From the moment tragedy struck NIU on Feb. 14, the entire campus was thrown into a frenzy.

Students tried to make phone calls to their parents, police and fire personnel were rushing around campus and the media were well on their way to DeKalb.

The department for managing all media requests that day, as well as continuously updating the NIU Web site with the latest news, was the Office of Public Affairs. Melanie Magara, assistant vice president for Public Affairs, is the woman in charge of the office, where one day changed the way it functioned.

The Sycamore resident did not get much sleep in the days following the Feb. 14 shootings.

“There wasn’t a lot of time for reflection,” Magara said. “I felt a sense of responsibility to inform everyone of what was happening and to get information out quickly.”

Magara believes that her staff worked countless hours that Thursday and through the weekend while taking time to make sure everything they released to the media was correct.

“We heard from so many people who talked about how invested they felt in making sure their university came off well and how closely they were watching to see how the university handled this,” she said.

Pat Erickson, administrative assistant for Public Affairs, said that Magara did a tremendous job balancing her role with the NIU administration as well as her role as public relations manager.

“We are very proud of the way she handled her role,” Erickson said.

A typical day for Magara and her staff consists of updating the NIU Web site, handling all media relations and writing material for NIU’s printed publications.

A typical day does not consist of a phone call at 4:30 a.m. from WBBM’s Spike O’Dell Show wanting to talk about the tragedy. She told the show to call back in an hour while she woke up.

When she got to the office early that Friday morning, the calls continued to pour in as the university was able to identify the shooter.

“As you answered the phone, you couldn’t hang up the phone without getting another phone call right away,” she said.

The news media played a role in the days following the tragedy.

“From the beginning, we felt a real sense of partnership with the news media. I not only felt that the vast majority of reporters were respectful, but they embraced the partnership,” she said.

“There was a tremendous need to communicate, and to do that you have to have a partnership with the news media.”

One of the things that opened her eyes wide throughout the tragedy was the importance of technology. Magara said the PR office was ready to post updates to the NIU network page on Facebook to alert students of the updates.

But her office took a backseat in that communication style as the students were reposting the updates from the NIU site on Facebook almost immediately.

Through her experiences on Feb. 14 and the year after, Magara says she is grateful NIU had a plan that worked that day and is also inspired by the acts of heroism and bravery from the NIU community.

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