The State News, February 13th Commemorative Edition
FEBRUARY 13 COMMEMORATIVE EDITION
Whether classes are held on future anniversaries of the Feb. 13, 2023, campus mass shooting will continue to be made on a yearly basis.
Holding classes on Feb. 13 still a year-to-year decision for MSU’s campus PAGE 3
The Broad Art Museum works to curate a safe space for students PAGE 6-7
COLUMN: An international student’s experience of the MSU mass shooting
The exhibit, which was co-curated by MSU alumn Maya Manuel, was made to bring awareness to gun violence and to depict healing through “artivism.”
Feb. 13, 2023, was an ordinary winter night in East Lansing — until it wasn’t. Beyond the shock, beyond the grief, there was an isolation that set in.
PAGE 12
On Feb. 13, 2024, candles surrounding the Spartan Statue read the initials of the victims of the 2023 campus shooting – Alexandria Verner, Brian Fraser and Arielle Anderson. Photo by Alexis Schmidt.
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HOLDING CLASSES ON FEB. 13 STILL A YEAR-TO-YEAR DECISION FOR MSU
By Emilio Perez Ibarguen eibarguen@statenews.com
The decision on whether to hold classes on future anniversaries of the Feb. 13, 2023, campus mass shooting that killed three students and injured five will continue to be made on a yearly basis.
Most classes, except for a few graduate-level courses with stringent scheduling requirements, will not be held this Thursday, Feb. 13. Michigan State University also cancelled most classes for the one-year mark of the shooting. Plans for each Feb. 13, including the decision on whether or not to hold classes, are made in the year leading up to the anniversary by a committee of students, faculty and other community members. Throughout the process, many on the committee also consulted the families of students injured or killed in the shooting, university spokesperson Amber McCann said.
“I think it would be premature to speculate about what plans may be even for 2026, 2027 and beyond,” McCann said.
McCann added that MSU also consults with outside experts who help the university approach the anniversary in a “trauma-informed way” through advice and examples from other institutions.
The university will not hold a “remembrance event” or vigil on Thursday evening, unlike the first anniversary. Other events will return, however, including several outdoor spaces offering luminary kits and therapy dogs. Beaumont Tower will also be lit green and its bells will ring from 8:10 p.m. to 8:25 p.m., as they did last year.
The decision to not hold a vigil, McCann said, was made after receiving feedback from and working with student groups to determine what events the university would hold.
“It was just trying to honor and respect everybody’s sensitivity of the anniversary and the ability for everybody to take the time to recognize it in their own way,” McCann said at a recent press conference.
The memorial for Brian Fraser, Arielle Anderson and Alexandria Verner on Friday, Feb. 17, 2023, at the Rock on Farm Lane. State News File Photo.
Detroit-based poet Peace Bell reads her poems at the ‘Reclaiming Space Poetry Event’ held in the MSU Union on Feb. 5, 2025. The event included featured performers such as Bell, an open mic portion and the opportunity to add to the reclaiming space art gallery. Photo by Brianna Schmidt.
COLUMN: For two MSU shooting survivors, the grieving process has been far from linear
By Claire Donohoe and Jack Williams
cdonohoe@statenews.com
jwilliams@statenews.com
It’s been two years since three Michigan State University students died and five more were injured by a gunman on campus on Feb. 13, 2023. Two classes have graduated since, leaving only half a student body that can recall the experiences of being on campus during the shooting.
For two students who witnessed the shooting firsthand, their grief has not been a linear process. They’ve paved their own ways to healing, but managing their grief within an institution that seemingly wants to keep the grieving process moving has been a challenge. They don’t want what happened to fade away with time. The two students want the community to remember what happened that night.
Liz Lopez-Cadalzo was in her class on Cuban identity and culture as the cars of Grand River Avenue flew by outside the windows. She was always put off by the proximity of room 114 to the road. She said it felt like someone could just walk in from the street if they wanted to.
About halfway through class, Liz debated going to the vending machines for a snack, but eventually decided not to. “Thank god I didn’t,” she said, because shortly thereafter the class was interrupted by a bang in the hallways of Berkey Hall. She said the class fell silent and
whipped their heads around. Liz naturally hoped the sound wasn’t what she thought it was. Then there were two more.
