By Ryan Fournier
A few dozen people gathered around Peninsula College’s flagpole in solidarity with the National School Walkout against gun violence on the morning of March 14. The gathered crowd stood calmly for seventeen minutes, one minute in remembrance of each life lost at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
It was ostensibly a student event, but the bulk of the crowd at PC were staff, faculty, administrators, and other non-student guests.
Kelly Kevershan, president of the Associated Student Council, said the crowd size was about what was expected. She pointed out that it was finals week, and that the Council didn’t do the kind of major advertising it would at an event it was putting on.
The Council made the information available on the Peninsula College Student Life Facebook page, and on the College’s reader boards. Kevershan said there were some posters hung as well.
Among the first to arrive were a group of high school and middle school counselors from Sequim, on campus for a Career-and-College-Readiness workshop.
“I’m just so grateful and impressed with the millennials for taking this on, because our generation failed them,” said Mitzi Sanders, counselor at Sequim High School.
A few minutes in, Katrina Campbell, director of College and community affairs for the ASC, spoke briefly, reminding the crowd of lives lost to gun violence at schools, and pointing out that PC is not immune to that kind of tragedy.
Prof. Janet Lucas spoke too.
“Maybe it’s the victims of school shootings who finally get something done,” Lucas said.
The ASC hopes to add education about the College’s Concern Assess Respond Evaluate Team to student orientation as soon as Spring Quarter, according to Paige O’Dell, vice president of programming for the ASC.
The CARE Team responds confidentially to a wide range of personal problems within the College community.
The Team may have a unique ability to notice patterns with troubled, potentially dangerous individuals, said Cathy Egle, associate dean for student success, during the “School Gun Violence Forum” on campus Feb. 28.
O’Dell said the ASC also hopes to spread awareness about the PC Alert Me system, by which the College sends emergency and other public service announcements via text and email.
ASC meetings are open to all students. Meetings are held every Tuesday at 12:40 p.m. in the ASC Conference Room under the bridge behind the Pirate Union Building.
O’Dell said almost all attendees, other than Council members, are club members seeking charters or funding.
“Other than that, we don’t get a lot of guests.”