Spartan Newsroom (https://news.jrn.msu.edu/tag/spartan-strong/)
Commentary and reporting related to Feb. 13, 2023, at Michigan State University from the journalists of the Spartan Newsroom.
It’s been two years since the tragic shooting at Michigan State University that took the lives of three students and left five others seriously injured. Since then, Feb. 13 is known now to the MSU community as a day for healing without classes or school events.
In remembrance of Michigan State University’s tragic shooting on Feb. 13, 2023, the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum showcased a week-long exhibition called “Art in the Aftermath.” This “activist tribute” showcased paintings, sculptures, spoken word and audience art stations that expressed how MSU and the wider community were affected by gun violence.
It’s been over two months since the tragedy on Feb. 13 when MSU students lost three of their peers in a school shooting.
The East Lansing Library hosted the Silver Linings concert on April 12 for the community. The concert was put together for the people of East Lansing to come together and heal after the Feb. 13 shooting at Michigan State.
MSU Union reopened April 3 to the campus and the public. The union has put together a room of messages from people around the country.
VIM Magazine, a student-run fashion, beauty and lifestyle publication at Michigan State University, had a routine biweekly meeting the night of Feb. 13 in Bessey Hall.
Minutes into the 8 p.m. meeting, students received an alert that changed their campus forever.
At the meeting, members were to hear from VIM alumni about how their experience in the organization has helped them in their careers.
They were supposed to leave the meeting with advice and excitement for their future. Instead, they fled with the words run, hide and fight engraved in their minds.
The unfazed mask that I had during the shooting was long gone, and I was hit with the realization that this campus had forever changed. I still kept on hearing yelling that felt like screams and door slams that sounded like gunshots. A sense of survivor’s guilt was starting to get the best of me.
Being a leader isn’t easy as it is – specially leading a newsroom when you and others have fear in your hearts. On the night of Feb.13, a mass shooting occurred and left three students dead. As an English senior and Editor-in-Chief of The State News, SaMya Overall had to make well-thought-out decisions in the newsroom while grieving for her fellow Spartan peers.
On the night of Feb. 13, I was in the same place I would always be on a Monday night: the Spartan Sports Report newsroom in the Communication Arts and Sciences building at Michigan State University. That night allowed many of us within the Spartan Sports Report to grow closer to one another than we ever expected to be.
On the Banks of the Red Cedar there is a school that is known to all, and for its students, the night of February 13, 2023 is one they will hold in their hearts and memories forever.
Although that day has passed, the experiences and fear of that night is something that Spartans carry with them every day from their classes to dinners at the dining halls.
For every student and faculty member the grieving process is different. When returning to classes only one week after the violence, some professors still were not sure how to handle it.
“It was hard, I was trying to balance between acknowledging everything that happened, but providing some sense of normalcy that I knew some students were craving… It was an incredibly difficult situation to navigate knowing how different students’ needs were, and knowing even then that I could not meet everyone’s needs,” Brandy Ellison, social sciences professor, said. Knowing how grieving and moving on is different for everyone, she decided to offer an option for students to return to her classes online.
“I knew a lot of students wanted to be online. They were not comfortable coming back to campus because we were so close to spring break. After going home for a minute and asking them to come back for only two weeks, I was able to offer both options in that situation and it was nice, ” Ellison said.