Addressing VCU’s latest actions and inactions

Shane Wade
Opinion Editor

Where does the line for responsibility end and the line for accountability begin?

I ask this as a shameful silence looms over our university’s administration concerning the incident that led to the death of Carolina Perez and the injury of two other students.

Issues of legality force their silence about specifics of the case, but where are their broad, general statements that condemn drunken driving? In the days following the incident, there weren’t even vague references to show that the university has a clear disapproval of actions like drunken driving.

The only mention of the situation was a single email, sent early in the morning, and inevitably amid the flurry of other university messages by a sizable portion of students and faculty, spoke words acknowledging the loss we suffered.

Even now, the official VCU website displays words congratulating our men’s basketball team for their CAA win, but no words to express sympathy for our collective loss. No words to redirect visitors to statistics on drunken driving, no words to acknowledge the life taken by it.

They moved on, put a blanket over everything and silently dealt with it.

VCU has a phenomenally efficient public relations department that performs its job with a cool head and practiced ease. But VCU isn’t a cold, calculating machine; we’re a community that needs a heart. When tragedy strikes, we don’t need the dry words of an email. We need a live, beating heart to console us.

This was a missed opportunity for the administration to take a clear stance defining themselves, but not simply as a university against drunken driving and irresponsible actions. They missed an opportunity to speak out in a meaningful way. They missed an opportunity to make a dent.

But what could the administration have done?

Here’s a start: VCU’s current alcohol and drug policy doesn’t effectively address the consequences of off-campus incidents, like drunken driving. Adjustments to this policy would clarify the consequences of the actions and make students less uneasy about the possible return of students post-incident. Although the current policy addresses students that do drink and drive, they need to go further and address the problem before it reaches that point. Alcoholism is a serious and under-addressed issue that some students deal with, and we would do well to act upon it.

Coordinating with the Richmond police to increase DUI checkpoints in areas where students are known to populate would help decrease similar occurrences.

Blacking out the website banners or replacing a slide or two with pictures of Perez would have shown the level of support that could have addressed the incident in a real, substantive manner. It also would have contributed making the public aware that the administration takes such incidents as both blights on our school and opportunities to better ourselves.

So, where does the line for responsibility end and the line for accountability begin?

Nowhere.

There should be no such lines. But the administration acts as if those lines exist. Being accountable means taking responsibility of both actions taken and actions not taken. Don’t be a machine; be a community; Know that inaction can hurt and be just as demonstrative as action.