BOULDER — Nearly 4,000 students signed up for the University of Colorado's emergency-alert text messaging system after yesterday's campus stabbing.

"At first, I was like 'Yeah, whatever,'" said student Rand Shoaf, 20, describing his initial reaction to the alert system.

"Now, I think it might be a good idea," the CU junior said today.

The total of campus subscribers is now approaching 5,000, CU officials said today.

Yesterday morning, Kenton Astin, 39, who has a criminal record and a history of mental illness, slit freshman Michael Knorps in the neck outside the University Memorial Center.

Police and witnesses say Astin then stabbed himself repeatedly in the chest.

Knorps was released from the hospital yesterday after surgery.

Astin was listed in good condition this afternoon at Boulder Community Hospital.

The campus seemed to have returned to normal today. But the incident was not far from the surface.

"It's in the back of my mind," Suzanne Eyerman, 28, a doctoral student in education, said this morning. "But I decided not to change what I do because of what happened."

Eyerman was early for a meeting so she sat at a table on the University Memorial Center terrace — only feet from where Knorps, 18, was cut by Astin, who lives in Boulder.

"I'm glad to hear police or security or whoever responded so quickly," Eyerman said. "I'm disappointed to hear the person had worked here and hadn't had a background check."

The lack of a background check for Astin, who had worked at the UMC's Alferd Packer Grill as a cashier, also concerned parent Rebecca Carr, who was helping her daughter, 19-year-old sophomore Courtney Carr, buy books at the UMC.

CU officials said Monday they had not done background checks on workers from the Chinook Clubhouse, a program aimed at helping people with mental illness assimilate into the community. Astin worked at CU as part of the program.

"I was surprised (CU) hadn't been doing that," said Rebecca Carr, who is from Indianapolis.

Carr, who works in the mental-health field, also said she was surprised that Astin was able to live freely considering his past, which included a stint in a mental institution after he stabbed another man in 2001. The victim in that case suffered minor injuries but managed to wrestle the knife away.

"It's worrisome," Rebecca Carr said about her daughter. "I don't want to leave her."

CU spokeswoman Jeannine Malmsbury said students went to classes this morning like any other day.

"It's an almost normal start to the semester," Malmsbury said. "People have a lot to do. It's a busy time."

It was unclear whether Knorps returned to classes today, but CU officials on Monday said he was expected to be cleared by doctors to return.

Malmsbury also corrected information about the campus' emergency notification system for students, saying that 1,300 students received the text message campus officials sent out about the stabbing 38 minutes after it first was reported.

Student Kyle Montgomery, a 22-year-old finance major, said he told his parents about the stabbing but said he wasn't concerned to be back on campus. He was catching up with a friend from last spring in the UMC near the food court.

"It's passed," Montgomery said.

Don Yannacito, who assists the film studies chair and teaches an introduction to filmmaking course, said he had been thinking about the stabbing as he walked to work.

"It's strange to think you may have known that person," Yannacito said. "You feel sorry for the young man who was hurt but you also feel sorry for the gentleman who wasn't able to control himself.

"I'm sure people are talking about it," he said. "Everyone will figure out how to assimilate it."

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