VOA慢速英语 2007 0426a

This is the VOA Special English Education Report.

 
April 23, 2007: A moment of silence observed for each of the 32 Virginia Tech shooting victims
Classes began again at Virginia Tech on Monday, one week after the shootings by a student. Seung-Hui Cho, an English major in his final year of college, killed thirty-two people. He also took his own life.

University officials were criticized for not acting¹ more quickly to warn of the danger of a gunman. School administrators² across the country are re-examining their security policies and communications systems. But they say privacy laws restrict how they can deal with mentally troubled people, even if there are warning signs of possible violence.

Virginia Tech, in Blacksburg, is a public university that has gained greater recognition in recent years. Its engineering and computer science programs, for example, are known internationally.

Seven percent of the students at Virginia Tech are international students. The Cranwell International Center at the university says there are about two thousand foreign students this year. They come from more than one hundred countries. But most are graduate students from India, China and South Korea.

Jacqueline Nottingham is the Graduate School director of admissions and academic progress. She says more than four thousand foreign students applied³ to the Graduate School for the term beginning in August. More than three thousand of those applications were for the College of Engineering.

She says she has not seen any evidence that foreign students are rejecting admission offers because of the tragedy. She says Virginia Tech is, in her words, "as strong a place as it has always been."

Graduate applications are accepted until May fifteenth. As of Wednesday, Jacqueline Nottingham said six hundred sixty-nine international students had been offered admission. Just over forty percent of them have already accepted the offers.

Norrine Bailey Spencer is the associate provost and director of undergraduate admissions. She says she has received e-mails and notes from some students who say they want to be part of Virginia Tech now more than ever.

More than three hundred international students have been offered undergraduate admission this coming fall. In the United States, undergraduates traditionally have until May first to accept or reject an offer from a college.

And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. This and other reports in our Foreign Student Series can be found online at voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Steve Ember.

1 acting   

n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的

参考例句：

• Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她，她只是假装的。
• During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代，她的表演生涯黯然失色。

2 administrators   

n.管理者( administrator的名词复数 )；有管理（或行政）才能的人；（由遗嘱检验法庭指定的）遗产管理人；奉派暂管主教教区的牧师

参考例句：

• He had administrators under him but took the crucial decisions himself. 他手下有管理人员，但重要的决策仍由他自己来做。 来自辞典例句
• Administrators have their own methods of social intercourse. 办行政的人有他们的社交方式。 来自汉英文学 - 围城

3 applied   

adj.应用的；v.应用，适用

参考例句：

• She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
• This cream is best applied to the face at night.这种乳霜最好晚上擦脸用。