“We’re doing a lot of scrambling here to make sure our classes are covered,” Gerald B.S. Gabrielse, physics department head, said last night. “We’ve received a lot of panicked messages from professors.”

Shira S. Simon ’04, who found her Physics 1a class cancelled this morning, said the change in schedule gave her time, in her “early-morning groggy feeling,” to consider the wide-ranging effects of Tuesday’s attacks.

“You don’t realize the residual impact, how people still can’t commute anywhere. Things just aren’t normal,” Simon said. “It was a relief that I didn’t have a physics class, but at the same time there’s a lot more to the situation.”

Within the general education department, Morris Professor of Health Care Policy Richard G. Frank could not attend the first meeting of General Education 186, “Introduction to Health Care,” yesterday. Denault said Frank is in San Francisco and graduate students distributed course syllabi to interested students.

A number of students reported that General Education 105, “The Literature of Social Reflection,” also unexpectedly failed to meet yesterday, but Denault said Agee Professor of Social Ethics Robert Coles ’50, who teaches the class, had previously planned to wait until next week before holding his first session. Denault said he did not know whether Coles was in town or not.

Two members of the Near Eastern languages and civilizations department were also caught abroad as of yesterday.

Susan G. Miller, senior lecturer on Islamic civilizations, was trapped in Turkey and could not attend yesterday’s first scheduled lecture for Islamic Civilizations 120, “The Arab Mediterranean City.”