The back door to the classroom opened and the sound of gunshots filled the room. Near the front of the room, Liz hit the ground, only able to make out a hand holding a gun peeking through the door. She couldn’t make out a face or a body. Within a minute, it was gone.
Liz described a brief silence followed by screaming and crying. Students called their moms, something she tried to do before thinking: I can’t be in here. Students rushed toward the windows facing Grand River, windows that had to be smashed and climbed over due to the bottom half not opening wide enough for a college-aged student to fit through. The professor of the class, Dr. Marco Díaz-Muñoz, weighed down the lock-absent front door handle in case the shooter attempted to reenter the room. Liz remembers two students, whose names she does not know, as being calm amidst the chaos. They facilitated what to do and where to go as others tended to the wounded. Other students stayed in the classroom out of fear, she said.
When Liz climbed out of the broken glass window, she had another thought: What the hell did I just do? Where am I going? The shooter could have been outside. “I don’t know why I did that,” she said. “I just felt like I couldn’t be in that room anymore.” When Liz made it to
the Chipotle across the street she could hardly breathe. She told the employees her classmates were dead, and she said they looked at her as if she was insane.
It wasn’t until she was in the Chipotle bathroom that she realized her hands had been cut from the broken window glass. It was there she was able to reach her mom, who later picked her up and took her home.
A few buildings away, Max Cibor, a freshman at the time, was eating in the MSU Union dining hall with three other friends after a fraternity chapter meeting. When the shooter entered the Union and fired the first shot, Max said for a moment he thought a plate had dropped.
After the second and third gunshots went off, everyone dropped to the floor.
“Nobody was moving. Nobody was even running out at this point,” he said.
Max and his friends were in the middle of the dining hall in booths against the back wall opposite the food stations. “I was looking at my friend, and we both just had a blank stare of no emotion. Like, this might be the end type of thing.”
After the final shot went off, Max said there was a brief pause before students collectively fled to the exits. It was quiet then. He said no one was screaming and the only sounds he could hear were tables and chairs being pushed out of the way as people ran toward the doors. “You
could hear a pin drop in the time that everybody was laying down on the floor.”
Max recounted confusion upon initially exiting the Union, as two of his friends ran toward a nearby dorm. Max said his goal was to create as much distance from campus as possible, and had planned to run through the Target on the other side of Grand River Avenue. His friend, Matt, however, led him to a nearby Auntie Anne’s, where the pair connected with another group of friends who were parked nearby. From there they went to his friend’s home off campus.
“It happened pretty quick, but it felt like a long time,” he said.
IMMEDIATE AFTERMATH
The events of the following days were numbing for Max. Three days later, when he and his friends went to the Union to collect their belongings, an FBI agent met them outside and rigidly asked for their names and what they left behind. Max said he wished the experience was more supportive; it was presumably everyone’s first time returning to that space.
He also said he couldn’t have processed it all without the support of his friends, especially the three with him that night. He said they spent every day of the following two weeks together. Looking back, he said he wished there had been a support group for those in the Union at the time to discuss their experiences together. “I couldn’t
Students walk outside of Berkey Hall in East Lansing, Michigan on February 11, 2025. Photo by Brendan Mullin.
imagine if I was sitting there studying alone, and there was nobody to talk about it with.”
While Max said a therapist would’ve helped, and appreciated the resources MSU pushed — like Counseling & Psychiatric Services — his was an experience few could relate to. “I think that there should have been a small group or something.”
For Liz, she found that group in her classmates.
The students in room 114 were given the opportunity to return to their original class (relocated to Bessey Hall), switch into another IAH class or take a pass/fail option, Liz said. She returned to the class along with a number of other students. She said she wanted a form of solidarity because, despite gun violence affecting thousands of people on a national level, she discovered that there weren’t many people who understood what she was going through on a more local level.
“Even though we didn’t connect or talk all the time, it just felt good to be there with them,” she said.
She still keeps in contact with Dr. Díaz-Muñoz, too. “I think that took a lot of strength from him to keep going despite the horrible thing that happened to him.”
That connection persisted through the rest of the semester. She began to notice other classmates would shake or twitch at loud, sudden noises. It affirmed to her: “OK, we’re all traumatized.”
