Students, faculty return to campus after shooting
Michigan State University students and faculty returned to the East Lansing campus Monday as the university resumed normal operations, one week after a gunman shot and killed three students and injured five others.
The 50,000-student university’s campus remained relatively quiet on the first day back, with many professors allowing students to attend class virtually. Many students skipped class to attend an afternoon protest at the state Capitol in Lansing to call for gun control legislation.
All students at the university this semester will be given a credit/no credit option, which allows students to receive credit for all classes without it impacting their overall grade point average. University officials also asked teachers in an email Friday to “extend as much grace and flexibility as you are able with individual students, now and in the coming weeks.”
Brogan Kelley, a freshman at Michigan State, left East Lansing after last week’s shooting to return home to his family in west Michigan. But he drove back Sunday so he could attend class in person. He said he felt like it was important “to go back about my life.”
“For me, not going to class felt like I would have been letting the shooter win. I didn’t want this one tragedy to define the place I call home and the university that’s giving me my education,” said Kelley said.
Kelley, who was at an offcampus house when the shooting took place, said the majority of his professors had given students the option to attend class in person or online, with many students choosing the latter.
The shootings at Michigan State happened last Monday during evening classes at Berkey Hall and nearby at the MSU Union. Students across the vast campus were ordered to shelter in place for four hours — “run, hide, fight” if necessary — while police hunted for Anthony McRae, 43, who eventually killed himself when confronted by police not far from his home in Lansing.
Two wounded students remain in critical condition at Sparrow Hospital, university police said Monday. Two other students were in stable condition with another student in “fair condition.”
The university has been criticized by some in the community for returning too quickly. The editorial board of The State News, the student newspaper, wrote Thursday that they wouldn’t attend class next week, either in person or online. More time was needed to heal, the students wrote.