University President Derek C. Bok did not return requests seeking comment on the University’s approach, and Dean of the College Benedict H. Gross ’71 responded only with details of the memorial service.

After inquiries from reporters yesterday afternoon, remarks that Bok made at a Faculty of Arts and Sciences meeting Tuesday concerning the shooting were posted on the University’s Web site.

“Our hearts go out to the faculty, students, and staff at Virginia Tech—and especially to the families and friends of those who lost their lives,” Bok said in the statement.

ACROSS THE IVIES

Official university responses to the tragedy have received markedly different reactions across the rest of the Ivy League.

A staff editorial in yesterday’s Columbia Daily Spectator criticized that university for being “slow in publicly responding to the event.”

According to a statement posted yesterday on Columbia’s Web site, the university’s president, Lee C. Bollinger, wrote to his counterpart at Virginia Tech on Monday to express condolences. Columbia also held a candlelight vigil last night.

Yale University Chaplain Frederick J. Streets said both he and University President Richard C. Levin had reached out to the Virginia Tech community.

“Two days ago, we started thinking about how we might respond,” he said in a telephone interview. “The president sent a letter and I called the president’s office at Virginia Tech and offered the support of our office to them if we could be helpful.”

Brown undergraduates received an e-mail the evening of the incident informing them of the shootings, announcing a candlelight vigil that night, and offering contact information for support services at the school.

“People who are really, really grieving, who had friends and family at Virginia Tech, may not have thought it was enough, but I personally am really satisfied and really impressed by how fast the administration responded,” said Brown freshman Molly A. Jacobson. “I don’t think that I personally can think of anything more they could have done.”

—Christian B. Flow, Claire M. Guehenno, Laurence H. M. Holland, and Brittney L. Moraski contributed to the reporting of this article.

—Staff writer Clifford M. Marks can be at cmarks@fas.harvard.edu.

FOR MORE INFO: Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Princeton, UPenn, and Yale have all issued letters of condolences to their students.

Harvard's memorial service be will held today in Memorial Church at 10 p.m. The service will begin on the church's porch and then move inside.  Reverend Peter J. Gomes will speak.