A Professor Whose Wife Died in Virginia Tech Shootings To Head New Peace Center
ROANOKE, Va.
A Virginia Tech professor who lost his wife in a mass shooting there last year will head a new peace center in the classroom wing where she died, the university announced Tuesday.
Dr. Jerzy Nowak will step down as head of the Blacksburg school’s horticulture department July 1 to become director of the Center for Peace Studies and Violence Prevention, Provost Mark McNamee said.
Nowak became an advocate for the center after student gunman Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people on April 16, 2007, then took his own life. His wife, French instructor Jocelyne Couture-Nowak, was among 25 students and five faculty members killed in Norris Hall, where the center will be based.
“I’m actually looking forward to this next step in my career,” Nowak said. “It gives me a lot of focus.”
Nowak said the center will be located in another building for about eight months while renovations are completed in a second-floor classroom wing. After the shootings, the school vowed never to use the space for general classes.
The school will offer a minor in peace studies. Nowak said his goal is to integrate applied sciences such as engineering and agriculture with the humanities to address community needs such as health care, energy and food.
The center’s first effort will be to expand a violence prevention program at a juvenile detention center in Danville.
Nowak, a native of Sompolno, Poland, has been at Virginia Tech for eight years. He has also taught and done research in Germany, Nigeria and Canada.
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