NIU Memorial

Anyone who attended NIU in the last thirty-some years knows the room where last week's shootings occurred. I took my GREs in that room. My husband took his advance placement tests there. The film club screened free foreign and classic movies there on a weekly basis throughout the 1980s.

I had several classes in Cole Hall, and for six years the hallway that ran through Cole was a convenient daily short cut to buildings where I had classes and offices in DuSable and Reavis.

I have dozens of friends who still work and teach there, some of whom now have children who attend NIU. The events of 2/14 did not touch them directly. They were not in Jamison auditorium when the gunman opened fire. But true community has no boundaries in time or distance. I remember the places where I thought and laughed, studied and daydreamed, and feel desperately sad.