School Colors,

Or

In the Middle of Life, The Author Changes His Mind and Starts Wearing Orange and Maroon

This is a piece that I've been drafting and re-drafting in my head for the past three months or so. It isn't particularly topical anymore, but is like a clog in a drain...I have to get it out in order to write a few other things.

On the other hand, after being harassed by John's friend Andrea for my clothing, I feel like this has a little bit of currency.

Forget the dining hall food, forget the classes. Forget the new places, the unfamiliar faces, the twangy Southwest Virginia accents. Forget the isolation, the cavernous classrooms, and the strange engineering majors. When I first came to college, my anxieties centered around one thing: school colors.


Some of the colleges that I applied to had colors that were simply strong and shocking, like red and white; some went together in a clever, harmonious way, like orange and blue; and some were impressively historical, like blue and gray. Virginia Tech's burnt orange and Chicago maroon, however, had nothing to recommend them. They were neither beautiful, nor historical, nor even particularly exciting. They were just a random mix of colors that no amount of squinting or deliberate eye-gouging could ameliorate. The more I looked at them, the more they resembled scabs paired with highway safety vests.

Still, I was a freshman, and buying into the rah-rah spirit is a rite of passage, so I dutifully forked over my dough and picked up a sweatshirt, a keychain, a couple of shot glasses, and assorted other overpriced pieces of collegiate merchandise. I carefully arranged my clothes to minimize the effect, pairing my Virginia Tech t-shirt with a tasteful crew-neck sweater or making sure to wear my Tech sweatshirt to fundraisers for colorblind students. Even so, sporting the orange and maroon always had a sense of grim duty, like spending Christmas with an insane aunt or singing the Star-Spangled Banner.

As I progressed through the ranks at Tech, my responsibility to the orange and maroon began to fade. Part of this was my estrangement from the sports program. The last football game I attended, during my freshman year, featured a battle between Tech's Hokies and Clemson's Tigers. Braving a late-fall wind in the upper bleachers, I watched my team's manoevres dissolve into slapstick while the guys behind me put away the better part of a bottle of tequila. At halftime, Tech was hopelessly behind, and one of my fellow fans stuck out his tongue to show me a half-chewed worm. By the end of the game, I had hypothermia, Clemson was playing its second string, and the idiots behind me were throwing up.

Somehow, football games never really regained their cachet.

By the time I got to graduate school, the football team had progressed from a gang of loveable losers to a pack of hired thugs. This was the Christy Brzonkala period, when the gang rape of a female student was splashed across the pages of national papers and was appealed all the way to the Supreme court. While this drama unfolded, the football team regularly attacked other athletes, each other, and random students. Rarely a month went by without some kid showing up at the emergency room sporting the marks of a brutal beating. The football players, of course, were never punished.

As I already pointed out, one needs a very good reason to wear orange and maroon. If it isn't team loyalty, then one must, perhaps, feel a great deal of love for the University. For me, though, this was hard to come by. Perhaps it had to do with the fact that I was accruing a considerable loan debt to attend the school, yet still had to pay exorbitant parking tickets. Perhaps it was the uncaring administrators. Perhaps it was the fact that I once had my account blocked because of a $6.00 discrepancy that later turned out to be the fault of the Registrar's office. Regardless, the University didn't fill me with love. At least, not enough love to convince me to wear orange and maroon.

Later, when I was a teacher, the slogans that they put on the clothes were so horrifying that I could barely stand to look at them in class, much less wear them. Here are a random few:

"Who needs a Benz? We've got a Beamer!"
This one references Coach Beamer, an obnoxious good-old-boy who appears to have a conjoined twin growing out of his neck and makes more money than God. Seriously, Beamer is better funded than several departments at Virginia Tech. I have no love for the man, although I'm impressed by the fact that he's managed to put together a winning football team. It only took him twenty years.

"Get out of our Lane!"
This one references Lane Stadium, the most expensive building on campus. Lane is like a cathedral built to honor Virginia Tech's semi-professional football team. Imagine, if you will, the Statue of Liberty or the Parthenon, except it's dedicated to mammon and mediocrity.

"Stick it in! Stick it in!"
My students repeatedly assured me that this slogan referenced football in some oblique way. However, it is worth noting that none of my male students ever wore it. Not even the gay ones.

So, anyway, I never really felt the need or the desire to wear the school colors. I dutifully put them on for a few years in the early nineties, but my freshman togs eventually fell apart, and I didn't replace them.

Until April 17th.

