The most high-profile story of the year touching the higher education community was undisputedly the killings at Virginia Tech in April when student Seung-Hui Cho opened fire, leaving 33 people dead, including himself. To date, it is the deadliest campus shooting in U.S. history. However, in September, the Delaware State University (DSU) community…

The recent shootings at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute (Virginia Tech) shocked the nation and brought violence on college campuses to the forefront of the nation's attention. We surveyed college students and faculty/staff three weeks after the incident about their perceptions of the Virginia Tech shooting, subsequent media exposure, and school…

Reviews the prevalence of weapon-carrying among adolescents, focusing on the reasons why they carry weapons, ways that firearms are obtained, firearms and violence, and the controlling of weapons in schools. Details weapon-security measures and argues for cooperative action among schools, communities, and government. (RJM)

Attempts to place the shootings at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, in a historical perspective. Describes the shootings in Littleton and the high school shootings since 1996. Interprets the possible reasons for the Columbine shootings, such as the role of the high school, access to guns, and violence in the mass media. (CMK)

School violence has been linked to youth not recognizing the finality of death, extreme violence portrayed in the media, availability of guns, student reluctance to "tell," and lack of curriculum that teaches children anger management and problem-solving skills. Recommendations include making prevention programs a priority and…

Weapons violence is a major public health problem that especially impacts minority youth. Interventions designed to reduce weapon use by youth are categorized as educational/behavioral change, legal, and technological/environmental. Few educational programs currently exist, but those that do largely concern firearm safety courses, public…

Focus group methods for studying opinions and perceptions of school violence are effective for understanding differences among individuals, but cannot report these differences in a concise manner. Traditional quantitative methods for analyzing data from school violence perception surveys allow for the concise reporting of data, but cannot…