As many as eight faculty members in Virginia Tech’s English department formed what one called a “task force” to figure out how to help Cho Seung-Hui, the troubled English major who killed 32 people and himself on Monday, The New York Times says in Friday’s editions.

The department’s faculty members and students “appear to have worked harder than anyone to intervene in his life,” the Times says, because so many of them had read his writings and recognized that the levels of anger in them were extraordinary. In at least two instances the faculty members tried to warn Virginia Tech officials about Mr. Cho.

The newspaper quotes Carolyn Rude, chairwoman of the department, as saying: “Sometimes, in creative writing, people reveal things and you never know if it’s creative or if they’re describing things, if they’re imagining things or just how real it might be. But we’re all alert to not ignore things like this.” —Lawrence Biemiller