It took months for the reality of what happened to settle in. She said she didn’t feel like a person. What she found, however, was a stronger sense of community. She said students and professors were as supportive as they could have been. She got a lot of invites for coffee. Everyone seemed eager to support her. She was rushing a pre-law fraternity at the time and its members were offering support during the pledging process.
Other MSU services provided resources, like one she described as letting survivors know whenever a news article was coming out so they could be prepared for it. CAPS was also helpful, she said. There was one psychologist in particular that she developed a strong connection with, even saying she doesn’t think she’d be here today had she not met him.
But six months after her meetings with him started, he told her he had to cut off his services with her, as a result of what she said is CAPS policy.
“Six months just isn’t enough,” she said. “I mean even two years later I feel like I’m still trying to mentally process what happened, and I almost think that this year was harder than last year for me.”
Then, in spring 2024, just under one year after the shooting, MSU made the controversial decision to open Berkey Hall again.
Liz was in Washington, D.C. at the time of the Jan. 8, 2024 reopening. She recalled her friends describing the site of the shooting to her as “eerie and weird to walk by.” At the time of initial opening the renovations weren’t completed, instead there was a temporary wall blocking off the area MSU intended to turn into a reflective space. She thought it was too soon.
“It’s not even done, but MSU is just so focused on what? Opening the doors again? For what? For who? Why?”
She said the university granted her priority class enrollment so she could avoid classes in Berkey when registering, but she still didn’t understand why it was opened in the first place. She recalled one class she was forced to drop because it was located in Berkey.
Liz spent the day of the one-year anniversary reflecting. She walked, went to bookstores and read poetry. She received a luminary from MSU and decorated it with her roommate in D.C. She debated buying a plane ticket and returning to campus, but decided against it.
“It was a really sensitive day for me,” she said. She was there in the room when it happened, and she said that hearing people who were in their dorms talking about what happened was hard. “I wish that could have been me. I wish I was in my dorm.”
She was still in D.C. when she received a call from university officials asking for her input on what a reflective space should look like. At the time, all she wanted from the university was safety improvements around campus. But her concerns went beyond just more cameras and locks on doors. When the shooter walked in her classroom, she said she quickly realized the desks were attached to the ground and could not provide any cover. The windows they escaped out of did not open all the way. Any sort of training or preparation she could have had for what happened was nonexistent.
The reflective space was built where the room used to be, as denoted by a map near the entrance of the building still showing the area as room 114. There are two small rooms — no bigger than to hold two people. The ‘Reflection Room’ across the hall from the former classroom has a couch and window. In the area where room 114 was, there is a ‘Personal Health Room’ with two chairs and a large, circular mirror. It also has a window too — the same one Liz left out of that night.
“I don’t really think the space is for me,” she said. “I live with what happened every day. I feel that every day. I don’t necessarily need to go to Berkey Hall to know and reflect and remember the lives lost.”
When she did eventually visit the space, she was struck by its sterility. The harsh white lights and the modern lounge-like furniture are contrasted by the interior of the rest of the building and surrounding buildings built in the 19th and 20th centuries, making it feel out of place. It’s a space that makes people think “this shouldn’t be here,” she said.
TWO YEARS LATER
The day before our conversation, Max returned to the Union. He had been unaware a reflective space had been built in place of the dining hall.
“I think it was kind of a nice space, but I don’t really get it to be honest. It doesn’t really make any sense … It feels like a modern art project or something.”
The dining hall has been turned into a study lounge area, with a variety of new, modern seating and entirely different artwork on the walls — the most notable being wallpaper featuring a forest scene. Max said that a new student who went into the Union would have no idea that it was the site of a shooting due to the lack of signage near the entrance or on the walls.
“I just wonder if students at MSU in 15, 20 years will even know that it happened. That’s my biggest question,” he said.
Max goes back to the Union a few times a year for his own reflective purposes.
MSU has been deciding on a permanent memorial for some time. Around the one year anniversary, QR codes were put up around campus for students to provide input on what a memorial would look like. More recently, MSU announced that the Permanent Memorial Planning Committee made up of students, faculty, staff and community liaisons decided that the memorial will either be at “Sleepy Hollow between Beaumont Tower and the Music Practice Building, or Old Horticulture Garden located near the Student Services Building.”
