Taylor University President Eugene Habecker spent months diligently working on his inauguration address. When the day came, however, he scrapped it.
Less than 48 hours earlier, on April 26, 2006, four Taylor students and a dining services employee had been killed returning to Taylor’s Upland, Ind., campus after setting up a banquet for the new president at the university’s other campus in Ft. Wayne. The van in which they were riding was struck by a wayward tractor-trailer rig on I-69.
With people already in route for the inauguration ceremony, the decision was made to continue with the event. But instead of a spirit of celebration pervading the weekend, it was somber and prayerful.
“I threw out whatever else I was going to say that morning and really tried to listen to the Holy Spirit during my remarks,” said Habecker. “I remember standing in front of all those people, in front of the glare of television cameras giving my remarks during that installation service, and it was like God just gave me this thought which I shared with the people: ‘How like God that even before we knew we’d be experiencing this event [the accident], he arranged to have all these other people already on campus on Friday morning to help hold up our arms.’”
Five weeks later, a new twist on the tragedy was revealed: two young women in the accident had been mistaken for each other. Whitney Cerak, who had been declared dead, was recovering under the watchful eyes of Laura VanRyn’s family. Laura had been buried weeks ago as Whitney Cerak.
When tight-knit Christian university campuses are hit with tragedy, they often must grieve on a national scale as the media shines the spotlight on those who mourn. The attention, while sometimes uncomfortable, frequently speeds offers of help and expressions of solidarity from others, while at the same time honoring the lives of the victims.
Public grieving
Taylor’s fatalities were not the only ones mourned that week on Christian college campuses. On April 20, 2006, five students from Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music were killed in a plane crash; two of them were recent alumni of Anderson University, throwing that campus into a state of shock. Just one day after Taylor’s traffic accident, two students from Palm Beach Atlantic University (PBA) were killed in a car accident, as well.
As members of the media came to campus to cover the stories, personal grief was made public.
Then a junior at PBA, Christopher Moody went to the campus chapel, designated for quiet reflection, the day he learned his best friend, Kevin Parks Campbell, had died in the crash. Sean C. MacMillan was the other victim.
“I walked out of the chapel with red, tear-stained eyes, and a local television news reporter and a camera man spotted me and asked for an interview,” said Moody. “I pushed them away at first, but she implored me to speak with her. I asked for a minute to regain composure and offered a few words about my friend. But I could barely understand what was going on, let alone articulate it with a camera and microphone in my face.”
The media swarmed Taylor University in the aftermath of the accident, due to both the severity of the crash and the number of communities affected. The victims hailed from Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan.
“We knew all these kids personally and processed our grief on a national stage; that was difficult,” said Jim Garringer, Taylor’s director of media relations. “I cried on camera on more than one occasion. But people saw in the Taylor community people who grieved with hope.”
Garringer said that the media respected the boundaries the university set in place (such as not entering the memorial service, not interviewing those who were visibly distraught and not interviewing Whitney Cerak once she returned to campus in August 2006) and told the stories in a way that validated and honored the victims and survivors.
Joyce Wood, Taylor’s associate vice president for university relations and marketing, noted that throughout the news coverage of the accident and the mistaken identity, the media had been very willing to report expressions of faith in Jesus Christ.
Other ways of coping with grief publicly (for Anderson and Palm Beach Atlantic University as well) included university Web sites posting news, hosting discussion boards where the public could post condolences, and housing online tributes to victims. Campbell’s MySpace page has become a memorial which is still active today. His friends find solace in posting messages to him online, and his family is gratified to read how well he is loved and remembered.
Designated spaces on campus for prayer, reflection and mourning are another way universities have accommodated collective grief.
Supportive measures
In the wake of the car accident, PBA’s counseling center prepared for an influx of students seeking help. What they found, instead, was that students were taking care of each other.
“What we did see was very healthy Christian community,” said Lisa Stubbs, PBA director of counseling. “Students needed to talk, weep, or vent anger in groups that were probably in relationships that preceded the tragedy, and some that developed as result of casual connection. It was really important for me at that time, in a parental sort of way, to say I’m so proud of you for taking care of each other.”
While Moody did not take advantage of formal counseling while mourning his friend’s death, he felt supported by the university. “They opened up every avenue they could to help us,” he said. “I never felt like the school wasn’t there. At a small school, you have the president of the university, someone who other kids might only see at commencement, who was there consoling you. He knows you and the boy who died. That was a very important dynamic that we were able to receive on campus.”
Bob Neideck, director of Taylor’s counseling center, noticed a similar phenomenon. “We didn’t have this mass of students and faculty/staff rushing to counseling center,” he said. “Our students did such a good job of taking care of each other and our professors had students staying at their homes. It was an exceptional experience to watch the campus care for each other so well that the professionals weren’t all that needed.”
On April 16, 2007, almost a year after these tragedies at Christian college campuses, came the deadliest shooting rampage in American history when 33 people were killed at Virginia Tech. As a public institution, the spiritual questions and needs were not addressed as openly and directly as they are at Christian schools.
“As a public university, faith-based organizations are not officially part of the campus, but many have private facilities off-campus that serve the campus community,” said Mark Owczarski, Virginia Tech director of news & information. “Their activities are done independent of the university because of the separation of church and state. The town of Blacksburg’s faith community played an instrumental role in reaching out to campus, and that world of faith played a role in recovery.”
