COM Outlook Summer/Fall 2019

NOVA SOUTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY | 5 BY SCOTT COLTON, B.A., APR When two Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students committed suicide in March, it unleashed a flood of emotions for Nicole Cook, Ph.D., M.P.A., associate professor of public health at the KPCOM, and her daughters, Eden and Maia Hebron, who survived the mass shooting that took place in the hallways and classrooms of their Parkland, Florida, school on February 14, 2018. Not surprisingly, emotional aftershocks persist. “It has been a rough and somewhat crazy year,” said Cook of the turbulent times her family has endured. “I think we are doing okay right now, but it’s hard to know, as things seem to change from minute to minute.” In the aftermath of the Stoneman Douglas tragedy, mass shoot- ings continue to dominate the headlines nationally and internation- ally. These heartbreaking incidents include the October 2018 Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, that killed 11 people and the 2 mosque terror attacks in Christchurch, New Zealand, that claimed 50 lives in March. Closer to home, the recent suicides of two Stoneman Douglas students, as well as the March suicide of Jeremy Richman, whose daughter was killed in the December 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, prove a potent point. In some cases, the mounting survivor guilt and residual aftereffects simply become too much to bear. “On some level, I think we were all very fearful, yet somewhat expectant, that there would be suicides, as it is part of the trajectory Reflection and Action During Turbulent Times