Professor Laments Wall Of Privacy's Rigidity

For more than 40 years, poet and Virginia Tech professor Nikki Giovanni has been writing poems and books examining race, sex and politics.

But it was the sight of the petite Giovanni at the Virginia Tech memorial reading her poem about the April 16 shooting rampage and the Hokie spirit that propels the school forward that has won her a new following.

Giovanni, 64, rarely speaks publicly about the shootings by a Virginia Tech student -- one of her former students -- that left him and 32 others dead. And today, when she appears at Baltimore's Walters Art Museum to read her poetry as part of the Maryland Humanities Council's speaker series, she will not read "We Are Virginia Tech," the piece she penned just days after Seung Hui Cho stormed the campus, the piece she delivered at the nationally televised memorial service attended by thousands of Tech students, staff members and political figures, including President Bush.

Emotionally, she said in a recent interview, she doesn't want to revisit the deaths on campus or the feeling evoked at the memorial service. "That feeling couldn't be re-created," she said. "It would be foolish of me."

But as a professor who once struggled with this difficult student, she does feel disappointed that the tragedy has not cleared the way for more open dialogue about students' needs.

In a report issued last month, a panel appointed by Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) found that university officials did not share vital information about Cho because they were concerned about violating his privacy.

"I know student privacy is important," Giovanni said. "But I don't see how we can teach if we can't discuss our students openly, about the good and the bad," she said. "Privacy rights only come up in troubled students. It doesn't come up with good students, because we discuss them all the time."

Giovanni recounted how she met Cho in one of her creative-writing classes in fall 2005. He would come to class wearing reflecting sunglasses and a hat pulled down over his head, she said, and often wore a scarf wrapped around his face.

But it was Cho's writings, more than his attire, that concerned her. He often wrote poems about death and killing. He would also take pictures of his classmates against their objections. He even wrote in a poem that Giovanni would die and go to Hell.

After several weeks -- and reports that other students were afraid of Cho -- she approached her supervisors and told them, "He needs to go." In April, when she heard that a Virginia Tech student had opened fire on his classmates, she immediately guessed it was Cho.

Another of her former students has recently made national headlines: suspended Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick. Vick pleaded guilty to federal dogfighting charges last month and tested positive for marijuana recently.

Vick was in Giovanni's "Harlem Renaissance" class in 1999, the year he helped lead the Hokies football team to a record 11-0 regular season. She said she hopes Vick won't be sentenced to prison and will be allowed to return to football. Instead of prison, she believes Vick should be ordered to work at animal shelters in the cities where he's playing football.

"He's a nice kid who made some mistakes," she said. "We can make a good citizen out of Michael better" by having him interact with those he hurt.

Giovanni will speak at 12:30 p.m. today at the Walters Art Museum, 600 N. Charles St., Baltimore. The event is free.