Several of the victims—both students and faculty—hailed from Blacksburg, and local churches serve Virginia Tech students as well. “Countless prayer and memorial services, offers of assistance and counseling, condolences and other acts of kindness were extended by the many faith communities,” said Owczarski. “I’m sure no one person would know all the acts of kindness that transpired.”
Blacksburg Baptist Church erected 32 flag poles and hung the national flags of each victim in the days that followed the shootings. Balcksburg Baptist Pastor Tommy McDearis was a member of Virginia Tech’s one-year observance planning committee.
In the days and weeks following the accident involving Taylor University, support poured in. In addition to the hundreds of emails, phone calls, flowers and cards, student bodies at other colleges created banners which were displayed in Taylor’s main auditorium. Anderson University provided all the food for the reception after the on-campus memorial service for the victims, even as they were suffering their own loss of two talented alumni, grieving in tandem with Indiana University. John Brown University supplied a memorial tree. High level administrators from Indiana Wesleyan University were present at the hospital to minister to students there. Ball State University and Indiana Wesleyan, among others, offered the services of their trauma counselors. Indiana Wesleyan also supplied buses to take students to memorial services and funerals. The media relations person from Independent Colleges of Indiana drove to Taylor and spent hours fielding media phone calls. Local businesses flew their flags at half-mast; church marquis read: “Taylor, we grieve with you.” The list goes on.
In turn, Taylor has tried to reach out to other schools facing tragedies. Remembering how helpful it was when the funeral director brought in lunch and dinner for the university relations staff the day after the accident, Taylor sent pizza and sodas to their counterparts at Bluffton University when in March 2007, four of their baseball players were killed in a bus crash.
When a tornado devastated the campus of Union University in Jackson, Tenn., in February 2008, Taylor offered to send students, faculty and staff to assist in clean-up efforts. Union had enough volunteers to manage at the time so Taylor did not end up sending a team. Yet, the university aided the building recovery efforts in a different way: Taylor art professor Robert Alsobrook, a 2005 alum of Union, and students in his 3-D design class designed and built a sculpture for Union commemorating God's faithfulness during the tornado. (All but one sculpture in Union’s sculpture garden was destroyed in the tornado.) Taylor supplied funds for the materials and transportation of the sculpture to Union’s Tennessee campus, which is scheduled for September.
For next time
While safety is always a concern for colleges and universities, experiencing their own recent tragedies and observing others make campuses even more alert to taking precautionary measures and finding ways to respond during the next crisis.
“Sometimes our location (rural) makes individuals feel as though they are in a bubble—a safe zone—but the reality is the world is changing and we have to be ready for anything,” said Wood. “On-campus counseling is readily available here as well as support from faculty, staff and students on a more informal basis. Precautions are taken to prevent a variety of crises, but traffic-related, off-site accidents are each very unique. When 15-passenger vans were proven more dangerous, we switched to 12-seaters, but accidents caused by other drivers are always a possibility.”
After watching other schools deal with their own tragedies, new communication methods are being implemented at Taylor, including mass-messaging capabilities for the campus community. Garringer said they’ll most likely do more periodic press conferences next time and use a “lighter” Web site that loads quickly to accommodate the spike in Web traffic.
“In my 13 years being with Anderson University, I’ve noticed a much greater emphasis within the last four years on the concerns of safety and security,” said Chris Williams, Anderson’s director of university communications. “These crises— from traffic accidents to natural disasters to shootings—have heightened the urgency incredibly. There are endless scenarios of what could occur. All you can do is put the best plans you have in place and pray that you never have to use them. Pray you never have to go through those steps.”
Moving on
Prayer, reliance on the Lord’s strength, the Christian testimonies of the victim’s families and the passage of time have all played roles in the healing process for Christian college campuses. Some have added lasting memorials to continue to honor the deceased.
Anderson University established endowed scholarship funds for music majors in the names of Garth Eppley and Zach Novak, the alumni killed in the plane crash.
“Those continue to be very meaningful to the families,” said Williams. “We try to bring the family and the recipient together to meet, and that is a very precious moment. Zach’s and Garth’s memories continue to be honored in this way while directly impacting the lives of other students, and the parents get to see that.”
Last fall, Virginia Tech students, faculty, staff and alumni committed to dedicate 400,000 hours of community service in tribute to those who lost their lives in the April 2007 shooting. Among other special events, the New York Yankees came to play a game against the V. Tech team in March 2008 to boost school spirit. Tickets were free and students had the afternoon off. But the most healing, according to Owczarski, has taken place through the individual relationships of people on campus.
The release of the book Mistaken Identity: Two Families, One Survivor, Unwavering Hope (Howard Books), authored by the VanRyn and Cerak families, helps lend a sense of closure to the Taylor University ordeal.
On April 26, 2008, a thousand people gathered at Taylor University to witness the dedication of the $2.4 million Memorial Prayer Chapel, built as a call to prayer and a memorial to Taylor students Laurel Erb, Brad Larson, Betsy Smith and Laura VanRyn along with Creative Dining Services staff member Monica Felver, who died two years earlier in the car accident.
“The chapel dedication was a healing thing,” said Neideck. “It really did feel like, as a campus, we could kind of close this chapter a little bit. We’ll never forget the students and staff that were killed, or the confusion and disbelief that came with the mistaken identity, but after two years it now feels like it's ok for the campus to move forward. The families will always feel their tremendous loss but God is helping them to heal as well. The dedication of the chapel almost seemed to give ‘permission’ for us all to move from campus wide, almost ‘public’ grief to individual, private grief.”
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