Following the mass shooting on Michigan State University’s campus on Monday night, students have distributed a petition demanding online class options for the remainder of the semester.
The university is currently planning a full return to in-person classes on Monday, Feb. 20, less than one week after a gunman killed three students and critically injured five others in Berkey Hall and The Union.
The petition, which has received over 13,000 signatures at the time of publication, said, “students are ill at ease with returning to a campus that is not fully equipped to fulfill their safety concerns … returning one week after a mass shooting has left many unsettled.”
Psychology Junior Lia Moore, who has been distributing the petition online, said that she doesn’t want to see students “being forced to go to class or go back to a ‘normal life,’ because what we went through wasn't normal.”
“The event that we went through was very traumatic for all of us,” Moore said. “I just want everyone to have the option to spend time at home with their families, because coming back to campus could be very triggering for them.”
Moore sees herself returning to campus soon, but not attending class. She says she wants to be in East Lansing to participate in ongoing activism across campus and with state lawmakers in Lansing, but she doesn’t see herself feeling comfortable or safe in classrooms or walking around the campus.
She said she hopes administrators see the petition and “play a listening role right now, instead of telling us what we're going to do.”
When asked about the petition at a media conference Thursday morning, MSU Interim President Teresa Woodruff said, “we’re considering all options for the manner in which we continue education and research.”
On whether accommodations would be offered across the student body, or differently to those with classes in The Union and Berkey Hall where the shootings occurred, Woodruff said, “we’ve been talking about places and spaces and where education will continue, certainly those two domains are central to that conversation.”
An online accommodation is currently offered at Oxford High School, where a gunman killed four students in Nov. 2021. Students there have the option to complete their education completely online, or split their time between virtual and in-person classes and activities.
