MVSU students begin classes after shooting incident | Multimedia

ITTA BENA – Monday was the first day of classes at a Delta university, but just over 24 hours earlier, there was an early morning shooting on campus that caused widespread concern. Delta News reporter Jasmine Steverson shows us how university leadership addressed those concerns as the first week of classes begins.

“We want to make sure that as a small community you all understand that we support each other. This is a challenge that we are addressing with what happened the other night. Now the opportunity is how we can work together, grow together and make sure that situations like this do not happen again,” says Dr. Jerryl Briggs, President of Mississippi Valley State University.

Following a shooting on campus early Sunday morning that left two people injured, Briggs spoke to the student body and staff during a safety meeting on Monday.

Briggs goes on to tell Valley staff and students, “We will be taking steps to improve campus safety measures, and we will all be involved and working together.”

“This week is our welcome week at MVSU and we are excited. We have a wealth of events throughout the week. We want to assure all parents that we are doing everything in our power to keep our students safe,” Donnell Maxie, MVSU communications director, tells Delta News.

Maxie says the university is fortunate that none of its students were injured or involved in the shooting, and he believes a great year is ahead.

“It's a great experience. Coming from a PWI, there are a lot of things that are different both academically and athletically,” says student-athlete Joseph Church.

Church, who transferred to Valley a year ago, said he was excited for the new year but was shocked to hear about the shooting. He told Delta News, “Because you don't really expect an incident like this to happen on campus. I think what they said in the meeting about being stricter about things, you know, carrying ID, was one of the good things that came out of the meeting.”

Church's teammate, international student and athlete Vito Moriana-Sigel, shares those sentiments.

“I like their approach of making us feel more secure by checking our IDs at the entrance and just making sure that the people on campus are actually students and not people coming from outside,” said Moriana-Sigel.

Church adds, “It's really good because everyone comes here to learn. Everyone comes here to get a degree. And to be safe, you have to give up some things. You have to sacrifice some things to be safe. So I think it was a good meeting.”