Virginia Tech Massacre: Penn profs ask, 'What if it happened in my class?'

When History professor Kristen Stromberg heard of the 33 dead at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, her first feeling was one of immense sadness.

Then, her thoughts turned toward Penn.

"What if it happened here?" she asked. "It horrified me."

Three days after the Virginia Tech massacre, Penn professors, graduate associates and residential advisors are asking themselves what they would have done in a similar situation in which dorms and classrooms become sites of a massacre.

Linguistics lecturer Beatrice Santorini said the Virginia Tech incident was an entirely different situation than most staff members at Penn are prepared for.

"When people do this sort of thing, they go into autopilot," she said. "It's very difficult to reach them, and, with guns, it's a different thing."

And because reasoning with the attacker might prove ineffective, Santorini said she would hope "to be the first to protect my students."

"If you're an instructor, you're job is to take care of your students," she said.

Others, like Spanish professor Claudia Mendez, said paying attention to students' mental health is the best way to prevent mass shootings on campus.

"In the University, we feel we are in an ivory tower and nothing can happen to us," she said. "But we need to be aware of other people because anybody can walk into a classroom. It's overwhelming."

Residential Advisors and Graduate Associates, who might also be called upon to respond to such an incident, are thinking about similar hypothetical scenarios.

"I do not have any training for that situation," Anim Sampong, a GA at Stouffer College House, said. "And even if I have training, there's not so much I can do if a person walks in with a gun."

Sampong, a student in the Government Administration Master's program, added that some additional training in this area would help "defend myself and defend other people."

College senior Matt Wolf, an RA in Riepe College House, said RA's and GA's can help more on the preventative side.

"RA's keep an eye on all students, look out for the signs of depression and gauge people to make sure they're okay," he said. "It's one of our best areas."

Facilities spokesman Tony Sorrentino said he did not know if all classrooms have lockable doors but said that, during the planning and renovation process of both on and off-campus buildings, architects consult Division of Public Safety officials on "how [each] building should operate to maximize the safety of the Penn community."

In the meantime, some students say that, from now on, they will participate more in evacuation drills and get more acquainted with University buildings.

"Most people try to avoid the drills because it disrupts your work," Engineering freshman Xinyu Lau said. "But I feel that for a short while after this attack, people will be more aware of what you should do."

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