The Old Capitol is a landmark at the University of Iowa and part of the official university logo. (Photo courtesy of the University of Iowa)
Thirty-three years ago on a snowy Friday in November, the nightmare of mass school shootings shocked Iowa like it has never been shocked before.
It was 3:40 p.m. A former University of Iowa graduate student with a brilliant scientific mind, and a .38-caliber revolver, walked into a conference room in Van Allen Hall, the home of the university’s renowned Department of Physics and Astronomy.
Gang Lu, a native of China, pulled the revolver from his coat and in quick succession fatally shot two professors, Christoph Goertz and Robert Smith, and another Chinese grad student, Linhua Shan, who were seated at the large conference table. A handful of others in the room were spared.
Lu then walked down a flight of stairs to the office of the department chairman, Dwight Nicholson, where he fired a bullet into Nicholson’s head, killing him.
Lu left the building and walked a couple of blocks west to Jessup Hall, the main U of I administration building. He went to the office of the associate vice president for academic affairs and mortally wounded T. Anne Cleary. On his way out, he paused to shoot a student clerical worker, Miya Rodolfo-Sioson, leaving her paralyzed.