Dear Campus Community,

As a university president, and more importantly, as a father and grandfather, I was sickened to see today’s shooting that took the life of Charlie Kirk, a young American who was simply exercising his constitutional rights of free speech on a college campus.

LeeAnn and I are praying for Charlie’s family, and I ask everyone here in our vast YSU community to join us.

But I also want us to pray for our nation, and I want all of us to remember why we have the God-given right of free speech in the first place: it’s so we can talk to each other – especially about controversial ideas – even when we disagree with one another; and it’s because when we talk – and equally important, listen – to one another, we are far less likely to resort to violence.