Amid the morning bustle of Penn's campus yesterday, students stopped to remember the terrible events on another college campus one year ago.
To commemorate the one-year anniversary of the shootings at Virginia Tech, the Undergraduate Assembly organized a campus-wide moment of silence at 11 a.m. yesterday.
"The shootings are such a tragedy that it's appropriate to have a moment of silence to honor the people who were killed and make a point that we support them, sympathize and stand with them in their sorrow," said Engineering freshman Joe Weinhoffer, who attended the moment of silence on College Green.
About 100 students stood in a giant circle on the Green with bowed heads. In spite of the noise of the city and the lawnmowers in the background, the group was silent. Other students walking by stopped to join in as well.
"I'm a huge advocate of peace, and it really hurts my heart to hear about all the tragedies in the last year," said College senior Natasha Mooney. "I think it's really important that we show solidarity with our peer group, even if we don't know them."
Mooney had tears in her eyes as she spoke. She wasn't the only one.
College senior and UA chairman Jason Karsh also said it was important to acknowledge last year's massacre at Virginia Tech, where a gunman took 32 lives before killing himself.
"I think the tragedy hit close to home for any college student nationwide," he said. "It reminds us how lucky we are on an everyday basis to not have these hardships, and this was a way for us to come together and commemorate the tragedy."
Karsh said he was pleased with the event as a whole.
"We started coordinating it yesterday, so the turnout was fantastic," he said.
Karsh added that he hopes to hear about classes that held their own moments of silence at 11 a.m. yesterday.
College freshman Hannah Skop had a moment of silence in her morning class.
"It meant a lot to me because a lot of people from my community know someone who goes to Virginia Tech or go there themselves," she said.
