This isn’t right, this isn’t right. Mustansiriya in January, Virginia Tech yesterday.
People who have spent time at colleges and universities know the powerful sense of sanctuary that can come with being on a campus. I think back to my undergraduate days, when all Hampshire College felt like our dorm room, when we’d sit up in the main lecture hall until 3 am watching the fiber optic lights change colors. I think of students coming to class in their pajamas at Mount Holyoke. I think of crossing the bridge over Paradise Pond at Smith in the middle of the night and wandering the campus, feeling safe as could be. I think of the cocoon-like safety of a classroom, instructor and students engaged in a beautiful unruly symphony of engaged minds generating thoughts and ideas, windows fogging over, darkness falling and no one noticing.
That’s all been shattered for so many people, here, there, and everywhere.
The world ends every day. For those of us in academia, there’s a special poignancy when it happens on a campus. To those at Virginia Tech, to those at Mustansiriya University, our hearts go out to you.