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Virginia Colleges React To Coronavirus Pandemic

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Extending spring break, cancelling campus events, and holding classes online are some of the ways colleges in Virginia are attempting to slow the spread of the coronavirus within their student body, faculty, and staff.

Virginia colleges and universities are extending spring break and adapting online classes amid the new coronavirus — along with more than 100 universities nationwide and still counting — after the flu-like illness was declared a world pandemic on Wednesday.

There are nine presumptive positive COVID-19 cases in Virginia, according to the Virginia Department of Health. Most of them are in Northern Virginia, with one confirmed case in Central Virginia.

Professors are quickly pivoting to get material online, and some schools, like Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, are offering resources to help teachers adjust. Many students have expressed concern over lack of digital equipment and internet access.

Most universities are cancelling events with more than 100 attendees and have online resources for students to access updated information. Many colleges have canceled in-person classes, but faculty and staff will continue to work on campus. Below is a sample of universities that have changed schedules to help prevent the spread of the new coronavirus. 

Outbreak response in action: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) staff support the COVID-19 response in the CDC’s Emergency Operations Center (EOC). Photo from the Centers for Disease Control, used with permission.

James Madison University will extend their spring break until March 23 and will teach online classes until April 5. JMU President Jonathan Alger said in a release that students will be updated on the remainder of the semester on March 27.

Longwood University will be closed until March 18, cancelling in-person classes and events following a presumptive positive diagnosis for a Longwood student on Wednesday. In a release, Longwood President W. Taylor Reveley said faculty would continue to prepare for the possibility of online classes.

Norfolk State University extended spring break until March 23 and will teach classes online until April 6. University residences will reopen March 22.

Old Dominion University will resume classes online on March 23 after an extended spring break. ODU President John Broderick said in a statement posted on Facebook that the school would monitor the situation and reassess on April 6. 

Radford University extended its spring break for an additional week and plans to teach online until April 17, according to the university’s website. The university – as most academic institutions are doing – asked that faculty, staff and students complete voluntary travel declaration forms.

“The information will be shared with local health officials as needed on a case-by-case basis,” Radford President Brian Hemphill said in a release. “For those who traveled, the University may ask individuals to self-monitor or self-isolate for two weeks, depending upon the locations that were visited and the activities that were engaged in.”

University of Richmond extended spring break, cancelling classes from March 16-20, and will hold online classes until at least April 3.

The school’s website states that students with extenuating circumstances, such as international students, can submit a petition to stay in on-campus housing, although access to student services and facilities will be limited.

University of Virginia students will also move to online courses starting on March 19, according to a release from U.Va. President James Ryan posted on Wednesday.

“We will not be holding classes on Grounds for the foreseeable future, quite possibly through the end of the semester,” Ryan said in a release. “We will reassess after April 5 at the earliest and periodically after that date.”

Photo via VCU-CNS

Virginia Commonwealth University announced Wednesday that it will extend its spring break for an additional week. When the semester resumes on March 23, classes will be taught remotely for the “foreseeable future.” Classrooms are expected to use digital tools such as Blackboard, videoconferencing and online programs. 

The release from VCU President Michael Rao said details regarding on-campus housing, student services and dining plans are forthcoming.

“I also want to take this opportunity to thank you for being mindful and respectful of others during this outbreak, which is not limited to any particular age group, geographic region, nationality, ethnicity or race,” Rao said.

Virginia Tech’s spring break is extended to March 23, with a transition to online courses for the remainder of the semester. All events with over 100 people are cancelled through at least April 30, though May commencement plans are still in place. 

“Our campus administrators, public health experts, and community leaders have been continuously engaged in monitoring the situation in Blacksburg, across Virginia, and around the world,” a release stated. “In consultation with our partners in the Virginia Department of Health, we are adopting a range of principle-based actions, effective immediately.”

William & Mary will start online classes March 23, after an extended spring break, to continue until at least April 1. University events are cancelled until April 3.

Virginia State University announced Wednesday that it will cancel or modify all scheduled events for the next 30 days. Modifications include pre packaged options in dining halls and livestreams for events, like the Mr. and Miss VSU Pageant and student government activities. Christopher Newport University took a similar approach, by rerouting study abroad plans and limiting serve-served food, according to its website. 

A few colleges remain open at this time: Liberty, Regent, and Hampton universities, and Reynolds Community College.

Transmission electron microscopic image of an isolate from the first U.S. case of COVID-19, formerly known as 2019-nCoV. The spherical viral particles, colorized blue, contain cross-sections through the viral genome, seen as black dots. Photo from the Centers for Disease Control, used with permission.

