Jim Dickens / SPPSPresident Steger opened up about April 16 and the impact it has had over the past year.
Last April 16 was the beginning of his immersion into dealing with those hurt, injured, and lost as well as their families; taking on a slew of policy change and four different review panels, facing questions about his administration's reactions to the shootings, all while leading one of the largest and most prominent schools in Virginia forward amidst the heartbreak and chaos. In the first part of his interview with the Collegiate Times, President Steger addresses the issues stemming from the shootings one year ago. Look in the regular edition of the CT for a more personal interview with the president.
Caroline Black: As far as policy goes, obviously the past year has seen exponential growth in policy change, as far as security policy goes, as was recommended by the three internal review boards, how do you feel Tech's progress is in that area at this point?
Charles Steger: You know, we had over 400 recommendations. Some conflict with each other, some have several ways to get to a solution. We had all the various groups, including committees of our board, we had students, faculty, staff participating, and we put those 400 -- I think it was 430 recommendations into 33 major initiatives -- which were prioritized by these different groups. Just a few weeks ago we allocated the final stage of funding. Everything we do is very expensive — just changing the panic bars on the doors is over $1 million. I think by this coming fall, virtually all the initiatives that were articulated will be done. You've always got to continue to work on them, and I'll give you one example. VT Alerts: we've got about 20,000 people signed up. The fact is though, we have 26,000 students, we have 7,000 full-time employees, and 4,000 part-time employees, so we still have a ways to go to really permeate that group if we want to send out a message. However, if you look at the sign-up rates around the country, they're only about 40 percent, so we're a lot better than those, but we still have a ways go to on that. So, while we've done all those things, we're still going to have to work on them and every year, a new freshman class comes in.
CB: You mentioned the process of implementing security measures was put into the final stages of funding, what was that process like?
CS: We've spent now over $12 million in responding to all of these recommendations. A lot of that money is in terms of counseling and counselors and things like that. The Office of Recovery and Support that works with the families costs about $1 million a year. It was a very good thing to do; there are very real resources that go to that. After we prioritized the steps we would take, then we asked people to go and get real numbers. We didn't just sit around the table and say, "Maybe that's going to cost $500,000." We went to the vendors and things, and came back with real numbers. Then we authorized the funding, and they're being implemented as we speak right now.
CB: As far as the monetary aspect, where is the university now? Are you still anticipating federal grants? How much deficit is there now?
CS: Well, a lot of the grants have not come in; I'm hoping they will. These things are important, but we paid for it. We got $1.3 million from the state, the rest of it we paid for by ourselves, which means that we didn't do a lot of other things, so this has a real impact on the institution.
CB: What kinds of things had to be compromised for the additional funding?
CS: We didn't compromise anything. The things that we felt were very important, we funded, and I have to still figure out how I'm going to pay for it.
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