Seung-Hui Cho: Difference between revisions

Cho authored an email complaining about one of his professors, Nikki Giovanni, at Virginia Tech, who taught a creative writing class. Cho wore sunglasses to class to cover up himself and was accused of filming Giovanni and the students in the classroom. Giovanni claims that this 'disruptive' behavior made many of the students leave the class over the course of the semester, as the students were allegedly intimidated by Cho's erratic and [[creepy]] behavior, which included Cho angrily lecturing the other students on the immorality of eating meat. He later claimed he made these comments as a 'joke' and not out of any particular philosophical or ethical attachment to vegetarianism. Giovanni also apparently perceived the content of some of Cho's poems as containing veiled violent threats, including towards her own person, but she did not seek any further redress for this, nor did she accept further security arrangements to be made for her own person despite her stated perception that Cho had violent intent towards her.

Giovanni consulted with other VT professors and threatened to resign, however there was no formal basis for removing Cho from the class and a compromise was reached where Cho agreed to be privately tutored by another English professor for the rest of the semester. Cho's grades in this specific class markedly improved after this transferal to private tutoring. Cho later received an A grade in the subject (pp. 43-45).<ref name="chomentalhealth"></ref> Giovanni also became angry at Cho for not taking off his sunglasses during class. It was clear Cho harboured animosity towards Giovanni, and he may have perceived her as a bully. After the shooting, Giovanni wasn't surprised that it was Cho. "I knew when it happened that that's probably who it was. I would have been shocked if it wasn't." <ref>https://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/18/vtech.shooting/index.html</ref>

Cho had further tensions with another professor at Virginia Tech, Carl Bean, who taught the subject of technical writing. Later, during the course of the investigative panel into the Virginia Tech shootings, Bean characterized Cho as a silent manipulator. He stated Cho knew how "to play the game (and) do as little as he needed to do

to get by (in his schoolwork)". Bean further described Cho as "very intelligent" but stated that Cho's grasp of English vocabulary was poor and that his writing lacked creativity (p. 50).<ref name=" chomentalhealth"></ref> Bean had a run-in with Cho where Cho had displayed uncharacteristic assertiveness in response to issues he was having with completing the course material in Bean's class.

Cho had wanted to write essays about the American Revolutionary War, the April Revolution of 1960 that had toppled South Korean president Syngman Rhee and an 'objective real time experience' based on serial killers, respectively, as opposed to writing an essay on the set course material. Bean considered these essay topics unacceptable and Cho's overall work that semester to be unsatisfactory and suggested Cho drop the technical writing subject for this semester. This dispute eventually led to a heated confrontation in Bean's office. Cho later relented and sent an email to Bean where he acquiesced and agreed to drop out of his class.

Another English professor, Dr. Lucinda Roy, who tutored Cho privately after his conflict with Giovanni, characterized Cho's English assignments as being marked by a clear theme of opposition to authority. In a letter to another faculty member, she said of Cho "all of his submissions so far have been about shooting or harming people

because he's angered by their authority or by their behavior. We're hoping he'll be able to write inside a different kind of narrative in the future, and we're

encouraging him to do so (p. 45).<ref name=" chomentalhealth"></ref> Roy had attempted to increase Cho's empathy towards other students by making him study the works of Yeats and Emily Dickinson, and his grades markedly improved for a period under her tutelage.  

 

In light of his multiple run-ins and conflicts with his teachers at Virginia Tech and his general dislike of authority figures is possible that Cho's struggles and inability to submit to the rigid authority and teacher-student dynamic generally demanded by the tertiary education system also contributed to his subsequent decision to lash out at this system with extreme violence.