Staff Council Corresponds with Virginia Tech

Date: April 19, 2007

Dear Councilors and all,

At the urging of Mary Greer, I wrote to the leadership of the Virginia Tech Staff Senate.  As you read the exchange you will understand that they indeed want the healing process to begin.  I was unaware of the orange and maroon observance and am hopeful that our campus will find a way to pay tribute to Virginia Tech.  I was so moved by her words. 

Kathy Klein, President
2007-2008 UI Staff Council 

******

Kathy, 

Thank you so much for your note.  I have sent in on to my Staff Senators.  There is no way anyone can imagine what this is like except those who have gone through it.  One of my Senator’s office was 221 Norris.  The killer passed her office and another office never touching them and then started shooting in the classrooms.  I knew two of the students who were killed.  We are all hurting.  We know that Friday across the nation colleges and Universities is Maroon and Orange day.  What a tribute to us.  Our students have been so supportive of each other.  We also got a wonderful note from the University of Texas who also went through a similar incident.  Both of you know we will heal, but things will never be the same. 

We just cannot wait until the media is gone.  They are making things worse than they are.  Virginia Tech will never be the same, but we will unite and pull together and although it will be hard we will get through this.  My heart aches for our University President.  He is a wonderful man, and he is trying hard to be strong for all of us.

There are no words that can express how we feel.  Monday I was off at the doctors when my husband called their office to tell them what was going on and warn me to be careful going home.  Today I went to a town 45 miles away to do a presentation for the State of Virginia,  but coming back was hard.  I decided that my Staff Senate still needs to meet this week, just so we can be together and start the healing process. 

i don't know how much you know about Virginia Tech.  It is in a quite town in Southwest Virginia.  A town where you feel safe walking the streets at night except when the students get drunk.  We love our Hokies, and everyone here has some contact with the University.  I have two degrees from Virginia Tech, and my husband has worked here for 39 years and I have worked here for 25.  This year I became the first Staff representative on our Board of Visitors.  Not only was I the first at Virginia Tech, but the first in the state of Virginia.  As I sat at the services yesterday,  We were hoping this summer to start contacting Staff governances all over the nation to do a conference on staff governance here.  Strange, we had not thought yet about how to reach all of them, but we will have not problems, all of you are reaching out to us.  We really appreciate the support and caring.  We have all ready started working with out staff with counseling.  It took most of us a day to actually shed tears.  I think Monday we were in too much shock to see this violence happen on our campus.  We had been through two bomb threats in the last two weeks.  We can now see things were building.  Hind site is great, but no one could have predicted that this man was so violent.  What hurts our students is he was one of them.  Our staff and faculty will support our students, wrap our arms around them and let them know we are here for them.  Many of them are with their parents now, but they still have a week and a half of classes and exams. They will hurt, but they will also pull together. 

It is strange how things happen, this summer our Staff Senate was going to start reaching to staff governance from all over the country, now they are reaching out to us to lend caring and support.  We really appreciate that love and support.  We will keep in touch.  

Thank you so much for caring. 

Sincerely

Jean Brickey

Staff Senate President

Virginia Tech. 

-----Original Message-----

From: Klein, Kathy A [mailto:kathy-klein@uiowa.edu]
Sent: Wed 2007-04-18 11:27
To: Brickey, Jean
Subject: You are in our thoughts.

Jean,

I am currently the President of the UI Staff Council for 2007-2008. On behalf of the Staff Council at The University of Iowa and our constituents, I wanted to share our heartfelt sympathies in regard to the events of the past few days.  Time is the only remedy I know of in terms of healing from an event such as this.  Iowa experienced something similar back about 15 years ago, however, the magnitude of our infamous event is nothing in comparison to what happened there.  Though as time has passed, it is still a black day on our campus.  I am sure you are hearing from other campuses around the country.  Please know our thoughts are with your campus as the healing begins.

Sincerely,

Kathy Klein, President
2007-2008 UI Staff Council

Kathy Klein
Graduate College
205 Gilmore Hall
University of Iowa
Iowa City IA  52242
319-335-3492
kathy-klein@uiowa.edu