The day after the shootings, I came to school to try to find my students, attend the convocation, and generally see if I could do anything useful. As I walked to campus, I remembered that I didn't own any Tech swag. More to the point, I realized that wearing the colors would say something to my students, particularly given my outspoken opposition of the past. It was a little chilly, so I bought a maroon and orange striped scarf, which I wore until the afternoon, when it got searingly hot. I later bought an orange and maroon bandanna and a maroon baseball cap, which I wore the next day when I came in. By the time I left for New York, I had picked up a few other baseball caps, a sweatshirt, and an orange polo shirt. I gave a lot of these items out to family members and friends and found that wearing the colors comforted me.

Over the next week or so, I thought about this a lot. I'm not a shop therapy kind of guy, but Tech merchandise was making me feel better. It was like discovering a hitherto-unnoticed congenital disorder or realizing that one really, truly loves Pauly Shore films. I was simultaneously ashamed and comforted.

When I returned to school, I bought a maroon polo shirt for teaching the first day of class. My students noticed it, but we didn't talk about it very much. I told myself that it was for them, but I also realized that it was partially for me. For the first time, I was proud of the colors of my school, although I still didn't understand why.

For the rest of the semester, I trooped the colors. Most days, it was a discreet ribbon or a handkerchief, just a little something to comfort me and make me feel grounded. As graduation approached, I realized why I was wearing these clothes. For the first time in years, I felt a real pride in my school. It wasn't about the football team, which was in the off season, or the administration, which was doing everything it could to cover up its failures. It was about my students, past and present, many of whom were going through the most painful feelings of their lives, yet were attempting to comfort each other. I was struck by the bravery of the young adults that I had helped teach, and the responsibility that they showed for their classmates. For the first time in years, I felt the magnitude of my job, and realized how humbling it is to help a young person become an adult.

Since leaving Tech, I pull out the orange and maroon from time to time. Somehow, wearing it still feels right.

This Thing of Darkness

Okay, as a (now former) teacher, I'm officially allowed to have a few favorite Shakespeare quotes. One of these is the line that Prospero says at the end of The Tempest. Speaking of Caliban, the twisted servant who recently tried to kill him, Prospero says, "This thing of darkness, I acknowledge mine."

I really love that line, both for its mildly goth structure and for the honesty that it contains. While Prospero is proud to acknowledge his intelligent, beautiful daughter Miranda, he must also accept responsibility for his deformed, angry slave Caliban. This rings true: as any parent will attest, it's easy to take credit for a successful, brilliant child, but much harder to admit responsibility for a shambling disaster.


Case in point: I proudly admit a measure of responsibility for my former student Ian MacFarland. A couple of weeks ago, Ian published copies of Seung-Hui Cho's plays on AOL news. Ian told me that he has received a great deal of criticism for this, but I think that his reason for releasing the plays is sound:

[I] put myself in the shoes of the average person researching this situation. I'd want to know everything I could about the killer to figure out what could drive a person to do something like this and hopefully prevent it in the future. Also, I hope this might help people start caring about others more no matter how weird they might seem, because if this was some kind of cry for attention, then he should have gotten it a long time ago.

The publication of these plays also had a more immediate effect: they opened up a wide-ranging discussion of Seung-Hui Cho's conduct in the university and the myriad warning signs of his impending breakdown. In the weeks following Ian's release, numerous other students and teachers have come forth to talk about Seung-Hui. A consistent picture has emerged of a disturbed recluse who openly discussed his bizarre fantasies of murder and torture. According to various reports, Seung Hui repeatedly stalked his classmates, wrote revenge fantasies that seemed to target his teachers, and was a consistently disruptive influence in class. The question, of course, is why the University didn't do something a long time ago. As Virginia Tech has repeatedly pointed out, colleges have very few options in matters of student rights, but it's worth asking why the school didn't pursue this problem more agressively. Given Virginia Tech's claim that it "Invents the Future," one has to wonder why it wasn't invested in inventing a solution to this problem.

One major issue is the University's method, or lack thereof, for dealing with disturbed students. When issues crop up in the classroom, teachers generally follow the same protocol. We complain to a department administrator, who tells us that there's nothing we can do until the student commits a crime. We, of course, knew this already; we only complained so we could go on the record as having complained, which proves useful when the student acts out and the whole thing becomes a legal case.

That's it. There's no official procedure that we can follow, no university administrator to whom we can appeal. Nothing is written down, nothing is recorded, and nothing is done. I have been through this process a few times and have always found it to be a miserable, insulting experience. There's nothing quite like being told that your fears are meaningless and your safety isn't a priority to make you question your place in the universe.

