ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the author's personal perspective on how campus violence and, specifically, the murders at Virginia Tech in April 2007 and at Northern Illinois University (NIU) in February 2008 have affected as a student affairs administrator. Given the student’s history of confrontations with faculty and staff and the student’s question about how to obtain a gun, it was decided that the student should be removed from the university; however, officials were quite concerned that such an action might cause him to react violently. The university police contacted Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the university requested that ICE deport the student immediately upon the student’s dismissal from the university. Staff in student affairs at Illinois State University (ISU) initiated preparations to assist students who had lost family and friends in the NIU incident. Student affairs staff members were also concerned that the gunman might have some connection with ISU.
