MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — WVU President Gordon Gee issued an open letter to the campus community Sunday pledging the university would “redouble” its efforts in campus safety following separate shootings from Friday and Saturday that claimed one student’s life and injured another student.
Gee said some may doubt campus safety at WVU after what happened but he doesn’t.
“I want to reassure everyone that our University has a commitment each and every day to keep our campus as safe as possible,” Gee wrote.
The incidents of the past two days have our campus concerned. I care about our students as if they were my own children, and I want us to be safe. I pledge to all Mountaineers that we will redouble our efforts to make campus the safest it can possibly be. https://t.co/5DJ2oXPO6U
— E. Gordon Gee (@gordongee) March 1, 2020
Gee called the violence, which included the Friday shooting death of New Jersey sophomore Eric Smith and the Saturday shooting injury of a student from Calhoun County, “an aberration of our life here.”
“Our University Police do an outstanding job of protecting our campus and responding when things go wrong. Our campus is a small city and a microcosm of the world around us. The sad fact is our part of the world is also beset with all the ill — and good — of society at large. We cannot stop bad things from happening — but we can work to prevent them and be prepared for when they do,” Gee wrote.
Gee said he cares for WVU students as if they are his own.
“I pledge to all Mountaineers, both current and future, that we will redouble our efforts to ensure our campus is the safest it can possibly be,” Gee said.