Tech students get back to 'new normal'

Memories of shootings linger

By ASSOCIATED PRESS | Sunday, August 24, 2008

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ROANOKE — Virginia Tech students returned during the past week to a campus that appears as normal as any other but is still healing from the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

Last August, the fall semester began in Blacksburg with a somber, tear-filled ceremony to dedicate memorial stones on the main lawn for the 32 people killed by a gunman the previous spring.

Students this year came back to a regular calendar, beginning with a traditional welcome picnic Sunday before classes begin Monday.

"The routine on campus has gotten back to a sense of the 'new normal,' " said Debbie Day, who is charge of support services for families of those killed or injured by Seung-Hui Cho. "I don't think the campus will ever be the same."

The April 16, 2007, shootings traumatized the campus, and Miss Day said some people are just starting to feel the effects. Mental health experts have said post-traumatic stress disorder can show up five years later.

The Office of Recovery and Support, which Miss Day heads, has received calls from students who weren't physically injured but were anxious about returning to classes this year.

The office offers counseling for victims and the school added therapists at its counseling center last year. University spokesman Larry Hincker said appointments were up twofold.

Fourteen of the two dozen injured students are still in school.

Emily Mashack, a senior from Loudoun County who is Student Government Association president, said she thinks the memories of the shootings will always stay with the victims.

"But the biggest part that stays with you is the sense of community," said Miss Mashack, who knew a couple of the victims. "What we focus on now is the sense of closeness."

Miss Day has found that families of the victims are in different places emotionally, with some coping well while others are angry or grieving, she said.

The families have been invited to Virginia Tech's first home football game Sept. 6 against Furman.

The social calendar doesn't have the headliners of last year, when the Dave Matthews Band, John Mayer, Phil Vassar and Nas put on a free concert to lift spirits early in September.

The school expects a record freshman enrollment of about 5,600, Mr. Hincker said. Overall enrollment is likely to top 28,000, compared to 27,500 last year.

Many of the faculty and staff members are still dealing with trauma from the shootings, Miss Day said. One of the support office's counselors works with the staff at Norris Hall, where Cho killed 30 of his victims.

The refurbished second-floor classrooms where the shootings occurred are no longer used and remain locked. Plans are being developed to transform the wing into a peace studies center and an interactive learning space.

The atmosphere in the hall has improved, said Ishwar Puri, head of the engineering science and mechanics department, which is the building's main occupant

"The vibrancy is back. The scholarship is back," Mr. Puri said. "I see students who come here with a commitment to learn and to engage."

The Center for Peace Studies and Violence Prevention is the brainchild of Jerzy Nowak, whose wife was one of the five faculty members killed in Norris Hall.

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