As Ian points out, the situation is even worse for students who wish to report a problem:

While I "knew" Cho, I always wished there was something I could do for him, but I couldn't think of anything. As far as notifying authorities, there isn't (to my knowledge) any system set up that lets people say "Hey! This guy has some issues! Maybe you should look into this guy!" If there were, I definitely would have tried to get the kid some help. I think that could have had a good chance of averting yesterday's tragedy more than anything.

In Seung-Hui's case, the complainant was Nikki Giovanni. Because Nikki is Virginia Tech's only famous poet, her report holds a little more significance than the rest of ours. Still, she had to threaten to quit before Lucinda Roy, the head of the department, offered to tutor the student in her office. Even so, this was hardly a reasonable solution: Lucinda was terrified of Seung-Hui, but was repeatedly told by the University that there was nothing that could be done. Part of the problem here is that the University, and academia in general, is legally hamstrung in these situations. Because of privacy issues, the University cannot discuss student conduct with parents, and cannot compel students to undergo psychiatric evaluation.

Clearly, the University needs to develop safeguards to protect itself and its students. However, rather than use the April 16th shootings to pursue laws or internal procedures that will improve the situation, the University is in full lockdown mode. By April 17th, my department had sent out an e-mail stating that "Legal Counsel's office asks that you not make statements to the press or anyone while the investigation is pending." Fearing for their jobs, most teachers followed this directive. The notable exceptions were Nikki Giovanni, Lucinda Roy, and Lisa Norris. In the ensuing weeks, all three have become very silent, and I wonder if they were threatened.

A few days after the first e-mail, we recieved this message from the university: "Legal Counsel's office has asked me to remind you that it is inappropriate to speak to anyone, including the press, about a student's behavior in class. FERPA rights survive death. We must be especially careful not to talk about other students or similar cases of troubled students who have exhibited strange behavior in class." While I understand the need to protect a student's legal rights, I'm pretty sure that Seung-Hui Cho's family won't be suing. What I'm far less sure about is that other families won't sue. Of course, FERPA is less pressing in this case; the University's culpability is the real issue here.

When Tech realized that threatening the livelihoods of its professors had produced a truly disturbing level of silence, they relented. We were officially encouraged to talk about the tragedy, as long as we didn't discuss Seung-Hui. In fact, we were given specific points to push in interviews. Here's part of the e-mail that we received:

Next, I want to share with you the messages we think are important to convey. These messages are part of Virginia Tech's continuing efforts to support one another as our community regroups to grieve, heal and move forward:

1. We will not be defined by this event [...] as an academic family we will endeavor to analyze, learn and, ultimately, come to some understanding of the event. Our Principles of Community remain our values [...] Virginia Tech--our traditions, community, history, and promising future--will prevail. Our motto Ut Prosim (That I May Serve) underscores our spirit [...]Finally, everything we do as we move forward will commemorate, honor, and respect the numerous individuals affected by this tragic event.

2. Invent the Future [...] "Invent the Future" captures our role and spirit as a world-renowned research institution. Nothing in the events of last week will alter who we are and what we represent. When classes resume, our academic excellence, the commitment and talent of our students, and our clear role in shaping a positive future for the world will again be apparent. Hokies are, and always will, embody learning, discovery and engagement.

3. Embrace the Virginia Tech Family [...] We are a unique, special family--more enduring and closer to one another than a typical university community [...] Assisting the families and friends of those injured and bereaved is our focus. We are also committed to the assistance and support of one another [...] We will nurture the legacy of the 32 Virginia Tech family members we lost. The Virginia Tech family will celebrate their lives and accomplishments. Our memorials to them, both public and private, will reflect those sentiments.

It is also our intention to do whatever we can to promote the healing process within our community. We consider our communications to be a critical element of that process. We are regaining control of the Virginia Tech reputation and legacy, and believe these messages are crucial to accomplishing that goal.

My students have talked to me about the interviews they have given, and I have encouraged them to talk to the press. If Virginia Tech is to become stronger from this atrocity, I think it will have to do so in spite of its administrators, not because of them. Clearly, the University is neither prepared to nor invested in changing its institutional structure to ensure that this sort of tragedy doesn't happen again. Until Virginia Tech acknowledges "this thing of darkness," it will be incapable of protecting itself and its students against further atrocities.

