| University of Iowa shooting | |
|---|---|
| Location | Iowa City, Iowa, U.S.A |
| Date | Friday, November 1, 1991 (CST) |
| Attack type | School shooting, murder-suicide |
| Weapon(s) | .38-caliber revolver |
| Deaths | 6 (including the perpetrator) |
| Injured | 1 |
| Perpetrator | Gang Lu |
The University of Iowa shooting was a school shooting that occurred at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa on November 1, 1991. The gunman, 28-year-old Gang Lu, killed four members of the university faculty and one student. He also seriously wounded another student before he committed suicide.
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The perpetrator of the shooting was 28-year-old Gang Lu (family name Lu; Chinese: 卢刚 Lú Gāng), a[1] former graduate student at the University of Iowa. Gang Lu was a physics and astronomy student who had received his doctoral degree from the university in May 1991. His dissertation was titled Study of the "Critical Ionization Velocity" Effect by Particle-in-Cell Simulation. He was still living in Iowa City after he had graduated.
In the months prior to the shooting, he wrote five letters explaining the reasons for his planned actions. According to university officials, four of the letters were in English and were intended to be mailed to news organizations. One letter was written in Chinese. The letters have never been released to the public.
Lu was infuriated because his dissertation did not receive the prestigious D.C. Spriestersbach Dissertation Prize. This prize included a monetary award of $2,500. Gang Lu believed that winning the prize would have made it easier for him to get hired as a professor.
Lu was unable to find work because of the recession. Normally, in this instance, the physics and astronomy department would have given Lu a temporary postdoctoral fellowship. Unfortunately, there was not enough money to support him.
On Friday, November 1, 1991, Gang Lu attended a physics and astronomy department meeting in room 208 of Van Allen Hall. A few minutes after the meeting began, Lu shot four members of the department with a .38 caliber revolver.
Christoph K. Goertz, professor of physics and astronomy, was Lu's dissertation chairperson and one of America's leading space plasma physicists. Dwight R. Nicholson, chairman of the physics and astronomy department, was one of Lu's dissertation committee members. Robert A. Smith, associate professor of physics and astronomy, was also on Lu's dissertation committee. Linhua Shan, research investigator in physics and astronomy, was the winner of the Spriestersbach prize. Shan had once been Lu's roommate.
After the shootings at Van Allen Hall, Lu walked three blocks to Jessup Hall. Lu requested to see T. Anne Cleary, the associate vice president for academic affairs. She was the grievance officer at the university. Lu had made several complaints to her about not being nominated for the Spriestersbach prize. Cleary was shot in the head and died the following day at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. Miya Rodolfo-Sioson, a temporary student employee in the grievance office, was shot for reasons unknown. Rodolfo-Sioson survived but was left paralyzed from the neck down. She died from breast cancer in 2008[2]
University President Hunter Rawlings III was another person on Lu's hit list but was in Columbus, Ohio at the time. Gang Lu was found in room 203 of Jessup Hall with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. He died shortly after police arrived.
The following day, November 2, the University of Iowa Hawkeyes Football team, coached by Hayden Fry, would honor those that were killed by stripping their game helmets of all markings in a symbolic gesture of mourning. The Hawkeyes would go on to defeat the Ohio State Buckeyes 16-9.
Writer Jo Ann Beard wrote an acclaimed personal essay based in part on the killings. Her essay entitled, "The Fourth State of Matter," was originally published in The New Yorker. It appeared in the 1997 edition of Best American Essays. The essay was later included in her collection of personal essays, The Boys of My Youth. Beard worked as an editor for a physics journal at the university and was a colleague of the victims. She had been close friends with Goertz.
Based on Gang Lu's story, Chinese director Chen Shi-zheng made a feature film, Dark Matter, starring Liu Ye and Meryl Streep. The film won the Alfred P. Sloan Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 2007.[3]
A documentary about the life of the lone survivor, Miya Rodolfo-Sioson, entitled Miya of the Quiet Strength, was released in 2009.