University flags lowered in 'sorrow and outrage'

Flags at universities across Nova Scotia have been lowered to half-mast to honour the victims of the Virginia Tech shootings, including a French instructor who taught at the agricultural schoolin Truro.

Jocelyne Couture-Nowaktaught French at the Nova Scotia Agricultural College in the 1990s, where her husband was a professor of horticulture.

"She was full of energy and enthusiasm, and if you had an opportunity to meet her in no time you would pick up on that," said Bernie MacDonald, vice-president at NSAC.

Couture-Nowak and husband Jerzy Nowak left Nova Scotia to teachat the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Va.

Three NSAC students on an exchange to the Virginia school were not hurt in Monday's tragedy.

NSAC officials said Tuesday that counselling was available for faculty and staff.

In Halifax, Dalhousie University president Tom Traves said the campus community is united in "sorrow and outrage."

"We are united in our determination that universities and colleges must always stand for reason and humanity in defiance of such inhuman brutality," he wrote in an e-mail to the university community.

"We will not give in to despair," Traves added.

There were two separate shootings about two hours apart at opposite ends of the Virginia Tech campus Monday morning. Police said Tuesday they were not ready to confirm that Cho Seung-Hui, the 23-year-old gunman whokilledhimself,had acted alone.

In light of the massacre, Saint Mary's University president Colin Dodds said his school would be reviewing campus security.

"Certainly we have to learn some lessons from that," he said Tuesday. "We have emergency telephones that directly link, we've got cameras, but again, where's the balance?"

Dodds said he will be meeting with campus officials soon to ensure the university's procedures are in place.