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College violence prompts open forum

Campus violence calls for SVSU community to voice concerns in open forum

by Patrick O'Hara
Vanguard City Editor

March 10, 2008 —

SVSU's campus is not known for gratuitous violence, and many employees and faculty of SVSU that would like to keep it that way are welcoming members of the SVSU community to attend an open forum held by the Cardinal Leadership Institute to voice their concerns.

Attending the forum is a panel of campus officials including SVSU Police Chief Ron Trepkowski, Vice President of Student Services and Enrollment Management Robert Maurovich, Director of Counseling and Health Services Tony Thomson, and other SVSU faculty members from numerous specialty departments including psychology and sociology.

Those participating in the forum are doing so out of concern that SVSU does not replicate the campus violence that has occured in other American universities.

Some nationally-recognized examples of campus violence include the shootings at Virginia Tech in April of 2007 in which a gunman, Cho Seung-Hui, a Virginia Tech student , shot and killed 30 students and faculty members before ending his own life.

The violence forum is also held in light of the more recent Northern Illinois University shooting that took place in February of 2008, in which former NIU student Stephen Kazmierczak, shot and killed five students before turning the gun on himself.

Although SVSU has been without gun violence, it was recently introduced to a case of threatening dialogue made by a student.

An SVSU faculty member reported to University Police that a student made violent comments during class. When questioned by police, the student denied saying such things.

The police said the student is not a threat to SVSU's campus, although they do keep a close watch on students labeled as potential causes for concern.

The open forum for campus violence will take place on Wednesday at 7 p.m. in the Multi-Purpose Room. Anyone interested in more information can e-mail the Cardinal Leadership Institute at ngtereck@svsu.edu.

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