BLACKSBURG, Virginia (AP) -- Virginia Tech officials planning this weekend's commencement have taken pains to remember the victims of last month's massacre without taking the focus from the graduates' accomplishment. About 4,000 graduating seniors will be honored at a joint observance Friday night before receiving diplomas Saturday during services for the individual colleges.
"We want to keep the ceremony as celebratory as possible," said Ed Henneke, an engineering professor and chairman of the commencement committee. With less than a month passed since gunman Seung-Hui Cho killed himself and 32 others on campus, however, memories of those who died will have a heavy presence throughout the weekend. This year, the committee has had two emergency meetings to rearrange the Friday night ceremony, which is expected to attract the usual 25,000 people. Organizers had to stop the program from going to press to add a listing of university president Charles Steger's remarks about the tragedy....
...Posthumous degrees will be awarded to the slain undergraduates at the Friday night ceremony, while degrees for the graduate students who died will be awarded at the ceremony for about 500 master's and doctorate recipients Friday afternoon. Photos of the 32 people Cho killed will be flashed on a giant screen at Lane Stadium, and class rings will be given to the students' families, who will sit in a special section. The 25 people injured will be recognized at the Saturday ceremonies. Henneke -- who was in Norris Hall, a classroom and office building, during the shootings there -- said there are no plans to mention Cho, who was a senior, at Friday's ceremony.
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:Y6PJKClvdpMJ:www.cnn.com/2007/EDUCATION/05/07/virginia.tech.commence.ap/index.html%3Feref%3Drss_education+virginia+tech+and+graduation+2007&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6&gl=us&client=firefox-a
