NIU, community reflect on changes
By CARRIE FRILLMAN and DANA HERRA - Daily Chronicle
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| Northern Illinois University student Jenna Binversie watches as 500 balloons are released Thursday by the Huskies United group in DeKalb. After five minutes of silence, the group released the balloons in memory of the five students killed on Feb. 14, 2008. (Beck Diefenbach – bdiefenbach@daily-chronicle.com) |
A silk yellow carnation rests in a mailbox in the advertising department of the Northern Star, the student newspaper at Northern Illinois University.
A red and black memorial ribbon is taped inside, and a label reads “Dan ‘the man’ Parmenter.”
And it will “be here forever,” said Maria Krull, business adviser for the Northern Star student newspaper, where Parmenter worked as an advertising representative in the fall of 2007 and early part of 2008. So will his picture, which hangs on a wall in the newspaper’s office in the Campus Life Building at NIU.
Parmenter, 20, was one of five students killed a year ago today when a former NIU student walked into Room 101 of Cole Hall on campus and opened fire, killing Parmenter, Gayle Dubowski, Catalina Garcia, Julianna Gehant and Ryanne Mace. Another 21 were injured before the shooter turned the gun on himself.
“He’s become part of our every day,” Krull said of Parmenter. “We don’t think about it too much. But this week, with all these activities going on ... it’s getting a little rough.”
Krull said she hopes that those who knew Parmenter become better people because of him.
“Life goes on,” she said. “For those who were here last year, he’s a part of us. And that’s how it is.”
Life has gone on in DeKalb during the past 366 days. In the aftermath of Feb. 14, 2008, NIU and the community banded together to grieve and offer each other support. Led by NIU President John Peters, the mantra “Forward, Together Forward” from the Huskie Fight Song was adopted by students and area residents as the attitude they would adopt to start the healing process.
A year later, it is apparent that the community and NIU campus are living that advice. Though no one has forgotten the events of that day or the people whose lives were cut short, many in DeKalb are moving forward.
Picking up the pieces
Jacqueline Wells, 26, sees the campus community from two perspectives – those of a teaching assistant and graduate student. One year has brought NIU to almost-full recovery, she said, and though the school was shaken, it now is much the same as it was before February 2008.
“If anything, I think the mode of communicating that happens on campus has changed,” she said Tuesday. “People, students and instructors are more aware of what’s going on around us.”
As a teacher, Wells said she watches her students more closely now. She said she knows when they’re feeling overwhelmed and aims to be an outlet for them.
And she hopes that today doesn’t add to their stress. NIU is marking the one year since the shooting with a memorial service at the NIU Convocation Center, as well as more than a dozen other activities and events.
“My hope is that people don’t relive the day, but they remember the day and are joyful of where their lives are now,” Wells said. “This is a time of remembrance and of family.”
Peters said that today is a day to remember those who were lost. But he said it’s also a day to do what the community and university have already been doing for the past year – continue moving forward.
Many have done that, Peters said.
“I see our students and see how they reacted to this tragedy, how they picked up and have gone to their calculus classes and they’ve gone on with their lives,” Peters said. “I’ve learned they should not be underestimated and they should be listened to. I learned that.”
More than a dozen members of the university community interviewed in the last several days said that life on campus has fallen back into familiar routine.
“For the most part, normalcy has returned,” said Dustin Wong, 21, who was studying outside on Tuesday in the MLK Memorial Commons. “I think it might be different for those who were directly affected, but the general feeling on campus is back to what it was.”
Many of the 150-plus students in the Cole Hall classroom where the shooting took place are moving forward, too, said Scott Peska, director of the Office of Support and Advocacy. Of those students, 19 have left NIU, but another 11 had a 4.0 grade point average in the fall semester, and another 20 have graduated, he said.
There have been some changes. NIU has focused on building support for students, Peters said. Extra counseling services are available in Peska’s department, the Office of Support and Advocacy, which was formed to give extra assistance to those most closely connected to the shooting.
And there are some simple daily differences that some students think may be a result of last year’s tragedy. Several have noticed more leniency from professors regarding cell phone policies, with some even saying their professors require them to bring phones to class. Others said their instructors are more “tuned in” to their students than they were a year ago.
A few students said this week that the initial feeling of unity that followed the shooting lingers. They said they feel a bit more connected to peers and share a common understanding.
“People really want to represent their school and celebrate the lives [that were] lost as a way to move forward,” said Katherine Pintozzi, 22.
Holly Conroy, 21, agreed. She said the increased unity, though it may be slight, is the sole positive to come from the shooting.
“The only upside I can think of is the increased closeness with people you barely know,” said she said. “You’re there for strangers, if they need you. ... And now instead of school officials telling us we are Huskies, we know we are Huskies.”
‘Nothing can stop us’
There’s also a sense of moving forward in the local community. DeKalb hairstylist Teresa Carter said earlier this week that although many of her clients work at NIU, she had heard no one mention the upcoming one-year marker.
People may be more alert, more aware of their surroundings than before, but for the most part, she said, they have settled back into their routines.
“Right afterward, people were very conscious of what was going on and were more courteous. They were almost overly friendly to make sure everyone felt good and everyone was OK,” she said. “As time has gone on, that has worn off, unfortunately. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing, because it means people are feeling safe again, more secure.”
DeKalb resident Hannah Riley said she felt the new closeness between residents and the university relaxing a little over the summer break.
“I’m sure on campus things are different, but it didn’t really change things around town,” she said. “People still care about the students, obviously, but I think a lot of people in DeKalb who don’t go to the university or work there or live near campus really don’t think about it much anymore.”
For many on campus, though, the surge of support from the community made a lasting impact. Rena Cotsones, executive director of community relations at NIU, said the bond between the university and the community is much stronger than before the shooting.
“Sometimes it takes a tragedy to make people see how much they really need each other, and even a large entity like this is still made up of people,” she said.
Cotsones pointed to the Huskies on Parade, the public art project for which local residents, businesses and organizations bought and decorated fiberglass huskies to be displayed around the area, as an example. The idea for the project had been kicked around for years, she said, but had never come to fruition.
“Then in the months after the tragedy, as people were talking to each other in a new way and people were dealing with each other in a new way, there was a spirit of, ‘Of course we should be doing this. Nothing can stop us,’ " she said. “I’m looking forward to seeing that continue.”
Embracing the future
Moving on is easier said than done for those directly affected by the shooting. Eric Mace said there is a “huge emptiness” in the life he and his wife, Mary Kay, have lived in the year since their daughter, Ryanne, died in the shooting.
He misses the occasional phone calls that came in from her, he said, and the smile that was often on her face. He cares less about things like politics, he said, but more about helping others. He’s passionate about the scholarship that has been set up at the NIU Foundation in Ryanne’s name, which will be given to graduate students studying psychology, the same profession his daughter wanted to enter.
But he has also adopted the “Forward, Together Forward” mantra, he said, and he encouraged those connected to the Feb. 14 shooting to embrace the same phrase.
“I’ve spent the last year looking backwards. I think that’s a waste,” he said. “What I need to do is look forward and have this behind me as a motivation.”
Part of it, he said, is a “stubborn personal pride” so people know that he is OK.
“And also to show that this guy took five lives and then his own, but he didn’t take ours,” Mace said. “He took a very significant portion of it, but we want to use that as a motivation to do better, rather than an excuse to fail.”
Daily Chronicle City Editor Kate Schott contributed to this report.
