Traumatized, Virginia Tech students return to class
Pastor Dale Morgan
Monday April 23, 11:51 PM
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Traumatized, Virginia Tech students return to class
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With the solemn toll of a bell timed with the release of 32 white
balloons into a perfect blue sky Monday, Virginia Tech University paid
tribute to students and faculty slain one week ago by a deranged
classmate on a shooting spree.
The campus fell into a long silence at 9:45 am on the first day of
classes since Cho Seung-Hui's bloody rampage, with thousands of students
and university employees massed at a makeshift memorial for the ceremony.
On the sprawling drillfield at the campus center, the bell tolled slowly
as each balloon drifted above the trees and buildings of the campus.
Then 1,000 balloons in maroon and orange, the school colors, were
released into the air in a symbol of determination matching the resolve
of many students who said they will somehow finish out the last two
weeks of the school year.
"There is nowhere I would rather be than Blacksburg," said first-year
student Morgan Whitehead, who had spent the weekend at home in Orange,
Virginia.
"I have never been more proud to attend Virginia Tech," he said.
University administrators and professors spent the weekend preparing for
the return of more than 20,000 students, meeting with professional grief
counselors and psychiatrists to learn how to help students who might
still be in shock a week after Cho terrified the campus blasting his way
through a dormitory and a classroom during school hours.
Reporters were banned from classroom buildings as the classes opened,
but counselors were in many of the rooms and university halls urging
students to contact them if they couldn't get over the tragedy.
Not all were ready to be back to school.
"All my classes were like, the teacher and everybody began crying," said
one female undergraduate who refused to identify herself.
"I'm not going to stick around today," she said, tears welling in her eyes.
"It's really bad right now. The campus went through a tragedy," said
mathematics major Raphael Jose Gonzales, whose first class was just next
door to the now-closed Norris Hall where Cho shot 30 of his victims last
Monday.
On the radiant green drillfield, hundreds of students, many in tears,
filed past the site where stones had been laid for each of the victims
and Cho, who killed himself at the end of his rampage.
Each was piled high with flowers, photographs, personal mementos and
candles for the 27 dead students and five dead faculty members.
The stone for Cho had mysteriously disappeared, but left behind were a
number of open letters expressing defiance, forgiveness and sympathy for
his family.
Some students sought out the chance to pet and hug a handful of "comfort
dogs," brought by a team from the Hope Crisis group sponsored by the
American Red Cross.
"She's really soft," said one student as she hugged Ginger, a white,
mixed whippet breed who had done service in New Orleans after the
Hurricane Katrina disaster in 2005.
Most students said they were happy to return, with barely two weeks left
in the term and final exams imminent -- though the university has told
students they can just opt to take their grades on course work done
already this year if they feel they cannot finish the semester.
"I'm glad to be back. It helps us regain some sense of normality," said
second year animal physiology major Teresa Jones of Alexandria,
Virginia, near Washington.
Earlier at 7:15 am (1115 GMT) -- about the time Cho began his rampage --
a small group of students gathered for a silent commemoration ceremony
on a field not far from the dormitory where he fatally shot two of his
victims.
To the sound of the Civil War dirge "Battle Hymn of the Republic,"
played by a small corps of drummers and brass musicians, about 50
students formed a procession to Norris Hall, accompanied by thirty-three
small Tibetan prayer-flag-like white banners, one for each between of
the dead, including Cho.