May 25, 2022
Dear University Community:
There are no adequate words to describe the feeling of watching this national tragedy unfold again.
Before we’ve had time to catch our collective breath from the last mass shootings, we learned that an 18-year-old gunman massacred 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas yesterday.
Once again, we are in mourning. Once again, our hearts are broken.
Our experience does not become more bearable with time or repetition. It hurts to witness the grieving parents who dropped their children off at school, never to see them alive again. It hurts to know that teachers, who’d dedicated their lives to educating young minds, were gunned down in the act of doing what they love. It hurts to know that families will gather for holidays and birthdays, and always there will be an empty spot at the dinner table.
Whether it’s Sandy Hook in Newton, Connecticut, Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Tops supermarket in Buffalo, New York, or Geneva Presbyterian Church in Orange County; whether it's 10 years ago or yesterday, this does not get easier. The more it happens, the more we must confront the question “why?”
Kids should be able to sit in a classroom with their teachers without fearing that bullets flying from an assault weapon will strike them. This is not too much to ask.
Yet, it’s in the most mundane, everyday acts of life that this hideous violence has interjected itself: an elementary school classroom, a supermarket, a church.
Our flags on campus had been at half-staff for the million lives lost to COVID-19. But there is another plague on our nation that we cannot ignore. We owe it to grieving families in communities across this nation. We owe it to those who have died. And we owe it to our future to remember the loss and grief and to say: No more.
During our Commencement ceremonies today, we observed a moment of silence for the victims of the shooting in Uvalde. Our flags are at half-staff for them. We extend our deepest condolences to the families of the victims and our prayers to the survivors and the community. We join with people around the nation in condemning gun violence.
Sincerely,
William A. Covino
President