The spring 2007 semester has been a bit hard to handle. We as a nation and a school have gone through more trials and tribulations that I can remember going through in my four years at Sacramento State. So many things have occurred in the past few months that I thought it would be appropriate to reflect back on some of the problems, events and tragedies we as students have had to face.

The school had to go through a mess of problems of its own. In early April, the California State University faculty threatened to strike if their payraise was not adequate. Our school was about a week away from our professors hitting the pavement, when the California Faculty Association offered a tentative agreement in order to keep our professors sane and on campus. Arguments, threats of a picket line and canceled classes loomed overhead and affected our education in the classrooms.

We’ve been through the gauntlet with our campus issues, but the campus troubles didn’t stop there. President Alexander Gonzalez had a no-confidence vote hanging over his head and pleaded with faculty to see the good side of his time spent here at Sac State. After weeks of voting, faculty still voted no confidence in Gonzalez.

“Votes and threats seemed to be an everyday thing on campus this semester,” said senior psychology major Jean Bonnet.

As a student, it was hard not to get involved in the administration’s issues when I heard the faculty’s outrage or opinion of the president everyday in class. Students were left in the air wondering and unsure if we would have a university president one day or no faculty the other. Still, these issues were only some of the ones we encountered this semester.

On April 16, a massive shooting at Virginia Tech where a student opened fire, killing 33 students, including his suicide, in the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, rocked the nation. Even though the shooting did not occur on our campus, we still felt the hurt, anguish and pain the students at Virginia Tech were dealing with. College students, as a whole, are a community, no matter what school one may attend.

“It’s crazy to think something like that could happen,” Bonnet said. “It’s straight out of a movie.”

From here in Sacramento, we paid our respects for the victims and their families.

Questions of security arose and students wondered what would happen if something similar happened here. We never thought that something as horrible as that could take place here at Sac State, but we did have to deal with a death that hit close to home. Losing all those students at Virginia Tech was unbelievable, but having to face the harsh truths and reality of losing one of our own was too much to handle.

Kebret Tekle, a sophomore, was killed by a stray bullet that struck her in the neck while leaving the Library Eats and Drinks bar on May 3. Tekle was active on campus and was a member of the Eta Lambda chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha, a black sorority, and a committee chair for the National Pan-Hellenic Council. Friends and family remember Tekle on a Facebook page that was created in her memory.

Even if you didn’t know Tekle personally, it still affected you in some way. Having it occur so close to home is the hardest thing to come across. One of our own students was killed across the street from our campus on a property where there are dozens of Sac State students everyday. How crazy is that? It’s hard to have something like that wrap around your brain and have it sink in.

Sac State students have been through hell and back this semester, and getting through it all and managing to stay a strong force says a lot about us.

“I’m just glad it’s over,” said senior journalism major Natalye Childress Smith. “Our school has been through enough.”

Was this semester supposed to teach us something? Of all that has happened, our university has stayed strong and has shown nothing but great compassion, strength and respect, and I applaud us for that.

Rosa Pastran can be reached at [email protected]