Your post on the latest Monica Lewinsky/ Washington Post maelstrom today was terrific and I am delighted to see a public defense of this young women, whose only offense, as you and Richard Cohen so rightly point out, was naivete and youtful indiscretion. Isn't it time that we burned Lewinsky's Scarlett Letter in effigy, along with every other label we apply because, and only because, of gender?

Lyn Chamberlin

President

skyepr.com

I am reeling, as we all are, from the tragic events yesterday at Virginia Tech. The slaughter of students and faculty is simply beyond comprehension.

I am not a hovering, quarter-backing parent--at least, I don't think so. I let the college administrators at the schools my kids go to do their jobs. Perhaps blindly, I entrust them with my children's safety and well-being. Is theirs an easy job? Absolutely not. Even under the best of circumstances.

However, I have a growing sense of unease about the security on our college and university campuses, and today, the questions surrounding the response of senior administrators immediately following the Virginia Tech shootings grow ever louder. Campus security cannot be a ‘reactive’ process as in the past--something happens/ new measures are taken. Certainly in a post-9/11 and post-Columbine world, proactivity and worst case scenario planning must be the order of the day. Our campuses are easy targets, our kids are sitting ducks, and why, in a post 9/11 and post-Columbine world, are we are fearful of taking significant action unless and until something truly horrific happens?

Where was Viginia Tech's crisis plan? Why did it take more than an hour for the administration to send warning emails to students? And if, as an administrator in charge, you knew that a shooting had taken place in a dormitory would you really rely on email to immediately and urgently warn students? Rome burned while the senior administration wrestled with a press release.

My son was an NYU freshman on that bright September morning in 2001, stepping into his first college class when the first plane hit the World Trade Center. What did his professor do? Told those 18 year-olds to leave the building and run the 20-odd blocks back to their dormitories. I will never lose the image of these frightened kids fleeing down Broadway as lower Manhattan collapsed. What was NYU thinking?

I wish I knew.