'A bit inappropriate': MSU resumes classes in Berkey Hall, where deadly shooting unfolded

East Lansing — Students filtered in and out of Michigan State University's Berkey Hall on Monday, the first day of the spring semester and the first day the building hosted academic classes since a deadly shooting unfolded there last February.

A range of relatively quiet welcomes awaited those just inside the main entrance: tables piled high with boxes of free muffins, staff waiting to greet them and direct them to classrooms, clip art cut-outs of animals sharing greetings in word bubbles, therapy dogs roaming the halls.

But the atmosphere was more boisterous Monday afternoon when about two dozen students protested outside the Hannah Administration Building against Berkey's reopening. They also argued the Board of Trustees and administration have had a lack of transparency in planning a memorial for the three students who were killed in the Feb. 13 mass shooting on campus that also wounded five students.

For these students, Monday was too soon to resume classes in the place where two students were killed and others injured less than a year ago in the Feb. 13 rampage.

"Personally, I think it's a bit inappropriate to open up Berkey Hall not even a year after the incident happened," MSU junior Andrew Nguyen said as he approached the building.

Nguyen, 21, has a philosophy class in Berkey Hall.

"Overall, even though personally I am fine going to class at Berkey Hall, it's still a weird feeling," he said. "Especially knowing that I have a class on the first floor, where it happened."

The wing of the building where the shooting took place was quiet Monday morning, except for the hum of vending machines and people walking to and from the elevator. There are no classes scheduled there. The room where violence unfolded is sealed and camouflaged with paint that matches the taupe cinderblock walls.

There was no prominent acknowledgment of the shooting or victims. A sign at the beginning of the hall states there are no classes taking place in the wing.

Another student had a more visceral reaction. Journalism sophomore Cassidy Howard, who is attending an advance poetry course this semester that meets in Berkey Hall twice a week, said approaching the building Monday morning made her feel "absolutely nauseous (and) overwhelmed." She just hoped to make it through the door, which she did.

"It was kind of overwhelming because it felt like we were in the way of the camera crew that was in the stairwell; it felt like we were animals in a zoo rather than people," said Howard, 19, who also was among the demonstrators at the Hannah building. "Just to go to class and see it was a ghost town full of people, where you couldn't really make anything out. Normally you'd see people — a smile, a wave. ... Everybody was just there."

Upon entering the building, Howard said, students were met with cookies, muffins and signs with puns such as "whalecome." Still, Berkey felt "like it's somewhere that you're not meant to be," she said.

Still, Howard said several students expressed hope they could make the best of the semester.

Howard was among up to two dozen students who gathered from 2:30-5 p.m. outside the Hannah building, about 530 yards southwest of Berkey Hall, an academic building that houses the offices of interim President Teresa Woodruff and the Board of Trustees.

"All of us are out here in 30-degree weather (because) we care so much. We want change so badly that we're willing to put up with these conditions," said Lucis Trainor, 19, a mechanical engineering sophomore. "This community is amazing, and it is so unfortunate that the Board of Trustees does not reflect that."

Trainor and several other students called for a memorial on campus to honor the lives taken at Berkey Hall, but criticized the Board of Trustees for lacking transparency on plans for a memorial.

"They promised us transparency, they promised us a memorial, they promised us mental health resources, and they keep backing down on those promises," Trainor said. "It is a slap in the face of the students who are still trying to recover. All we want is clarity, transparency and help, and we are calling for those things."

Two university committees are working on memorials — one for the one-year anniversary of the shooting and another for a more permanent memorial, MSU spokeswoman Emily Guerrant said Monday. The anniversary memorial will feature a candle vigil and day of service, and no classes will be held, she said, adding that more details are expected in the coming weeks.

Student government officials have said they plan to do a bench memorial as a gift, but the permanent memorial committee is planning to do something in addition to that, Guerrant said, but wasn't more specific.

Berkey Hall's open hours are the same as other academic buildings. New locks were installed on all of Berkey's interior doors, part of a campus-wide effort to install hundreds of locks on classroom doors across campus.

Reopening 'all or nothing'

Ellie Haase, a junior, was apprehensive about returning to Berkey before her Monday class because she was uncertain about what she would encounter when she arrived.

She found the staff's efforts to greet students to be welcoming but weird since snacks and therapy dogs are not the norm in other buildings.

Haase said she was surprised that students attending classes in the building weren't given an option to attend virtually. Instead, the university recommended students who didn't want to return to Berkey Hall switch to classes that meet in other buildings.

It's an "all or nothing" approach, she said. And Haase has to choose "all," since the classes she has in Berkey Hall are required for her major.

"I don't have another option," she said. "I have to take them here."

The university has other supports in place for students. For the first week, students and faculty will have access to on-site counselors, support dogs and welcome tables. That is in addition to existing counseling and wellness resources offered by MSU, university spokesperson Mark Bullion said.

Cathy White worked hard to create a supportive atmosphere for students' return. She said students respond well to fun and whimsical features, like the punny signs and therapy dogs, so she covered pillars and walls in animals sharing pithy greetings, such as fish that say "offishally welcome" and a parade of yellow ducks that say "quack, quack, quack, welcome back."

White is an academic specialist with an office in Berkey Hall. She and other Berkey staff members have been working in the building and preparing for students' return since August.

"(We were) focusing on not only welcoming them back but letting them know that we have strived for several months to rebuild a safe, secure supportive environment," White said. "We want students to know they are our first priority."

Berkey reopens in phases

The wing where the Feb. 13 shooting took place will not be used for classes again, Bullion said. The wing will be "repurposed," but he said it's too early to share what could happen in that space.

University officials said they decided to reopen Berkey Hall in phases after hearing feedback from students, faculty and trauma experts. The first phase took place last semester, when the building was unlocked and faculty, staff and graduate students with offices there could return, Bullion said.

Monday marked the second phase — classes. Next, likely this summer, the university will start a renovation project on the wing where the shooting took place.

"We know the healing process is not linear and that each person will heal at their own pace and in their own way," MSU said in a statement.

Still, the decision to resume classes in the building has been controversial. Nguyen said MSU administrators failed to listen to students who lived through the shooting, hiding away in dorm rooms, classrooms or, like him, barricaded in the bathroom of a boba tea shop across the street from Berkey Hall.

"I hope moving forward the university allows for more student input into decisions like this," Nguyen said. "Because it really seems like they didn't take into account that there are still many, many students who probably have PTSD or trauma from being in Berkey and that they're being forced to go back to classes. I just feel like more could have been done."

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Some students spoke out against the university's plan to resume classes at Berkey Hall at the MSU Board of Trustees' Dec. 15 virtual meeting. They argued it was too soon and shared the effect the shooting had on their relationship with the building.

"I have faced panic attacks and trauma responses in response to the shooting on Feb. 13 and do not think that it will be conducive to learning for it (Berkey Hall) to open," student Amber Olguin said during the meeting. "I understand that there's logistical problems with it being closed, but we are not ready. We might be Spartan strong, but that does not mean we are unbreakable."

Three students were killed by a gunman on campus on Feb. 13 — two at Berkey and one outside the MSU Student Union, which reopened about two months after the shooting.

Alexandria Verner, 20, of Clawson, Arielle Anderson, 19, of Harper Woods and Brian Fraser, 20, of Grosse Pointe Park were killed in the shooting. Five other students were injured.

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