Lecturers yearn for normalcy as semester resumes

Blacksburg, Virginia: Virginia Tech history professor Woody Farrar is usually able to lecture for hours, but this time he is worried about what he would say - if he could even get the words out - when students returned to his class yesterday.

"On one hand, I feel assaulted, like someone came into my house and trashed it," says Farrar, who specialises in sports and military history. "On the other hand, this was like a tornado come down out of the sky, unpredictable and random."

He's one of hundreds of teachers struggling to come up with words to greet returning students whose lives have been turned upside down.

"We're all kind of visualising: What am I going to do when I walk into class?" says Carol Burger, a women's studies professor on campus. "We're trying to be ready for anything and follow the students' lead."

In the past, schools have shut down for various lengths of time after a campus tragedy occurred. Kent State University in Ohio closed for six weeks after four antiwar protester students were killed by National Guard troops in 1970. Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, didn't reopen for two weeks after two students killed 15 people including themselves in 1999. But a yearning for normalcy, as well as an urgency to reconnect with students before the semester ends on May 3, prompted the Virginia Tech administration to resume classes only a week after the shootings.

Argued

In hastily called department meetings last week, professors argued over whether it was too early to return to class. Should they forge ahead with vigour? Or talk to students individually for the rest of the semester to help them deal with the tragedy? But administrators reasoned that cancelling the rest of the school year seemed overly alarmist.

Instead, the school is urging professors to open each class with a 20-minute discussion before moving on to regular class work. Some teachers say they'll try to engage students in conversation; others will let students dictate what happens in class.