The ‘Kids’ Are Not All Right (Right Now)
Editor’s note: Dustin DuFort Petty works full time as an academic adviser for the Bailey Scholars Program at Michigan State University and is a regular contributor to ELi. The students featured in this article all reached out to Dustin after he asked, via a GroupMe message, if anyone wanted to share their story with ELi readers. Here are stories from some of the Spartans living through the horrors of Monday, Feb. 13.
The first text from MSU Police came to my phone at 8:32 p.m. on Monday night.
“Shots Fired,” it read.
Like many of us, I assumed it was some downtown East Lansing shenanigans or fireworks going off to celebrate the upcoming Valentine’s holiday. Then, my students and colleagues began texting and calling.
I’ve been an academic adviser at Michigan State University for 10 years and have always bragged about having the best students on campus. And now they were scared.
Friends who had spent fun, transformative and occasional debaucherous years with me while we were undergrads at MSU nearly two decades ago were also calling and texting. They were telling me the horrors they were hearing on police scanners.
My colleagues and I immediately started reaching out to each of our 109 students by calling, texting and sending GroupMe messages. We found our students barricaded in classrooms on north campus, being evacuated from their dorm rooms in Akers Hall and laying on the floor of their apartments with the lights off. For the few who didn’t respond to our numerous messages, we found their parents’ contact information and determined they were safe through them.
By 12:30 a.m. Tuesday morning, our students were all accounted for. They were physically OK.
My students’ emotional wellbeing — and that of other students who spoke to me – is another story.
Econ sophomore learns of unfolding tragedy from friend in Texas
Sonali Aheer is a sophomore studying economics. She lives just west of the Brody Complex in an apartment building. She was sitting at her desk and didn’t think much of the sirens passing by her window.
It wasn’t until she received a text message from a friend in Texas that she realized what was happening less than a mile away.
“I feel drained,” she said in a telephone interview on Tuesday, “really angry and extreme sadness. I went home [to Canton] that night because I feel safe there. But it’s hitting me and I don’t know what to do. We’ve had active shooter trainings since middle school, but we didn’t take it seriously.
“I want to say to everyone [at MSU] that even though something like this has happened, it is OK to feel all these emotions, the anger and hatred. But people are still loving you and helping. Even through all this, we can still be there for one another.”
“MSU will never feel the same as it was,” the 20-year-old added at the end of the interview.
Political science freshman’s first reaction was sadness.
Autrina Saeidi and her two friends had just arrived back at her dorm room in Hubbard Hall after making a run to the Sparty’s convenience store downstairs. The political science freshman received a call from a friend, telling her to barricade her door.
“Initially, it was sadness [I felt],” Saeidi said. “I just started crying. We were listening to the 911 dispatcher and hearing that Emmons [a dorm in the Brody complex], or SnyPhi [the Snyder-Phillips dormitories] were being evacuated. We were so scared. We could see out our window that Akers was being evacuated.”
Once the campus lockdown was lifted, Saeidi and her friends “booked it” to her car and drove home to Sterling Heights.
“I don’t want to go back,” she said. “People have been constantly telling us that they’re happy that we’re OK and we’re safe. But there are people who weren’t safe. People died. Our classmates died.”
When I asked if she was planning on speaking with any of the available counselors or therapists, Saeidi said she was not doing so now but might in the near future.
“Everything is just overwhelming and we’re all on edge,” she said.
Biomedical laboratory sciences senior mourns how the peace of MSU life has been shattered.
Tamara Robaciu was feeling equally uncertain in the aftermath of the attack. The biomedical laboratory sciences senior spoke to me over Zoom to describe how she was left feeling.
“Growing up in this kind of era,” she said, “you kind of just have errant thoughts. You know, ‘if something were to happen, what would you do,’ but you never expect it to happen to you until it does.
“I think what a lot of people outside the community don’t understand is how tight knit and how loving our community is,” Robaciu said. “And when something like that shatters the peace that we’ve established, it’s like there’s a hole in your heart. And you hope that the collective is strong enough to move forward and find some kind of healing after this. But there’s a specter hanging over that part of campus now and I don’t know how that’s going to change the landscape and change how people feel.”
Sophomore from Vietnam wants the community to remember international students.
Phoebe Phuong Tran, an advertising management sophomore from Vietnam, urges the community to remember its international members. Tran told me she hadn’t left her dorm since she barricaded herself in her room Monday night and called her parents. They were at work as it was morning in Vietnam.
Her unwillingness to venture out doesn’t necessarily come from a disconnect between herself and domestic students.
“I have always loved the campus,” she said. “I think I just feel like not many people know about [international students’] specific and unique situations. We pretty much have to deal with it on our own, with each other.”
“[I want domestic students to know] that there are students just like them who must stay on campus and can’t go home,” she said.
MSU librarian was drawn to spending time on campus Tuesday.
But students weren’t the only ones left reeling after the attack on our campus.
Sara Miller has been a member of the Spartan community since 1992, when she arrived in East Lansing to pursue an undergraduate degree. Today, she works for the MSU Libraries as a librarian for interdisciplinary teaching and learning initiatives.
On Monday night at her home, Miller ignored the first autocall she received from MSU Police, assuming it was an unimportant reminder. Answering the immediate follow-up, she became worried.
“I live about a mile north of campus and they said he was on foot, so he could be anywhere really,” she said. “So I turned off all my lights, went into the bedroom and watched the news coverage on my laptop. The helicopters were so loud for a while.”
Her library director reached out to Miller and her colleagues trying to offer support while asking them to reach out to student employees. At the time, MSU students were barricading themselves into study rooms in the west wing of the main library, moving desks in front of the doors for protection.
Miller said she felt her first bit of relief when news came that the shooter was no longer a threat. Since then, she has been trying to process her feelings. This effort included talking a walk around campus on Tuesday.
“I really felt like I wanted to be there, just in the space,” she said. “MSU really is a place. It’s not just an idea. It really is a place that is important to folks. I really wanted to see it and know that it’s real. Hearing the beep of the crossing sign on the news kept sticking out to me, like, I know exactly where they are.”
“I walked by the MSU Union and saw the flowers people were leaving, and circled Berkey Hall,” Miller said. “I worked there as a student. I hadn’t been in the building in years but I wanted to see it in its new context where this horrible thing happened.
“It’s a special place,” she said. “It’s a place where people come in their formative years. They experience a lot of growth, they begin to discover who they are as people, they have their minds expanded and experience freedom. I remember the hope and positivity I experienced here as a student and that stays with you.
“But I was looking at these buildings and remembering some of those places. These students are now a permanent part of the place,” Miller added. “In four years…it will be a completely different student body. There will be a lot of legends of what happened and they will be part of MSU in that way. Their legacy will live on because MSU is a place saturated with the millions of people who have had an impact on the university over the years.”The East Lansing and Spartan community – near and far – are invited to join in welcoming students back to campus Sunday. MSU graduate student Emily Damman is leading the organization of “Spartan Sunday” for Feb.. 19 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. The volunteer event will include tables and tents set up along the Red Cedar River. See the organizers’ Facebook post for more information.