Memorials

The first day went really well. I chatted with my students before class began, and after everyone had filed in, I told them all to take out a sheet of paper, as we were going to have a quiz.

They looked at me with terror. They hadn't read the book in a week.

I smiled and said "joke." The students started laughing. I think they were happy to see that some things hadn't changed.

We talked about the remainder of the semester, how I was readjusting the class requirements to help them finish with high grades, and what they had done in their time off. Finally, I told them that they could leave if they wanted, but that some of them had expressed an interest in talking about the situation on campus. In most of my classes, about half of the students left.

My students are trying to figure out how to feel about this. So is the University. It was a day of memorials, of trying to decide how to commemorate the event. Early in the morning, the university assembled on the drill field while the bells in Burruss tolled 32 times. Every time they tolled, a white balloon floated up from the crowd. Across campus, everyone froze and watched the ceremony:




When the ceremony was finished, they released a bunch of orange and maroon balloons and everyone paused to watch them.




On the way to my first class, I noticed the Addison Caldwell statue. "Addy" was Virginia Tech's first student, and he supposedly walked 26 miles to come to the University. They installed the statue this year. I think he looks like a cross-dressing female character from Little House on the Prairie. At any rate, he was sporting a little orange and maroon today:


I also stopped by Norris Hall:




There is currently a little debate on what the University will do with Norris. Some people are arguing that it should be razed and replaced with a memorial, while others think that it should be remodeled. Given the history of the University, the crowded classroom conditions on campus, and Norris' ciderblock construction, my guess is that they will keep Norris around, and will probably do little to alter the building itself. I'm not sure that this is a bad idea. In some ways, I can't think of a better memorial to the rooms in Norris than their continued use for education.

The campus is blanketed in posters letters, sculptures, and other tributes from across the country. Squires student center is covered in wall-to-wall banners:






The students have produced a few tributes of their own. Outside Burruss, I saw the letters "VT" written in daisies:


And a paper chain:


There are three official memorials. The first consists of 33 "hokie stones" outside Burruss. Each one is surrounded with remembrances of individual victims:




These surround a huge cairn of flowers, gifts, and assorted remembrances:


Basically, the whole thing looks like a landfill the day after the Rose Bowl Parade.

The second official tribute is on the drill field, and consists of 32 sign boards:




People have used these boards to write messages to the victims and to Tech itself:




My favorite memorial was set up by the Campus ministries. It is a few yards of string with 33 pieces of white cloth. Surrounding the cloth are ribbons on which people write their messages to the school and the victims.




I like this memorial because it is so alive. At times, it's a little too alive, as the ribbons can do some serious damage when whipped around by the wind. However, it's the lightest of the memorials, and the most comforting. There's something powerful about seeing the memories and kind wishes dancing in the air.


Tech is still trying to figure out how it will embrace this tragedy, and how it will fashion its memorialization. It's pretty amazing to watch the school slowly decide how it will form its institutional memory. In the meantime, the students are getting commemorative tattoos:

Back in the Saddle

I drove back from New York today. It was wonderful spending a few days with the wife and George, not to mention seeing my sister Jen, her fiance, and my godmother. Misanthropster and I played tourist on the south end of Manhattan, and she helped iron out a few of my creases, putting up with my occasional bursts of crankiness. It was amazing reconnecting with my daughter, who has really grown up in the last month. She has a wonderful, wicked sense of humor, and got a real kick out of testing boundaries with daddy. I was too happy to get up in arms about her silliness.

On my first morning in New York, I went out to move the car, as the street sweeper was running through my godmother's neighborhood. After parking the car a few blocks away, I walked back to the apartment. Along the way, a dog almost tripped me with his leash. His owner looked at me with big eyes and apologized profusely. I wondered why she was so apologetic until I looked down and realized that I was wearing a Tech sweatshirt. This happened a few other times, but it always took me by surprise. I was amazed that, even in a city as big as New York, people were still so quick to console.

Of course, some people took this for granted. Misanthropster and I noticed a homeless man was wearing a Virginia Tech sweatshirt to elicit sympathy. To be honest, however, it is quite possible that he was an actual Tech graduate. My bet would be that he majored in Philosophy or English.

I drove back from New York in record time. When I stopped off for gas in southern Pennsylvania, a man at one of the other pumps nodded at the magnetic VT decals on the side of my car and said "Nice." I told him that I taught at Virginia Tech. He asked me if I knew the killer and I said him that I didn't. He shook his head.

