BLACKSBURG, Va. — The mood in the basketball arena was defeated, funereal. Nikki Giovanni seemed an unlikely source of strength for a Virginia Tech campus reeling from the depravity of one of its own.

Nearly two years earlier, Ms. Giovanni had stood up to Cho Seung-Hui before he drenched the campus in blood. Her comments Tuesday showed that the man who had killed 32 students and teachers had not killed the school’s spirit.

In September 2005, Cho was enrolled in Ms. Giovanni’s introduction to creative writing class. From the beginning, he began building a wall between himself and the rest of the class.

He wore sunglasses to class and pulled his maroon knit cap down low over his forehead. When she tried to get him to participate in class discussion, his answer was silence.

“Sometimes, students try to intimidate you,” Ms. Giovanni told the Associated Press in a telephone interview Wednesday. “And I just assumed that he was trying to assert himself.”

But then female students began complaining about Cho.

About five weeks into the semester, students told Ms. Giovanni that Cho was taking photographs of their legs and knees under the desks with his cell phone. She told him to stop, but the damage was already done.

Female students refused to come to class, submitting their work by computer instead. Ms. Giovanni wrote a letter to the department head, who removed Cho.