Locked Labs At Virginia Tech Building Where 31 People Died Delay Research And Degrees

Saturday, June 9th 2007, 2:28 pm

By: News On 6

BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) _ Locked in the laboratories of the Virginia Tech building where 31 people died are the keys to its future _ for its graduate students and for the engineering program itself.

University officials announced this week they will reopen Norris Hall this month to allow engineering programs with offices and laboratories there to return to work, although no classes will be held in the building again. The building had been locked and barricaded with a chain-link fence since April 16, when student Seung-Hui Cho shot 30 people and himself in its classrooms after killing two in a dormitory.

Virginia Tech's specialized engineering science and mechanics department _ one of only three in the nation _ is the primary occupant of the three-story building. Department head Ishwar Puri said he made a plea to university officials to find laboratory space as his students fell further behind in their research, putting their funding, and in some cases degrees, in jeopardy.

``I just didn't feel right holding their future hostage,'' he said. ``Their careers are now on hold.''

Norris contains sophisticated equipment that cannot be moved. Nearly half of the department's students used other labs. But Puri said the work of 50 graduate students and some undergraduate students has been held up along with research proposals from the department's 25 faculty members.

Graduate student Nathan Post had tests under way in Norris on the durability of a lightweight composite material the U.S. Navy is preparing to use in ship hulls. He said Friday he may not be able to complete his doctorate in December as planned because of the delay.

``I am so far behind schedule now that I am not sure if it will be possible,'' said Post, of Barnard, Vt.

Virginia Tech announced after the shootings that students would not be required to finish coursework or take final exams for the spring semester, but Puri said stalled research can't simply be forgiven because ``it's the core of the degree.''

In the future, he said, ``there are questions that can be raised about the quality of your degree, the integrity of your program.''

A number of the engineering graduate students depend on grants and contracts for financial support, Puri said. Such awards are based on ideas that are generated as research is conducted.

``In order to be competitive, you've got to be able to show you can do the work and you've got to generate the ideas,'' he said.

After the shootings, in which Cho also shot two students in a dormitory, dozens of faculty members, students, alumni and others contacted the school with suggestions for use of Norris Hall, ranging from returning it to classrooms to making it a memorial to knocking it down.

Puri said his goal was to get his faculty and students back to work, whether in Norris or somewhere else. Had the university decided to tear down Norris Hall and rebuild, he said, it could have taken at least three years to get his department going again.

The decision to reopen Norris was not purely pragmatic, Puri said. ``It's a decision that's been made to ensure the survival of the program.''

Puri said he expects many students and faculty members to feel unsettled in Norris at first. He wants the entire building refurbished so the recent repainting of walls and replacement of ceilings and floors in a classroom wing where students and faculty members died will not be a constant reminder of the attack.

``The tragedy is our building was violated,'' Puri said. ``We lost friends. We lost colleagues.''

Of those killed, 11 students and three professors were in The College of Engineering.

Still, Puri and Post said returning to the laboratories will help students and staff with their emotional healing.

``I think that people don't realize how hard it has been for us,'' Puri said. ``We're mentally drained. We're emotionally exhausted. We just want to get back to work.''