Monty Korpe, a junior philosophy major and Andy Koch, a senior management major, wrote and presented the SGA's House of Representatives with the legislation.
"An extremely traumatic event happened here at Virginia Tech that affected most, if not all of us," Korpe said. "We will all be feeling it; it's going to be on all of our minds, and I think that this is the best way for the community as a whole to deal with it."
The resolution is now out of their hands, and will be placed in front of SGA President Adeel Khan. If endorsed by Khan, it will then be approved as the official voice of the student body, and be forwarded on to the university's administration for final review.
The legislation specifies that the Tech administration should label April 16, 2008, as a campus-wide day of memorial, where no classes, meetings, or organized events should meet, unless deemed directly related to the tragedy, in honor of the victims.
However, Koch said this memorial is not planned to simply give students a break from academic work.
"We hope that people will do service on that day and participate in memorials," Koch said. "It is going to bring back a lot of memories for people. To Monty and I, the vision is not a day off, but a day of remembering those lost through our service."
Korpe noted that the legislation was first drawn up last year, towards the end of the spring semester, but did not have enough to time to pass. Since its original authors are no longer members of the SGA, Korpe decided to reintroduce it after making several changes to its language. The original resolution called for an annual April 16 holiday, whereas Korpe's bill only specifically mentions April 16, 2008.
"I thought it was pretty important," Korpe said. "I realized that when we do things at the end of the semester they tend to collapse because of all the people moving through. I asked the speaker of the house earlier this year, and took it up after he said we didn't need a sponsor."
After Korpe had drawn up the idea and gained the support of Koch, a survey of approximately 1,000 students was conducted.
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