After a very long day for those of Virginia Tech and for many others, President Alan Merten yesterday addressed a candlelight vigil beneath the Mason clock tower just nigh of midnight. He spoke briefly yet with clear intention to the collective of students who fought against the wind both to keep their candles lit and to remain themselves despite the cold.
This was the advice he had to give:
"First of all, I want to thank Jacob [Jenkins] and others for organizing this event this evening. It's very important that we at George Mason University reach out to the entire Virginia Tech community. These are our brothers, these are our sisters, these are our friends, these are people that are now going through an enormous, an enormous, amount of stress.
I watched today on the television, I'm sure as you did, to watch how people are struggling with this. We have a responsibility - I feel it personally, I hope you feel it personally - if we know people at Virginia Tech that our next, not just days but weeks or months, that we reach out to them and we ask them, 'How can I help, how can I help? How are you feeling?' And if they don't give us an answer right away we ask them again.
Because in a sense, I don't think that people are going to really realize what they are going through for a long period of time. And we have a responsibility to work with them.
I'm very proud, I'm so proud of being president of George Mason University because of our students and tonight, having you all here, is just one more reason that convinces me that we at George Mason are doing something right; and now we have the opportunity to show it again.
I hope that over the days and weeks that we have more of these vigils to remind ourselves and to remind our friends at Virginia Tech that we care about them.
Keep the people of Virginia Tech in your thoughts and in your prayers. I know that's what I'm doing."
