University Police Lt. Mady Bay stood across from a portrait of a smiling Nelson Mandela last Tuesday and, choked up, asked students, faculty and staff at Binghamton University to lead lives of compassion.

“Helping people. Standing up for yourself. Standing up for your friends. We need to work together because we are a community,” she said to a quick round of applause — the last words of a short ceremony in the Mandela Room honoring the lives of those killed in college shootings.

The memorial was the day before the one year anniversary of the Virginia Tech massacre, where a mentally ill student killed 32 people.

Less than 15 BU students attended the service. Scattered across about 20 chairs, of 250 that were set up for the publicized event, was a mix of some students, administrators and journalists. Instead of the sound of weeping, the ubiquitous noise on Tuesday came from a photographer’s snapping shutter and a television journalist lugging around a large camera.

Nevertheless, the ceremony was moving to those who attended. They came in early, two or three at a time, a few loners, with pensive looks. They left just as quietly. Most had no interest in going on the record with their stories.

The ceremony was intended to remember those who passed away in campus violence around the country, to educate BU students about ways they can prevent violence and inform them of steps the administration has taken since the Virginia Tech incident to help safeguard campus from a shooting.

To begin, organizers asked for a moment of silence, and the three speakers, Bay, Vice President for Student Affairs Brian Rose and Director of the University Counseling Center Elizabeth Droz, each lit a candle to remember students who died at Louisiana Technical College, Northern Illinois University and Delaware State.

“These candles will accompany the already-lit candle in memory of those students at Virginia Tech,” said Shmuel Bushwick, an RA who helped organize the event and offered introductory remarks.

Rose spoke first, extending his condolences and reflecting on how much has changed on campuses since the massacre at Virginia Tech. He emphasized that the surest way to avoid a tragedy is for students, administration, faculty and staff to all play a role.

“Our greatest defense is to truly care about one another. That can be easy to say, but hard to do,” Rose said. “It requires student peers to challenge behaviors in one another — an act that can lead to criticism and ridicule. It requires faculty and staff to take an interest in students and colleagues that extends beyond the four corners of one’s job and to take the risk of becoming involved. It requires all of us to engage other members of our community that may be having trouble connecting.”

Droz bore witness to a major change at BU following the Virginia Tech shootings. As director of the Counseling Center, she saw a major increase in people seeking help for themselves or others. She told a story of her childhood in New York City, when her mother chased away bullies who were pestering her and taught her the value of communication when one faces adversity.

“If I can … see someone and say ‘Hey, this happened to me,’ then somehow there was a sense of justice somewhere, even if someone just said, ‘Hey, that’s not right,’” Droz said.

Bay offered her thoughts and told the crowd about what BU has done to mitigate the risk of a shooting here.

The RAVE emergency notification system, which was in development before the Virginia Tech shootings, is now functional on campus and gives administrators emergency access to students through text messages, e-mail and electronic bulletin boards in dining halls. An emergency siren loud enough to be heard in Vestal and Johnson City is currently being tested and should be ready next year.

Bay described a “webinar” that was held after the Virginia Tech shooting to explore ways of opening communications between various departments in order to “red flag potentially dangerous students.” It included University Police and representatives from Residential Life, administration, the Counseling Center and Health Services. The conclusion, Bay said, was that BU already had very good communications between departments.

As students trickled out of the event afterward, Angela Ramdhanny said the program “hit home” for her.

“I wanted to remember,” she said, “because I think throughout the year things have changed, life has changed and I didn’t want to lose sight of everything that’s happened.”