Going to Virginia Tech for football is one of the great memories of my college days. Today, I am thinking of Virginia Tech in a different way.

I am sitting here trying to figure out a good way to get a hold of a friend from church to see if her daughter is okay. I cannot imagine the agony of being 500 plus miles from my daughter if something like this were to happen at her campus. How do you reassure the young that everything is okay? How do you hold your young when you cannot be near?

What has happened today in Blacksburg is unthinkable. It is not something we prepare our children/young adults for when we send them off to college. It is not unheard of but it is unthinkable.

It is, also, not something that we can prevent. To have a college campus be cordonned off from the rest of the city it is in or near is not an option. To have a college campus not have backpacks it not an option. To have a college campus have metal detectors in all buildings is not an option.

Colleges and universities are places of learning and education. The items learned should not be how to deal with grief nor how to avoid being shot. Colleges and universities are places where free exchange of ideas must take place. This exchange cannot take place in a “police state,” with metal detectors to get in every building.

Colleges and universities need to be a place of comfort and home away from home, not a place of slaughter and unthinkable death.