Photo by Matt Gentry | The Roanoke Times

A memorial was created at the base of a tree in front of Norris Hall, where 30 people were killed Monday.

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For the past 47 years, Norris Hall fit in with all the other Hokie stone buildings around Virginia Tech's campus. But now Norris, named for former engineering dean Earl Norris, is set off by yellow and black crime scene tape and guarded by Virginia state troopers.

On Monday, Seung-Hui Cho walked into Norris, chained two sets of doors behind him and began shooting. He killed 30 people, and 28 more were injured or wounded there before Cho committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.

What was a building filled with classrooms, laboratories and professors' offices had become the scene of the worst campus shooting rampage in the nation's history.

And two Tech departments -- engineering, and foreign languages and literatures -- are now dealing with multiple issues surrounding the building: the loss of teaching experience there, the loss of students there; how to handle classes now; and the long-term future of the Norris building itself.

No one will deliver lectures or conduct experiments in Norris for the rest of this academic year, but what will become of the building after that remains uncertain.

"I think I'd be speaking out of turn in terms of Norris long term," said Lynn Nystrom, spokeswoman for the College of Engineering.

Nystrom had an office on the third floor of Norris. She was among the people evacuated Monday when the shooting stopped one floor below. The way out was blocked by a set of chained doors, she said, so the group she was with had to detour through an auditorium.

She and others who needed to retrieve things from Norris were allowed back into the building Wednesday and again Thursday.

"Going in last night was emotionally extremely difficult," Nystrom said Thursday afternoon. "Today it was a little easier."

Counselors accompanied people into the building, she said. State troopers helped carry boxes and bags out of offices and labs.

"The next time we're able to get in, I'm not sure."

She's not sure about what will become of the building, either.

"What ultimately happens -- I think there's a range of options that are being considered," Nystrom said. "We've got a range of opinions. Yes, there would be people who would be willing to work out of Norris, but at this point that is not an option."

Some people want to have the building cleaned and repaired and reclaimed as soon as possible. Others want to raze Norris and put up a memorial in its place.

An online petition drive calls for the building to be renamed for engineering professor Liviu Librescu. Librescu blocked the door to his classroom while his students jumped from windows to the ground below. Cho shot Librescu through the door, according to the petition, just as the last student got away. Librescu, a 76-year-old Holocaust survivor, died on Holocaust Remembrance Day.

"Had it not been for the brave and selfless acts of Dr. Librescu, many more lives would have been torn apart that day," the petition, started by Toronto Web designer Justin Kozuch, reads. "We should forever remember the heroism of our dear professor, acts that saved the lives of many."

Kozuch said his grandfather also survived the Holocaust.

The petition went online about noon Thursday.

In 27 hours, the petition had more than 2,700 signatures.

More than the fate of the building hangs in the balance, of course. The injured students and the friends and family of the dead and wounded need support. And there are academic departments that must recover and rebuild.

Richard Shryock is chairman of the department of foreign languages and literatures, a department that was hit especially hard. Two professors and 15 students were killed. He said on Wednesday that he had no clue, "not one scintilla of information, on injuries."

Shryock said there are three categories of classes he's trying to plan for. "You have a Spanish or Russian class, where students may have known some of the students killed, but are not directly affected any more than, say, someone in accounting. That's one group. The university is trying to deal in general with those.

"My particular challenge is with the two other categories of classes." Those are the French classes taught by Jocelyne Couture-Nowak and the German classes taught by Jamie Bishop.

There are three classes in which none of the students was injured, but they have lost their instructors, Shryock said.

Then there are the classes the two professors were teaching Monday where they and so many of their students died.

"In the case of classrooms where there was death, we actually don't yet know the extent of the situation -- how many students are around to have a class, particularly in the case of the French class" where the 11 students died with their instructor. "I fear very few."

The college of engineering lost nine students and three professors. In addition to Librescu, professors G.V. Loganathan and Kevin Granata died Monday. Granata was a rising star. Loganathan was an established star.

"He won award after award after award," Nystrom said. "His first love was his students. His first love was the classroom and teaching."

But there are many outstanding professors in the college, she said, and many are volunteering to pick up for their fallen colleagues.

Engineering administrators who had their offices in Norris a week ago are sharing telephones and computers at a conference table in Durham Hall now.

Friday afternoon, it was still unclear where classes scheduled for Norris will meet Monday. Such things must be addressed, of course, but they are not at the front of most people's minds.

"Beyond the grief," engineering professor Krishnan Ramu said last week, "there's no thought beyond that now."

Staff writer Cody Lowe contributed to this report.

Librescu petition online: www.petitiononline.com/04172007/petition.html