Many people across the country and around the world were introduced to NIU and DeKalb on Feb. 14. When many think about NIU or DeKalb, they may remember the shootings or how the university responded to the shootings.

“Its historical importance nationally will sort of depend on what happens in the future,” said E. Taylor Atkins, director of undergraduate studies and associate professor for the history department. “[But] I don’t think it will be [remembered] in a negative way.”

Much of how people remember NIU will depend on what they read, see or hear in the media.

“The media have a long memory, especially when it comes to tragic events,” said Sabryna Cornish, assistant professor of communication. “I think in the immediate future, NIU will be linked with the shootings whenever the university is mentioned.”

There will likely be one or more permanent memorials built around campus in the coming years, so future NIU students will have knowledge of the event. Until then, temporary memorials and items involved with media coverage of the shootings are being collected for the University Archives, Atkins said.

In the fall, Atkins’ oral history course will be “devoted to a special project to collect, analyze and preserve oral testimonies of the Feb. 14 shootings.”

Taking place six to eight months after the shootings, Atkins’ class will talk to people touched by the tragedy – who may have not spoken to the media – in order to find out how they are coping and how they remember the experience, he said.

“Oral history can be a very healing experience,” Atkins said.

Michelle Donahoe, executive director of the Sycamore Historical Society, said her organization will likely recognize the Feb. 14 shootings as a major historical event in the area’s history.

“It is to be part of the Sycamore Historical Society’s mission,” she said. “There are many ways the story could be told.”

Virginia Tech experienced a school shooting on its campus April 16, 2007, when a gunman killed 32 students and wounded many more. School officials at the Blacksburg, Va., university want their school to be known for more than just that single act of violence.

“We will not be defined by the tragedy of April 16,” said Mark Owczarski, Virginia Tech director of news and information. “Rather, we will continue to be defined by our outstanding academic program, our innovative research programs and our service to Virginia, the nation and world.”

NIU President John Peters expressed a similar sentiment in a letter issued to students just days after the Feb. 14 shootings.

“Let us continue to show the world that a single act of violence does not define us and will not keep us from being the individuals or the university community that I know we can be,” Peters said in the letter.

How NIU is seen now may depend on the steps taken to prepare the university for the future, Donahoe said: “How NIU moves forward will be part of how history remembers NIU.”

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