Virginia Tech observes 2nd anniversary of massacre

From The Washington Post: Virginia Tech observed the second anniversary of senior Seung Hui Cho's massacre of 32 students and faculty members, and many people returned to Norris Hall, but it is clear that the community remains conflicted over whether things ever really will return to normal. The renovation of the second floor of Norris Hall's west wing has infused the old institutional-looking space with an art gallery feel: The hallways are arched, the floor is paneled in light and dark shades of wood, labs have replaced classrooms and a curved frosted glass wall of one room carries the title "Center for Peace Studies and Violence Prevention."
RELATED: The families of Erin Peterson and Julia Pryde, two victims of the Virginia Tech massacre, have sued the state. The lawsuit contends that the state, the school and its counseling center, several top university officials and a local mental health agency failed to protect the students. (Washington Post)

EARLIER...From The Virginia Tech Collegiate Times: Nearly two years after Seung-Hui Cho took 32 lives in Norris Hall on the Virginia Tech campus, the university has reopened the front wing of the building. The view from the second floor is still the same, but the view inside was vastly different. It will house the Center for Peace Studies and the department of engineering science and mechanics.

From The Richmond Times-Dispatch: Virginia Tech plans to hold a brief ceremony April 10 to mark the reopening of the second-floor section of Norris Hall where a gunman killed 30 of his 32 victims two years ago. The 4,300-square-foot area on the Blacksburg campus has been converted into six new rooms and laboratories where engineering students can work on projects, and where the new Center for Peace Studies and Violence Prevention is housed. The rehabilitation cost Tech about $1 million. Virginia Tech student Seung-Hui Cho opened fire at Norris Hall on April 16, 2007, killing five teachers and 25 students. Earlier in the day, he had shot and killed two students in a residence hall. After the massacre, Tech officials decided that the rooms on the second floor of Norris Hall's west wing, where most of the victims died, would never be used again for classes.