Jason Schwartz

(The reporter recounts his experiences covering the Virginia Tech tragedy in Blacksburg, Va.) Standing on the edge of the crowd at Monday night's vigil, I asked Virginia Tech junior Kathryn White how she was coping with the previous day's tragedy. "It's getting easier every day," she said.

BLACKSBURG, Va. - Much of Tuesday night's emotional candlelight vigil focused on healing and moving forward as a community. But as Virginia Polytechnic Institute students dispersed from the service, they faced a more immediate, practical question: With classes canceled through the end of the week, what to do with all their time?

BLACKSBURG, Va. - The day after the most brutal attack ever to take place on an American college campus, Virginia Polytechnic Institute students struggled to come to grips with their new reality.

In the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings yesterday, the obvious question being asked on college campuses across the country is, what if it happened here? One of the principle steps the Penn Police took years ago - even before the Columbine attacks in 1998 - to deal with the potential of this type of attack was creating a SWAT team, officially called the Emergency Response Team.

Joseph Fischer spent 27 years working for the Philadelphia Police, mostly investigating homicides. By 1998, he had qualified for retirement and a pension and was ready to move on. "You handle 1,200 homicides, I guess you figure you've seen them all," he said.

Pulling up a chair at one of the long dining-room tables, Robert Engs, Princeton class of '65, sat down to enjoy a meal with some of his fellow undergrads.

Larry Maltz graduated from Penn two decades ago as a pre-med biology major. Now, he runs an on-campus used bookstore.

If the battle for control of Congress weren't reason enough for Penn students to flock to the polls for this Tuesday's congressional midterms, here's another: The outcome of the election could significantly affect how they pay for college. Two of the major issues on the table are Pell Grant and Stafford Loan funding for students.

Penn was founded in 1740. Benjamin Franklin founded Penn. Therefore, Benjamin Franklin founded Penn in 1740. Not quite, according to Wikipedia. Dan Smith, a 60-year-old software engineer from outside Boston, wrote on the site that a group led by evangelist George Whitefield tried to start the school that would become Penn in 1740, even putting up the first building.

What do you get when you combine the Wharton School, rampant corruption and the Chinese Communist Party? A purging, of course. Last Sunday, Chinese security forces removed Chen Liangyu, a graduate of the first Wharton senior executive training program run in Shanghai in 1990, from his post as Shanghai's Communist Party boss and placed him under house arrest.