The HuffingtonPost just reported that shots have been fired on campus at Virigina Tech today. The shooter, who has already killed a police officer and possibly another victim, remains at large and is a white male reportedly wearing “gray sweat pants, gray hat w/neon green brim, maroon hoodie and backpack.” Campus officials have placed the entire campus community on lockdown until further notice.

Stay tuned to @CollegeCandy for more details as we receive them.

I understand that school systems all over the country are trying to fight back, but this could be a little overboard.

There used to be a point where teachers were a source of knowledge and wisdom that transcended their role of disciplinarian. Now, teachers are more sex crazed and mentally unbalanced than half the students out there!

In case you haven’t heard, in Murfreesboro, TN, a group of teachers turned an elementary school class trip into an episode of 24. These models for academia, yelled out to the scared 6th grade children, that this was not a test, and that they need to hide under anything they could find. Furthermore, these teachers never even informed any parents or chaperones of their planned festivities. To add the realistic allure of the shake-down, 2 teachers branded real unloaded handguns. Luckily, the Assistant Principal was in on it and thought it would be a learning experience.

Obviously, every student on Virgina Tech’s campus had their trusty Motorola‘s, LG‘s and Samsung‘s on hand Monday. Victims were able to warn fellow students of the shooter, his location, his appearace … They were even able to contact their parents and friends to say goodbye, or alert them to the fortunate fact that they were okay. And some even took the time to take camera pics and videos of what was going down.

As sad and heartbreaking as Monday’s incident was, it really made me recognize how valuable technology is, how necessary it is to always have our cell phones in our back pockets, in our bags, attached to our hips … Yes, sometimes it’s sick and creepy how attached people are to their Razr‘s and Blackberry‘s, but they allow us to communicate within seconds. And under some extreme circumstances, they really come in handy.

I guess we take these forms of communication for granted since they’re so easily available. But it’s kind of a priviledge to be so easily connected with people.

I never thought I’d say this but … cell phones save lives. Monday was proof of that.

I heard what happened on the news yesterday. I was shocked. But I can’t say what happened to those poor, unsuspecting students hit me until this morning when I saw the many V-Tech memorial groups on facebook. I saw pictures of the actual students who were shot and killed having fun with their friends, enjoying college, living a carefree life like the rest of us. I read other students’ comments from other schools and felt the sympathy and sadness in their words.

Check out the links to the memorial pages.

It has never been more apparent that we aren’t just self-involved, alcoholics who party five days a week. We care about what happens to our peers, people we don’t even know. We see and are concerned with how yesterday’s terrible incident affects the victims’ families and friends. We have all been sadened by the fact that not one of them expected to lose their life that day. Even more, we’re aware and scared by the fact that this could have happened on any of our campuses. We could have been victims too.

People are angry, people are pointing fingers at this shooter, some are saying that they’re glad he’s dead. But I want to know why. Why did he do what he did? What was it that happened between he and his girlfriend that made him snap? What made him so angry and irrational that he thought it’d be a good idea to hurt his fellow classmates?

I doubt there is a word out there that can actually describe what happened yesterday. All I know is, I was comforted when I saw how much love, concern and support is out there on other campuses … in something as small as a group on facebook. My heart goes out to all the victims and their loved ones.

Official Facebook Memorial Pages:

Tribute Page

Shooter Hate Page

Pray for VTech

Always Remember Virginia Tech

Victims Memorial Pages:

Emily Jane Hilscher

Ryan Christopher Clark a.k.a. Stack

Mary Read

Henry Lee

Leslie Sherman

Reema Samaha

Maxine Turner

Jarrett Lane

Matt La Porte

Brian Bluhm

Caitlin Hammaren

Daniel Perez

Ross Alameddine

Check back for more.

As the 24 hour news stations recycle the same 5 minutes of available information, the people of VTech have turned to Facebook in effort to assemble the pieces for themselves. Students are sharing first hand accounts, overheard stories, and names of potential victims- providing them with unprecidented access to information that until now has only been available to the authorities.

In addition, new profiles and groups are rapidly appearing on the site offering condolences and prayers from students around the country. Facebook has become much more than a place to find a “hook-up” or a kegger, but rather a virtual townhall for the VTech communtity to begin a dialog and somehow find a way to pick up the pieces.

Below are some of the Facebook profiles created today:

Extending Our Greatest Sympathies to VTech.

This must stop.

Always Remember Virginia Tech.

…OK…time to slow down people. If we have learned ANYTHING as Americans and our global media machine, it is that we cannot rush to media bash innocent-till-proven-guilty people until we have some shred of proof. Then again, I am actually WATCHING Geraldo re-showing his MySpace page to show WHY they thought it was him. In good conscience, I will not link you to it but I am sure by tomorrow we will all know.

Regardless, we know it was 1 guy with a gun and a lot of bullets. There are more comments and updates from people all over the country on Bloomberg. com.

The truth right now is, no one knows why the hell anyone would do this or who this person is. They are assuming that the same person who shot at the dorm in the morning, is the same one who shot up the classrooms. (It seems logical to me.)

However, witnesses have popped up who were in class where the shooting occured. He shot with no words, no comments, nothing. Read more

This person matched the description of the shooter, but was later released.

President Bush weighed in here and promised to help support the investigations in any way.

CNN posted a student video of the events (a little tasteless but they ARE the media).

MSNBC posted a map and timeline of the events.

The sad part is, while the news and every other TV station in the US was covering this – the students had very little information except for an email blast. That is crap. They blamed it on trying to keep students in the safest possible place. If I was a commuter student, the safest place is AT HOME – cancel class for F–KSAKE! But instead, more students were subjected to harm. Now, of course, there is a reasonable expectation – but call radio station, tell the news, do SOMETHING. But early in morning after it happened they thought it was an “isolated” situation.

The students disagree.

What do you think about the University’s decision?

Some sites like CollegeHumor have said that they will continue business as usual, and that’s ok. We, on the other hand, have made the decision to post some links to the most concise information we can find.

•2 shootings took place today on VTech campus – 2 hours apart

•atleast 32 students dead, including the gunman (not known if gunman is a student, described as Asian in mid 20′s)

•atleast 21 more injured

•2 – 9mm handguns retrieved from the scene

•all classes have been cancelled today and tomorrow

•President of Virginia Tech calls the shootings a “tragedy of monumental proportions”

•President Bush to address the nation at 4:15 e.

•declared deadliest mass shooting in US history

Click here from more information.

Stay tuned as this story develops.