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Following Sunday’s shooting at the University of Virginia, Biko Gray, an assistant professor of religion at Syracuse University, said his students feel terrified and hopeless.

Suspect Christopher Darnell Jones Jr. allegedly shot and killed three UVA students and injured two others on their way home from a field trip Sunday evening. Gray addressed the tragedy at Wednesday’s University Senate meeting, discussing the university’s response to the shooting. Senators also reviewed the latest timeline for the Academic Strategic Plan.

Gray asked how SU’s leadership would protect the university’s campus if SU experienced a similar situation to the shooting. Following the shooting, UVA ordered students to shelter in place for 12 hours until Jones was in custody.

Jones currently faces charges for three counts of second-degree murder and five additional charges for the alleged use of a handgun in the commission of a felony as well as malicious wounding. Jones is set to appear in court on Dec. 8.

In response, Chancellor Kent Syverud said SU is working to train university staff on active shooter situations and threat assessments.

“I am just hoping that given whatever complexities this institution might have, it might be pushed up the chain to address this so that we are not in a position where we’re canceling classes because a student did something that is absolutely heinous,” Gray said.

Gray also urged Syverud to use the university’s lobbying capabilities to push for changes that would work toward ending gun violence. Unlike most nonprofits, nonprofit universities like SU are able to lobby on issues that affect the university community according to particular guidelines.

“We have this issue at both the state and the federal level,” Syverud said. “We are fortunate not to be a state that has gone all the way to concealed carry on-campus, as some states have done.”

In June, the Supreme Court struck down a New York state gun control law from 1911 in a 6-3 decision, which required state residents looking to carry a handgun in public to present a “special need” to defend themselves.

Gov. Kathy Hochul later announced new concealed carry laws as a result of the decision made in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen, with the new regulations prohibiting firearms, rifles, and shotguns in colleges and universities.

“I just want to assure you we aren’t complacent about this,” Syverud said. “It’s consumed a lot of time and a lot of us this week … and all I can say is people are aware and working on it.”

Members of the University Senate also discussed the ASP in Wednesday’s meeting, culminating several months of university engagement opportunities.

Gretchen Ritter, vice chancellor, provost and chief academic officer, said that as of Wednesday’s meeting more than 1,600 students, faculty and staff contributed to the ASP through public discussions, campus engagement sessions and forums since September.

“I can’t stress enough how important your engagement has been to this whole process,” Ritter said. “As I said from the beginning, my goal here is that we (the university) create an academic strategic plan that is collectively created, owned and implemented.”

Ritter said the ASP will begin its shift to the next stage of its development process over the holiday break, when SU will begin work on a draft report to be posted on the Academic Affairs website in January 2023. SU expects to finalize the ASP in March 2023.

“Our university communities have been engaged in a robust and intensive exercise to reimagine and redefine academic excellence at Syracuse,” Ritter said. “It will be really important to circulate this to get people’s thoughts and feedback on whether or not we got it right.”

Published on November 17, 2022 at 2:08 am

Contact Dominic: dcchiapp@syr.edu | @DominicChiappo2