Early this morn­ing 2 RIT stu­dents were killed, and one badly burned, in a house fire. The loca­tion of the fire was all but around the corner from 195 Mer­ri­man, where I used to live.

Many of our stu­dents are just learn­ing about the deaths. This is dif­fi­cult to deal with on any day. Today, as the inau­gu­ra­tion day of our new Insti­tute Pres­i­dent, makes it even stranger.

For a teacher this is heart­break­ing. I went into my 9.00am class not know­ing the iden­ti­ties of the vic­tims. I knew that I had stu­dents living in that area and wor­ried that they might have been involved. I watched the clock and the empty seats, wait­ing and hoping that they were just late to the final class on a Friday morn­ing. Thank­fully, they were just late.

Col­leagues and stu­dents in Engi­neer­ing and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions were not so lucky.

It’s 11.30am and the names are now avail­able from the D&C. I didn’t know any of these stu­dents, but that doesn’t make it any easier. My heart goes out to their fam­i­lies, friends, and teach­ers. There really are no good words.