There is still not a design picked for the memorial itself, but the planning committee has narrowed its decision down to three designs, something it is still seeking community feedback on through March. Whatever it may be, Liz just doesn’t want the community to slowly forget what happened that day and the impact it had.
But she sees it now: that sense of community has since dwindled, and it’s scary for her.
With it being two years since the shooting, there are two undergraduate classes that were here when it happened and two that weren’t.
Now, Liz said it’s on the university to continue to make sure what happened is not forgotten when the class of ‘26 graduates. She’s unsure if MSU will hold up that responsibility, given the preemptive reopening of Berkey Hall. She doesn’t know if the university will continue to grant a day off on Feb. 13.
MSU recently announced it is going to make
the decision to cancel classes on a year-to-year basis, with university spokesperson Amber McCann saying it would be “premature” to make any decisions about what the university will do in the next few years.
“I think it would be extremely insensitive to just do it for four years and then say, ‘Oh, now that most of the students are gone we’re going to have class again because you weren’t there that day.’ But I feel like that’s what they’re probably going to end up doing in the future,” Liz said. Max shares that sentiment, he sees yearly vigils and the day off as a way to memorialize and allow students to reflect. “I hope the school informs students for years to come about what happened because it’s such a big part of our school’s history.”
But he doesn’t think the university has done enough to improve safety since the shooting. He said locking doors after 6 p.m. doesn’t change much, and that he doesn’t feel like they actually want to spend more money to improve conditions.
HEALING AND MOVING FORWARD
For Liz, her healing journey was rooted in therapy. Looking forward, she also said that her career goals have become more aimed at public policy and activism as opposed to her original plan of going to law school. The shooting has since become something she carries with her every day.
There’s no shelf life for her grief.
“I definitely could feel really horrible and down today, and then maybe a month from now, I’m OK. Maybe five years from now, I’m breaking down on the bathroom floor unable to speak,” she said.
Throughout his healing process, Max has been personally adamant about not letting this tragedy define his college experience or perspective of MSU.
“I think everybody handles grief very differently. And there’s not one best way to handle this particular situation, but as long as I think that there is an intent to help, as long as there’s actually strong intent to help, that’s all I care about,” he said.
“I don’t think I’ll get that sense of closure or acceptance, I think that’s just something to live and deal with forever, and I’ve kind of come to terms with that,” Liz said. “I feel and I mourn, and I will never forget the names of those three students, and I don’t want to.”
A window outside Berkey Hall that students utilized for escape on Feb. 13th, 2023 when shots rang out in their classroom, according to Liz Lopez-Cadalzo. Photo by Brendan Mullin.
Tables and chairs in the Berkey Hall reflective space occupying the area where room 114 formerly was, the site of the Feb. 13th, 2023 shooting. The brown door in the back opens to a ‘Personal Health Room’ featuring two chairs and a large, circular mirror. Photo by Jack Williams.
THE BROAD ART MUSEUM WORKS TO CURATE A SAFE SPACE FOR STUDENTS
By Campbell Berg cberg@statenews.com
Art in the Aftermath is an interactive healing experience and exhibit at the Michigan State University Broad Art Museum. It highlights the Soul Box Project that was frst introduced to the East Lansing community in June of 2024. It also holds other paintings and sculptures that represent the gun violence epidemic in America.
Jennifer Lamphere is a Lansing community member and a frequent Broad visitor. On Saturday Feb. 8, Lamphere had the opportunity to share her grief over the anniversary and connect with others at the exhibit through her art.
“My art helps me to stay positive, and I use it in a sense to get me through hard times,” Lamphere said.
Lamphere has multiple art journals that help her express her feelings. She carries them around and works on the pieces in it at the museum. With the two-year anniversary of the MSU shooting approaching, Maya Manuel, a co-curator of the exhibit and MSU alum, knew that she could make a space that students would want to visit and heal in. The exhibit was curated
to bring awareness to gun violence and to depict healing through “artivism.”
Before Manuel introduced this artivism— the theory of art and activism working together in a single piece— to campus with associate professor of Spanish & Global Studies Scott Boehm, Manuel was active in the advocacy scene following the shooting, organizing sit down protests at the state capitol and rallying for gun control legislation.
