A Day Later, Campus Begins To Recover

Flags flew at half-mast across the University yesterday as school continued uninterrupted in the aftermath of Tuesday’s tragedy.

College classes met as scheduled yesterday, and classes resumed at the medical school, the law school, the business school and the Kennedy School of Government after cancellations on Tuesday.

“It just seemed weird, it was too soon,” said Trevor D. Dryer ’02 of the efforts to return to normalcy. “It was like there shouldn’t be a day or two [of remembrance].”

But signs of Tuesday’s attacks were still visible across campus, from the continued, stepped-up presence of uniformed officers to posted signs offering counseling services. Overhead, military planes cruised the airways.

At the checker’s desk in Adams House, a glass pitcher for cash donations and a sign-up sheet for the University Health Services (UHS) blood drive were silent reminders of Tuesday. Lowell House continued to offer residents free long-distance calls to New York and Washington D.C. from the senior tutor’s office. Many professors cut classes short or prefaced their lecture with a moment of silence.

“In every single one of my classes, it was discussed,” said Dana A. Gavrieli ’02. “The professors were great in terms of addressing what happened.”

More than a thousand students signed up to participate in UHS’s blood drive, which kicked off yesterday.

UHS Director David S. Rosenthal ’59 said the drive will likely continue through Friday, depending on whether hospitals continue to accept donations. Buses hired by UHS have also been bringing volunteers to Children’s Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where the wait to donate blood is still significant.

The New York Blood Center, which issued a plea for emergency blood donations on Tuesday, said the response has been “tremendous.” A spokesperson actually asked that Boston donors be patient and not give blood until next week at the earliest.

“We’ve had so many people respond positively that we’re now actually encouraging people…to postpone their donation,” Linda S. Levi said.

Whole blood has a shelf life of six weeks, and donors must wait eight weeks before being eligible to give blood again, Levi said.

The New York Blood Center collected more than 5,000 donations of blood on Tuesday, triple the number collected on an average day. She added that the Center’s inventory has been boosted by 50 percent.

Plans are in the works to hold a four-day, on-campus blood drive during the last week of September at St. Paul’s Church, behind Adams House. The drive is being planned in coordination with the American Red Cross, Rosenthal said.

Responding to the attacks, several campus groups cancelled or postponed meetings. Prefect Nancy J. Chang ’02 said she decided to postpone the first-year mixer “Singled Out” indefinitely. It had been scheduled for yesterday night.

“We postponed it out of respect for the families and students until we think that this tragedy has come to some sort of place where everybody can move on,” Chang said.

The Undergraduate Council held off its campus welcome until today. The black community meeting set for Tuesday was postponed until further notice. And University Choir auditions originally scheduled for Tuesday are taking place today.

While classes have begun as usual, students are left still trying to make sense out of the tragedy.

“I just feel very strange picking out my courses when so many people are worrying about their loved ones,” Erin B. Ashwell ’02 said. “There’s a big disconnect.”

“It’s been a whirlwind of emotions,” Gavrieli said.

--Staff writer Juliet J. Chung can be reached at jchung@fas.harvard.edu.