As of Wednesday, there are 938 confirmed and presumed positive COVID-19 cases in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The bulk of cases are in Washington, California and New York. The infection has caused 29 deaths in the states. Worldwide, more than 118,300 people have the infection, including over 80,900 individuals living in mainland China. The outbreak has killed 4,292, reported the World Health Organization.

For more information about COVID-19 in Virginia, visit www.vdh.virginia.gov/coronavirus.

Written by Hannah Eason, Capital News Service. Top Photo via VCU-CNS

“Active Shooter” Video Game Pulled After Outrage From Parents and School Shooting Survivors

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The release of “Active Shooter”, a school shooting simulation game from Russian publisher ACID, was canceled following outrage from politicians, parents, and school shooting survivors soon after the announcement of its expected launch date on gaming platform Steam on June 6.

A petition on change.org  was created Friday by a parent demanding Valve Corporation, a Washington-based video game developer which owns Steam, take down the PC game. As of May 30, the petition reached over 207,000 signatures with Seattle mom Stephanie Robinett, who launched the petition, voicing her disgust over the game, while urging others to take action.

“We cannot sit silently by while our children are killed and companies do their best to profit from this,” wrote Robinett.

Frank Guttenberg, the father of Jamie Guttenberg, a student who was killed in the February Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida also spoke out on Twitter against the game launch.

Four days after the petition had collected more than 110,000 signatures, and many politicians and parents had spoken out, Valve Corporation announced it would remove the PC game from Steam. The company announced it would also remove all games developed by Revived Games and ACID.

In the announcement, Valve Corporation also identified the developer and publisher as Ata Berdiyev, who had previously been removed from their platform before:

“This developer and publisher is, in fact, a person calling himself Ata Berdiyev, who had previously been removed last fall when he was operating as “[bc]Interactive” and “Elusive Team”. Ata is a troll, with a history of customer abuse, publishing copyrighted material, and user review manipulation. His subsequent return under new business names was a fact that came to light as we investigated the controversy around his upcoming title. We are not going to do business with people who act like this towards our customers or Valve.

The broader conversation about Steam’s content policies is one that we’ll be addressing soon.”

In “Active Shooter,” players could choose between playing the role of a SWAT team member who is responding to a shooting, or portraying an actual shooter whose objective was to “‘hunt and destroy.” The game would have joined a disturbing group of school shooting simulation games that were created following mass shootings such as Columbine and Virginia Tech. These games were met with similar reactions as “Active Shooter.”

The active shooter game “Super Columbine Massacre RPG!” was created by Danny Ledonne, who released the game in April 2005 through a program called RPG Maker, which allows a developer to create and design their own games for the PC. The game, in which players assume the roles of gunmen Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, recreates the 1999 Columbine High School shootings near Littleton, Colorado, which resulted in the murder of 12 students, one teacher, and an additional 21 people injured. The game inspired a documentary, “Playing Columbine,” that chronicled the history of the game from its start to the Dawson College shooting in 2006. “Super Columbine Massacre RPG!” faced intense criticism after it was discovered that the shooter at Dawson College had played the game.

V-Tech Rampage, was a computer game that was created after the horrific 2007 Virginia Tech massacre, where 32 people lost their lives and another 17 were injured. These disgusting games were available on different platforms ranging from gaming websites to unique platforms developed by the games’ creator. The thing that would have made “Active Shooter” different from these other active school shooter games would have been that users would have to pay to use it. The Washington Post reported “Active Shooter” would have cost between $5 and $10.

The closest example to users having to pay to play one of these first-person school shooter role-playing games would be “School Shooter: North American Tour 2012” that was a mod of “Half-Life 2.” This mod was yanked from its host ModDB after they received threatening mail after people thought they were the creators, supporters, and makers of the content according to Kotaku.

While a few of these games were pulled from distribution, there are still a few that still exist for people to play. This fact is especially disturbing when put looking at how deadly 2018 has been when it comes to school shootings.

The Washington Post reported there have been three times as many deaths in schools than in the second-most deadly year through May 18, 2005. The most striking statistic showed that there were 36 fatalities in school shootings in total through May 18 of each year from 2000 to 2017. That’s only five more fatalities than this year alone.

The discussion around the connection between school shootings and the school shooters exposure to violent video games has gone on for years. The American Psychological Association passed a resolution in 2015 that said scientific research demonstrates an association between violent video game use and increases in aggressive behavior. The same resolution said there is insufficient evidence that video games can be linked to criminal violence or delinquency. This resolution and other research will probably do little to change legislation, though.

In 2011, the Supreme Court ruled video games are protected by free speech in Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association. This ruling means that unfortunately, creations of these first-person school shooter role-playing games will not be illegal for the foreseeable future.