Grand Valley State University mass e-mail

In an earlier post, I thought it would be interesting to gauge public reaction to the shooting by posting the en-masse e-mails universities are sending to their students. A reader sent this to me from Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan. The school has an enrollment of about 23,300 which is comparable to V-Tech though I'm not sure how that number breaks down between the university's branch campuses.

Message from President Haas on Virginia Tech

The entire Grand Valley State University community is horrified by the tragic events that occurred yesterday at Virginia Tech. We are saddened by the loss of life and injuries, and we offer our deepest condolences to all at Virginia Tech.

We want the Grand Valley community to know that we have had emergency response plans in place for many years. We test, review and update those plans regularly - we did so most recently after the murder of a student at another Michigan university. The university conducts drills of those plans periodically, often
with the cooperation of other public safety agencies, to look for areas where we can improve. We want also to ensure substantive and timely communication.

Dean of Students Bart Merkle and Student Senate president Frank Foster are working together to send a message of condolence on our behalf to their counterparts at Virginia Tech.

Nothing is more important than the safety and well being of our faculty, staff, students and guests. It will always have my undivided attention.

Thomas J. Haas
President
Grand Valley State University

The student had this to say about it:

"I thought it was quite well-written myself, and was pleasantly surprised to see that our university will actually be sending a personal message of condolence."

This e-mail invokes those magical "plans" we talked about earlier, while also going on to say that they're working on showing their sympathy in something a little more tangible than an e-mail or a press release. And really, what more can you do?

My friend from Findlay tells me their student security workers are having a meeting tonight regarding this. Is this happening anywhere else? E-mail me at billiamforty@hotmail.com

Thanks to the student who mailed me this e-mail! I'm waiting on a few more to come in from some people. E-mail me yours!