UNLV Shooting: University of Nevada Cancels Exams, in-Person Classes on Campus

Anthony James Polito, 67, was a tenured associate professor who left East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina, in 2017 after teaching business there for more than 15 years.

Written by: India.com Education Desk Edited by: Sumaila Zaman

Updated: December 9, 2023, 8:54 AM IST

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Three University of Nevada, Las Vegas faculty members died this week and another was critically injured when a lone gunman walked onto campus and opened fire in the building housing the business school.(Photo Credit: AP)

UNLV Shooting: Following the tragic incident where a gunman claimed the lives of three professors, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas has made the decision not to resume in-person classes on campus for the remainder of this semester. The university president declared the cancellation of final exams scheduled for next week. “Given the physical and emotional trauma that the university community has endured, and because of the impact to campus facilities, we have decided that faculty and staff should continue to work remotely through the end of the calendar year,” President Keith Whitfield said in a letter to students and staff, AP reported.

“What our university has endured on Dec. 6 is nothing short of life-changing. We will not ever forget that day,” he added at a news conference late Friday. As per an AP report, three University of Nevada, Las Vegas faculty members died this week and another was critically injured when a lone gunman walked onto campus and opened fire in the building housing the business school.

The shooting stoked fear on the 30,000-student campus just miles from the Las Vegas Strip where the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history led to the deaths of 60 people on Oct. 1, 2017. Las Vegas police are still trying to understand what led Anthony Polito, a longtime business professor in North Carolina, to the campus on Wednesday. 6.

Whitfield set a Dec. 18 deadline for students to take optional, online final exams or complete take-home tests to improve their grades. Commencement ceremonies are still scheduled for Dec. 19-20.

UNLV Shooting: The Gunman

• Anthony James Polito, 67, was a tenured associate professor who left East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina, in 2017 after teaching business there for more than 15 years.
• After that, he taught courses between October 2018 and June 2022 at Roseman University of Health Sciences, a 1,000-student private college in suburban Henderson, Nevada. The job ended when the program he taught under was discontinued.
• Polito legally bought a 9 mm handgun last year, Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill said, and had nine ammunition magazines holding more than 150 bullets with him when he was shot and killed by UNLV police outside the business school.

THE VICTIMS

All four shooting victims were professors, including a 38-year-old visiting professor who remains hospitalized with life-threatening injuries, authorities said, AP reported.

Killed were:

— Naoko Takemaru, 69, an associate professor of Japanese studies and author who oversaw the university’s Japanese Studies Program and received the William Morris Award for Excellence in Teaching from the College of Liberal Arts at UNLV.

— Cha Jan “Jerry” Chang, 64, an associate professor in the business school’s Management, Entrepreneurship & Technology department. He held degrees from Taiwan, Central Michigan University and Texas A&M University, according to his online resume, and he earned a Ph.D. in management information systems from the University of Pittsburgh.

— Patricia Navarro Velez, 39, an accounting professor with a Ph.D. in accounting who was focused on research in cybersecurity disclosures and data analytics, according to the school’s website.