Classes resume

last updated 8 January 2015

Blacksburg, Va.

irginia police this week combed through the e-mail and phone records of Virginia Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho, looking for evidence that he may have been romantically fixated on his first victim, Emily Hilscher. Cho shot and killed Hilscher, along with a dormitory advisor, two hours before crossing the campus and killing 30 others in two classrooms. Classes at Virginia Tech resumed this week, but some 25 percent of the school’s 26,000 students were not present. Virginia Tech is allowing students to drop classes without penalty or accept their current grades. Meanwhile, administrators at hundreds of colleges, including Virginia Tech, are exploring the technical feasibility of sending mass cell phone text messages to all faculty and students, in the event of a shooting or other emergency. “The standard changes after Virginia Tech,” said Mark Rosenberg, chancellor of Florida’s state university system.