With this exhibit, she wanted to create a place for inspiration through hands-on work.
“I have created a safe space for students, including myself,” Manuel said.
Interim Director and Senior Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs Steven Bridges also said working with Manuel and Boehm on this exhibit helped the Broad Art Museum further unlock its potential to be a site for important discussions and learning opportunities.
Boehm said he found the creative process to be inspiring, and that curating and working with Manuel on this exhibit has felt natural.
Boehm and Manuel have previous experience together from Boehm’s documentary, Our Knotted Gun, which featured Manuel. The
documentary shares responses by people who say that the nightmare of gun violence in America has to end.
The pair is also working to bring the NonViolence Program’s Why Knot NY Program to Michigan. Why Knot NY is a program that is meant to inspire, motivate and engage people to manage and prevent conficts without ever resorting to violence.
“It’s always a joy to work with Maya,” Boehm said. “Her commitment to gun violence prevention has no limit and it’s very heartfelt and soulful.”
Bridges said the exhibit aligns with the mission of Broad, and that they see the power of creating a community connection through the art.
Manuel wanted MSU students to realize that they are not alone, especially during the healing process.
“This project is not just made for East Lansing’s Community, but for the students who come from a background of violence,” said Manuel. “This is for everybody.”
The Soul Box project is an art based tool that can help raise awareness for gun violence in the United States.
“The Soul Box project is the invitation to enter the exhibition, to participate in it, to add to it and to process trauma that people might be experiencing,” Boehm said. “Whether it’s related to February 13th and MSU or to community violence that’s taking place in the Greater Lansing area, or people who are affected by the Oxford High School shooting.”
When it was displayed at the East Lansing Public Library last summer, Manuel knew they had to bring it to MSU’s campus, and that Broad was the right place to share the project with students.
Healing has been an important part of the past two years for Spartans. The Broad Art Museum was there for people on Feb. 13, 2023, like it is now with Art in the Aftermath.
“It’s also important to acknowledge that the museum was a site of refuge in response to the violence that gripped MSU’s campus on February 13, 2023,” Bridges said. “It was a safe space then for those that were most directly impacted, and through exhibitions like Art in the Aftermath, we hope to also provide opportunities for further processing and healing, all in an effort to create safer and more just societies in the future.”
Different Soul Boxes in the Art in the Aftermath exhibit in the Broad Art Museum represent different stories of those who were lost or harmed by gun violence. Photo by Campbell Berg.
Co-curators of Art in the Aftermath Maya Manuel and Scott Boehm take a moment together at the opening ceremony. They were able to share the exhibit with many others, including paintings on Feb. 7, 2025. Photo by Campbell Berg.
Soul Boxes are displayed on the MSU Broad Art Museum’s wall at the “Art in the Aftermath” exhibit on Feb. 7, 2025. The boxes are made from people across the country. Photo by Campbell Berg.
Organizations like Students and Moms Demand Action were at a resource fair that MSU Broad Art Museum held at Art in the Aftermath on Feb. 8, 2025. These organizations gave community members resources for gun safety. Photo by Campbell Berg.
Professor Scott Boehm is creating a documentary about the exhibit, and was filming with his crew at the opening ceremony on Feb. 7, 2025. The first documentary was titled “Our Knotted Gun,” and followed around exhibit co-curator Maya Manuel. Photo by Campbell Berg.
Soul Boxes for the MSU victims are placed at the front of the exhibit. They were put up on Feb. 5, 2025, when the Art in the Aftermath exhibit opened. Photo by Campbell Berg.
STUDENT ACTIVIST MAKES SHORT FILM ABOUT GUN VIOLENCE TRAUMA
Journalism junior Cassidy Howard, left, and digital storytelling senior Aidan Tripp, right, pose for a portrait at the Communication Arts and Sciences building on Jan. 25, 2025. Howard and Tripp were director and assistant director respectively for their short film, “What’s Left Behind?” Photo by Daniel Schoenherr.
application for MSU’s Create! micro-grant.
