BY MIKE CETERA
John Puterbaugh, an intern last summer at The Beacon News, is the editor in chief of the Northern Star, the student newspaper at Northern Illinois University.
In a column to be published Friday in the Beacon, Puterbaugh recounts how his newspaper responded to the campus shooting last week and how he is anxious about the future. It's a feeling of uncertainty -- perhaps fear -- that I'm sure thousands of students and their families all have.
Puterbaugh writes that returning to class will be more difficult than confronting the shooting's aftermath.
Despite what many may think, I believe the days immediately following the shooting were the easy part. We had no choice but to be journalists first and students second. But as I write this at home in Indianapolis on an unexpected and tragic week away from school, I cannot imagine how classes are to resume on Monday. I realize that when I go back, I must step back into student mode, and I am worried about how difficult it will be. I had a class in Cole Hall, a physical reminder that life at NIU will never be the same.
See video of Puterbaugh and the other student journalists covering the shooting here.
Safety will be on the minds of many returning to campus next week. But it isn't just NIU students and their parents who are talking about this issue. I'm sure parents and their college students everywhere have had this discussion, if not after NIU, then after Virginia Tech, the deadliest campus shooting in U.S. history.
College Parents of America, a membership-based advocacy organization, has published a campus security checklist for parents and students to use in assessing how safe their school is.
Among the questions to ask:
Is the campus open or is access to campus restricted, requiring you to stop and check in or show ID? If so, during what hours is the entrance or other locations staffed? Are all campus entrances and exits that are open during the day also open overnight? If not, during what hours is campus access restricted, and how so?
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