Coping with Crisis: VT and NIU

Student newspaper editors and their advisers from Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University will share their experiences covering their respective schools’ tragic shootings at a free, public forum  6 p.m. Monday, April 7.

Serving as hosts will be the Gaylord Ambassadors, a student organization designed to assist the Gaylord College in recruiting, outreach and external relations.  The event, which coincides with the first anniversary of the April 16, 2007, Virginia Tech University shootings, will be in the Donald W. Reynolds Performing Arts Center, 560 Parrington Oval, on the OU Norman campus.

Also to be discussed is what OU can learn from the experience of VT and NIU. Kelly Furnas and Amie Steele of Virginia Tech will share their experiences of the deadly rampage that killed 32 people in what later became known as the “Virginia Tech Massacre.” Furnas is the editorial adviser for the Educational Media Co. of Virginia Tech and currently assists, trains, motivates and recruits students for the university’s various media, including newspaper, yearbook, radio station, television station, photography and literary magazine. Before working at VT, he worked for newspapers in Las Vegas and Tallahassee, Fla.

Steele is a senior consumer studies major at VT and editor in chief of VT’s independent student newspaper, the Collegiate Times. During her time as editor in chief, the Collegiate Times has earned many honors, including being named a Newspaper Pacemaker winner by the Associated Collegiate Press and finalist for ACP’s Online Pacemaker award.

“We weren’t outsiders looking in like most of the national media; the victims were just like us — they walked past the same buildings, ate in the same dining halls — and there is absolutely no way you can remove yourself from that,” said Steele in an article published in the New York Times after the tragedy.

Northern Illinois University experienced a similar tragedy when a graduate student shot and killed five students and injured many more before killing himself on Feb. 14, 2008. John Puterbaugh, editor in chief of the Northern Star, and adviser Jim Killam, will join Furnas and Steele to share their experiences

Puterbaugh, journalism senior, is editor in chief of the Northern Star for the 2007-08 academic year. Previously, he worked as a copy editor, reporter and copy desk chief for the newspaper. Killam has been adviser for the Northern Star for the past 13 years and previously worked 10 years as a reporter and editor at three daily newspapers in Illinois and Wisconsin. He also teaches journalism classes at NIU and does free-lance writing and photography for several publications.

For more information about the tragedies and campus community reactions, go to http://www.remembrance.vt.edu/.