“I asked her, so do I make a book? Do I do a stage performance and then get a recording of it? Do I just have it be this?” Howard said. “And she was like ‘It can’t be a book. You can’t have these poems be in a book because it loses its potency if somebody’s able to look away.”
Howard featured poems she wrote from ages 11 to 20, all discussing the topic of shootings. Having never worked in film before, Howard needed to enlist the help of anyone willing and able to assist her in sharing her grief. Through group chats, mutual friends and an MSU Snapchat story, Howard was able to build her team.
“It is the least I can do to make sure that they know they are not alone...to hold the grief for the life you wish you could’ve lived.”
Cassidy Howard Journalism and creative writing junior
Digital storytelling senior Aidan Tripp responded and partnered with Howard, and he took charge of filming the project.
“When she told me about the idea I was like, man, it’s heavy hitting but it’s necessary,” Tripp said. “I can relate to it because throughout the film you see people who were just like in fear, who had sorrow, who were confused. And I just felt that way throughout all of high school, all of college now.”
Citing the MSU shooting and the Oxford High School shooting as reasons for his grief, Tripp was on board. His mission? Make the film something people relate to, despite the subject weight.
“I was trying to give the feel of growing up in the education system,” Tripp said. “Try to give (students’) mindset into the film and to kind of make it inclusive for everyone to relate to.”
Tripp and Howard’s goals were shared by the team. Comparative cultures and politics freshman Hiyori Eldred was one of the people who responded to Howard’s post on the MSU story. Eldred appeared in poems “20011528” and “flowers remind me of funeral homes.” Eldred had never experienced a school shooting in the way others who worked on the project had, but this didn’t stop them from finding the value in helping communicate Howard’s message.
“I know that they had first-hand experience and how it affects people,” Eldred said. “I thought that was a really good cause.”
Along with being featured in the film, Eldred also did the background instrumental that plays throughout the film.
“It was pretty collaborative,” Eldred said. “It also depended on what music I happened to have on hand and what sounded good enough for the film.”
The film came together, through hours of filming and editing, to make the deadline for the grant submission. After its release on Nov. 30, 2024, Howard received a response she never could have even fathomed.
“I have had so many wonderful souls reach out to me to talk about the impact of the film,” Howard said. “I’m so glad somebody is still saying my friend’s name,’ I read a text like that, and I bawled like a baby.”
Howard noted the feeling of being alone. Everyone impacted by and who has survived gun violence feels it. Being able to convince yourself that no one else feels the way you do. Knowing her film helps people through that is the power she knew her poetry could have.
“To hear that there are people who still feel (alone), it’s equally heart-wrenching and healing, because you don’t want anyone else to know that type of struggle but to know you’re not the only one is remarkable,” Howard said. “And I had a really great team to work on ‘What’s Left Behind?’ and that makes all the difference.”
Two years after MSU shooting, two friends continue to manage grief, memories
By Demonte Thomas dthomas@statenews.com
On the night of Feb. 13, 2023, friends Jonah Kalawa and Jonathan Hanania were in the MSU Union together before the shooting started. Hanania left for a fraternity chapter meeting. Though apart, the two both hid for hours that night after a gunman opened fre on campus, with one of two sites of the shooting being the MSU Union.
Their experiences that night — Kalawa hiding in the Union and Hanania hiding in his fraternity house — shook them. Now, two years later, they say while it’s not something they can forget about, they have made progress toward healing.
Kalawa, a junior in human biology, said he’s doing better than in past years when it comes to handling his emotions as the anniversary approaches.
“Obviously, there’s still something there in my heart about it, but everything’s getting good on my end,” Kalawa said. “Obviously I’m still feeling for everyone else that was affected that day, but I’m very grateful for where I am right now. My heart goes out to all the families and people who were impacted.”
That night, Kalawa was studying on the second foor of the MSU Union with his AirPods in. He recalled the foor being mostly empty except for a couple of students in different rooms. All of a sudden, he could not hear anything.
He looked up and saw a woman who was crying. She yelled “Oh my God, active shooter downstairs, everyone run, hide and take cover.”
Kalawa started to register what was happening. He recalled freezing up, not knowing what to do. Kalawa and other students ran to fnd a Union employee and took shelter in a room, locking the door behind them. They hid in the room for the rest of the night.
