February 15, 2008

President John D. Welty issued the following statement today in response to yesterday’s shootings at Northern Illinois University:

Once again, violence has caused tragedy on an American university campus and once again we find ourselves asking the unanswerable question: Why?

We offer the entire Northern Illinois University community our condolences and prayers as they deal with the immediate pain of such a horrific occurrence. Our universities’ teams have been opponents four times in football games over the years, but today there is no “us” and “them” – just two communities separated in distance, but united in shock and sadness.

As an Illinois native, your tragedy is deeply personal. I take comfort in knowing we are a resilient people and that close-knit university communities have a unique ability to work through every challenge, no matter how daunting.

The sad reality is that no university can provide a 100 percent guarantee of safety and security. What we can do – and have done even before the tragedies at Virginia Tech last spring and, now, at NIU – is constantly improve our ability to prevent violence and to respond to emergencies.

While we mourn the tragic losses at Northern Illinois, we at Fresno State pledge to continue our efforts to do everything possible to protect our students, staff and faculty.