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Students have mixed reaction on day 'campus stood still'
Students had mixed reactions the day the campus stood still.
As an eerie silence washed over NIU Monday, few ventured out of their residence halls. As some were heading home, there were others who continued on with their everyday life.
Due to the crisis alert, the only finals Monica Alfano, senior communications major, will have will be on Friday. Alfano, who plans on graduating on Sunday, packed her belongings and headed home Monday afternoon.
“It’s dangerous to be on campus. My parents want me to come home,” Alfano said. “If I had finals tomorrow I’d stay.”
Whitney Wells, junior industrial and systems engineering major, also went home.
“I’m leaving, I don’t feel safe and the whole campus is closed,” Wells said. “Being confined with the same people in the halls makes it worse.”
Wells, who only had to turn in a final instead of having an assigned time, was able to go to her residence in DeKalb.
“I just had to turn in something; it’s a stop and go,” Wells said.
The fear of an attack did not restrict the students who stayed in the dorms.
“You can’t live in fear because then they win,” said Courtney Daly, a freshman child development major. “Being stuck up in your room is not going to change the fact that this is going on.”
Daly, who joined friends for a cigarette break outside Stevenson South on Monday joked about an “update girl” who would give the group of smokers random updates throughout Sunday night.
Both Daly and Sarah Pressman, junior psychology major, said they would not have known about the situation if they had not come down from their rooms to smoke.
Pressman and a group of friends drove through campus Sunday night to get a feel for security presence.
“We drove [Sunday] night and went by Grant and the Student Center to see if there was any security – there wasn’t,” Pressman said.
Daly added it seemed like a normal, regular Sunday night.
Security was visible on campus all throughout Monday. Officers from DeKalb, State, County and Sycamore police were constantly circling the campus and surrounding areas.
“I think NIU is taking the best precautions possible by having so much security,” Alfano said. “I think it’s also because of what happened with Virginia Tech that they know how to be better prepared for situations like this.”
Both Alfano and Daly spoke of safety in numbers on campus.
Alfano said if she had to go anywhere, it would be in a group, while Daly said if her friends were not with her on campus, she would have left.
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