For the past few years, Dawson College has kept things low-key on Sept. 13.
This year’s anniversary of the shooting at the Montreal campus will be different.
On Tuesday, five years after a gunman killed an 18-year-old student who had just started her college studies, Dawson will commemorate the tragedy by inaugurating a peace garden on its grounds.
It’s meant as a living memorial to Anastasia De Sousa’s spirit and the courage of those affected by the tragedy.
Twenty others were injured in the attack, including 16 who suffered gunshot wounds.
At month’s end, Dawson will host an international conference with the Association of Canadian Community Colleges that will examine factors that might contribute to violent behaviour and the potential for educators to help curb it.
The multitude of topics include: developing empathy among youth, cyberbullying, transforming violent school cultures and managing campus safety.
Richard Filion, Dawson’s director general, said he hopes the conference raises awareness that education has a “more noble mission” than just keeping pace with economic issues facing society, and that it stimulates educators from all walks of life “to become more active in transmitting basic values that are at play when we’re thinking about a better world.”
James Gilligan, who was in the psychiatry department at Harvard Medical School for 30 years and directed mental health and violence prevention services for the Massachusetts prison system, is the opening keynote speaker.
“We want to move the discussion forward from simply a memory of the tragedy that happened to what do we do about it,” said Mary Hlywa, chairperson of the social service department at Dawson and one of the conference coordinators.
School shootings have become more common, Hlywa noted. “Now when it happens it’s not the same kind of shock value that it had previously. Well, how appropriate is that?” she said, calling it unacceptable.
Dawson professor Pat Romano, the other event co-ordinator, said she hopes the conference fosters debate about what society and especially educators can do to tackle violence beyond the more normal – and necessary – traditional responses like lockdown drills and taking courses on how to identify potential persons at risk.
“All of that is important, but we have to go deeper,” Romano said. “And what would it mean to really think about preventing violence?”
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