Once I entered Virginia, I noticed things starting to change. The first thing was that the highway warning signs were all flashing the same message: "Welcome Virginia Tech. Drive Safely." Every thirty miles or so, I'd see another one of these signs and think about the fact that the cars around me were filled with Tech students who were traveling South, unsure about what the next few weeks are going to hold.

At Harrisonburg, where James Madison University is situated, the students decorated one of the highway overpasses with orange and maroon fabric, a la Christo's Central Park installation. It was a beautiful gesture from a rival school, and I found myself getting back into the pride tinged with melancholy that I felt before I left town. I had the same feeling when I passed the Days Inn located north of Staunton, whose sign flashed the following message:

Great Rooms
Great Rates
God Bless the Hokies

In the entire trip, I only saw one car pulled over. I wonder if the police were taking it easy on the Tech traffic. Regardless, the cars around me were showing the grim determination that characterizes the school. I don't know if everyone is eager to go back or is dreading it, but I do know that they were hell-bent for leather, driving at top speed to return to Blacksburg. As I passed cars, I noticed messages written on the windows in orange electrical tape: "Hokie Nation," "Hokies Forever," and "We Are Virginia Tech." Unlike the shallow rah-rah that usually characterizes Virginia Tech, this touched me, not least because it shows some of the determination and pride that, at its best, is one of Tech's greatest trademarks.

Driving down Route 460 into Christiansburg, I noticed a car pulled over to the side of the road. A young man was sitting on the ground, crying, while his friend hugged him. I'm proud of the students of Tech. They're dealing with some of the hardest emotions that they will ever have to digest, and they're helping each other deal with loss.

I'm worried about what I'm going to say when class starts tomorrow. I always have a friendly banter with my students, and I generally try to help them address the current problems in their world. Simply speaking, I don't know what I can say, what words I can use, to help them make sense of this tragedy. I don't know if even discussing it is presumptuous. I thought about this on the drive down, and I have a few ideas, but I'm still nervous.

Last night, I had a nightmare. I dreamed that it was tomorrow, and that I was trying to help my students finish out the semester. I was teaching in Whittemore, one of the big lecture halls that seats 300 people, and the room was dimly lit. As I tried to talk, the lights flickered and I saw my students faces covered in thick white pancake makeup, like Japanese Noh theater. Their hair was dark and oily. They began to squawk like crows, and the shadowy outlines of their bodies looked like slick black feathers. As I tried to calm them down, they got increasingly distressed and started squawking more and more loudly. I finally woke up. I looked up at the ceiling for a little while and finally snuggled into my wife's back. I fell asleep a few minutes later.

Of course, having listened to Dane Cook recently, I realize that the dream means that I'm a deeply closeted homosexual. Did I mention the crab?

The nightmare was actually somewhat reassuring. Regardless of what happens tomorrow, I can guarantee that my students won't be turning into birds. I can deal with just about everything else.

Today at Tech

Today I tried to wrap my mind around yesterday.

I went to the Tech campus to meet with a few students. We talked a little, but nobody really had much to say.

On the way to school, I kept seeing signs about yesterday. Here's the off-campus bookstore:



Virginia Tech was a weird mix of bustle and silence. I had to park about a mile away from campus, as Blacksburg was overwhelmed with media, parents, and other assorted visitors. However, most of the school was empty.

Here's the entrance to Squires student center:







Inside the student center, there was a billboard where people wrote notes:











I pass Norris Hall, where the shootings occurred, on my way to class everyday. Yesterday, I stopped when I saw the building surrounded by police cars. Here's a few pictures of Norris:









On the way to the convocation, I passed the memorial, which was located on the drill field:











Cassell Colosseum was packed solid, and had incredibly heavy security out front:



So I went to Lane Stadium, where they set up a live feed on the gargantuan TV:







Here's Governor Tim Kaine on the big ol' TV:



And here's George the Second on the big ol' TV:





Outside the stadium, I saw a big tank:



So, anyway, that was pretty much my day. I was going to go the candlelight vigil tonight, but I just feel a little wrecked.

This afternoon, my last student checked in. He'd gone home, and hadn't checked his e-mail. Now that I know my kids are safe, I'm moving from anxiety to anger.

Most of my students have gone home, and I'm following suit. Tomorrow morning I'll be going to New York to see my wife and daughter. I might not be posting much, if at all, for the next few days. Right now, I'm just mad as hell at the University, and I need to work around that before I can be really productive again.

Thank you all for your kind words, thoughts, and prayers. They mean more than I can express.