LSU’s administration shows insensitivity [2 UPDATES]

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[Update1] I now find the article from the LSU Reveille missing. Screen shots at the end.

[Update2] Runa tipped us that the Baton Rouge PD is looking for three or four “young black males” in connection with the murders.

While we are saddened and baffled by the lack of security in Universities across the country, the lack of sensitivity from a few people hurts us more, like the dumb students who decided to pursue the Virginia Tech horror as a theme for Halloween.

Now someone responsible for sending out campus wide emails over at LSU, managed to send this one out.

The tragic homicides that took place on campus on Thursday evening provided an opportunity for the university to test its new emergency text-message system. Thanks to feedback from members of the LSU community, university officials learned that not everyone who had registered their cellphones with the system received a message.

The university is now investigating the problem with clearTXT, which is the text-message service provider, and is working to fix this problem rapidly. LSU will provide more information when the problem is resolved.

We cannot at this point confirm that this email was sent out by LSU. But as an employee of a University, it baffles me that such important messages are not cleared by proper authority before they hit the airwaves.

According to this Indian newspaper article, the student newspaper of LSU has been inundated with complaints. Searching revealed that, this particular story is no longer on the front page of the student news paper and digging for half an hour, proved useless. All we managed to unearth from our history was the story with partial comments.

The telegraph quotes the following comments and I read these comments (now that LSU Reville has removed access to the comments, we cannot give you an online link)

One LSU student with the screen name, “Raj”, possibly an Indian, wrote in: “LSU, that was by far the most callous statement I have heard in my five years here. The family deserves an apology. The most improper word at the least favourable time. I am just speechless. May their souls rest in peace and God give their families the strength to overcome the sudden loss. Iam looking forward for the press conference.

“Another student, using the initials, “msv”, added:”What is wrong with the university administration?They issue an irresponsible statement using words like”opportunity” when two of their students have beenkilled? How is it they are testing a system at theexpense of such a terrible tragedy and the test fails.I am not sure how the HR (human resources department)functions at the university but if this were in thecorporate world, the person(s) issuing such callousstatements will be subject to serious action.

“Hope the university retracts their message and frames in a more sensitive way. I also hope it issues an apology to the families of the victims and the entire university community.”

Hoping that I could get the LSU Reville to cough up more information on why they had “broken” their commenting system on one particular news story I called the Editor In Chief Mr. Justin Fritscher, only for someone else to answer the phone. “Yes our system is broken and we are trying to fix it, we are not sure about when and if the comments will be back” (paraphrased) was the answer.

While students are parents are upset at the lack of security and the universities decision to pursue their class and exam schedule, we at UD are left wondering about Journalistic integrity and morals.

Granted the student news paper might be heavily funded by the university and there could have been a real technological glitch, but in my opinion it all seems too co-incidental.

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