Hanania, a supply chain junior, was at the fraternity house when he and his brothers frst heard about the shooting, initially through social media and then through a university-wide email alerting students about an active shooter. The email advised students to “run, hide, fght.”
“We all went upstairs, hiding on the third foor, just everyone in rooms,” Hanania said. “We had like 15, 20 guys in each room, just with the doors locked, kind of being quiet, all the lights turned off, just kind of getting updates, listening to the cop radio the whole entire time. We were there for the rest of the night.”
Hanania, Kalawa and other students would stay sheltered in place for more than fve hours.
During that time, Kalawa and Hanania were in constant communication, with Kalawa sharing updates from the Union. Shortly after midnight, they received the all-clear.
The morning following the shooting, Kalawa was left in a state of “pure shock,” struggling to register what had happened.
“You hear about school shootings all around the nation and you never expected to happen to your school,” Kalawa said. “I was just in shock, even after fve hours, I couldn’t process it at all because I was just so shocked, and I didn’t know what to think. A lot of people went home. I kind of just went back to my dorm, sat there for like
an hour, just like, ‘holy s—, that’s insane.’”
For Hanania, the terror of the night before didn’t feel real. His uncle lived in the area and was able to pick up Hanania and his sister from campus. During the car ride home, Hanania, left in disbelief, was asking himself if what just happened was a dream.
Kalawa spent the day with his family, who he said was worried for his safety and praying — one of the things that was part of his coping process.
A girl Kalawa had been hiding with the night before found his mom on Facebook and got in contact with him, he said, which led to them fnding more.
“We ended up fnding all those people that were in the room with us on social media,” he said. “We were kind of texting with them all day, praying for everybody, and just talking about everything that happened and checking in on them.”
Hanania’s coping process also started when he returned home and was greeted by worried family members. The next morning when he awoke, nearly his whole family was there. It was nice to see that his family was there for him and his sister, he said.
Kalawa and Hanania saw each other again for the frst time a week after the shooting.
“It was great and sentimental and nice to see (Hanania) because it’s been so long after an event like that,” Kalawa said. “I gave him a big hug.”
Kalawa acknowledged that while his grief has lessened over the past two years, it will always stay with him.
“I would say for such a traumatic event like that, that’ll never leave your heart,” Kalawa said. “You’ll always have some kind of grief for that, especially with everyone that was affected, that’s always going to be moving in your heart.”
Hanania said even though he’s in a similar place, the memories from that night will never leave him. What he experienced will rush back to him on the anniversary, he said.
“Some memories and what happened, I’ll never forget that and how I felt, and it’ll never leave me,” Hanania said. “But I’m starting to kind of get to the point where on a daily basis I’m OK, but when the day comes, all those memories will come back and how I felt, I will obviously remember what happened. For the most part, the grief has been gone.”
Offering advice to those who will also be experiencing memories this Feb. 13, Kalawa encouraged students to say a prayer, which is still part of his coping process.
“Pray for those who were severely affected. Pray for all of those that were on the campus, for the families,” Kalawa said. “I think having faith and always keeping Christ in your heart, I feel like that could get you through almost anything.”
Hanania encouraged students to talk to others who are feeling the same emotions on the two-year anniversary.
“I feel like, if you talk and open up about how you feel, that’s the best way to get how you’re feeling off your chest,” Hanania said. “Once you get it off your chest, you’ll relieve a lot of pressure, and you’ll feel a lot better.”
The MSU Union on Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2023 - two days after the mass shooting in Michigan State University’s north campus. State News file photo.
Portrait of Michigan State sophomore Jonah Kalawa and Michigan State sophomore Jonathan Hanania at the MSU Union, Feb 12, 2025. Photo by Kaiden Ellis
By Theo Scheer tscheer@statenews.com
In the two years since the Feb. 13, 2023 campus shooting that killed three students and injured fve, Michigan State University has embarked on numerous security upgrades in an attempt to make campus more safe. Most of the projects — including adding more locks to classroom doors, installing a centralized security center and refning the university’s emergency notifcation system — are now complete.
But their implementation hasn’t always gone smoothly. The university disregarded a consultant’s recommendation for what type of lock to install on classroom doors, has yet to fully deliver on a promise to make its emergency procedures more accessible and alarmed experts and student activists with its new AI-powered surveillance system.
Here’s a look at changes MSU has made since the shooting.
LOCKS
MSU’s infrastructure team finished installing new locks or upgrading existing locks on over 700 classroom doors in October 2024, a year and a half after the shooting. Though outside consultants recommended installing locks that automatically lock doors, the university mainly installed locks that have to be manually locked from the inside in order to speed up the process.
Locks were a subject of concern after the shooting, since Berkey Hall — where two students were killed — didn’t have any the night of the shooting. Faculty had raised concerns about the lack of lockable doors five months before the shooting, Bridge Michigan reported.
CAMERAS
MSU has worked to expand its security camera coverage since 2021, after the disappearance of GVSU student Brendan Santo went unrecorded due to a faulty camera.
TRACKING MSU’S SECURITY UPGRADES TWO YEARS SINCE THE SHOOTING
Two years later, the shooting reinforced the need for additional cameras and a centralized system that can manage them, MSU spokesperson Emily Guerrant said.
That has taken the form of MSU’s Security Operations Center, a room where police monitor and control campus’s 2,200 security cameras, 551 motion detectors and 5,400 electronic door locks on an array of video screens. While some cameras are still being integrated into the system, the $10 million project has been running since 2023.
The system uses an AI-powered software capable of tracking a person or vehicle, counting the people in a crowd, or scanning for cars parked without a permit. Police can remotely lock and unlock doors or control elevators inside campus buildings.
Security experts and student activists told The State News in April 2024 that they worried the technology’s questionable benefts weren’t worth risking their privacy and civil liberties.
While the system may help track a shooter, it can’t prevent a shooting from happening, Odis Johnson Jr., a professor at Johns Hopkins University who has researched school shootings, said at the time.
BUILDING ACCESS
Most buildings on the university’s East Lansing campus now require MSU ID card access between 6 p.m. and 7:30 a.m.
Metal detectors were also installed at the Spartan Stadium, Munn Ice Arena and the MSU Tennis Center.
EMERGENCY PROCEDURE TRAINING
Nearly a year after the shooting, MSU released optional but “strongly recommended” active violence training for students, faculty and staff. It details run-hide-fght and avoidbarricade-confront protocols.
When the training was frst announced, weeks after the shooting, it was mandatory. Since then, training became optional after MSU DPPS received feedback from the community concerned with the emotional impact the training could have on traumatized individuals.
MSU’s emergency protocols have been criticized by students with disabilities, who felt unprotected during the shooting by instructions that some couldn’t follow, like to barricade doors and use the stairs instead of elevators.
DPPS promised in April 2023 that the department would work on more inclusive procedures.
MSU is still working on refning its safety procedures, with the help of the Resource Center for Persons with Disabilities (RCPD), said MSU DPPS spokesperson Nadia Vizueta. RCPD approved the university’s run-hidefght and avoid-barricade-confront protocols that were distributed to classrooms last fall, Vizueta said.
The university has also updated its emergency notification system to display notifcations through multiple modalities, including announcements dispersed via text, email, the SafeMSU app, outdoor sirens and screens in some buildings, according to Vizueta and Guerrant.
“These measures are part of a broader commitment by MSU to foster a safe and inclusive environment for all students, addressing both immediate safety concerns and long-term accessibility improvements,” Vizueta wrote in an email to The State News.
MSU’s Board of Trustees and vice-presidents underwent emergency protocol training of their own in April 2024 and December 2023, respectively. A lack of formal guidance for what to do during a campus crisis caused MSU’s top leadership to interfere with the university’s shooting response and disrupt the healing processes of victims and their families in an attempt to help.
FIREARM POLICY
In September 2023, MSU’s board voted to ban all frearms — even those carried with a license — from all of campus. Previously, frearms were allowed in MSU’s open spaces but not in buildings. Police offcers are exempt from the rule.
Two trustees voted against the change, sharing concerns over whether offcers would show bias in how the policy is enforced.
Open classrooms with new door locks in Berkey Hall on Sept. 24, 2024. Photo by Rachel Lewis.
Berkey Hall on February 12, 2025. Photo by Finn Gomez.
