Lake County school shows solidarity with NIU

On the day of the Northern Illinois University shootings, College of Lake County professor Brian Smith frantically thumbed through photographs of the victims.

"I keep looking at faces and wondering if they had been my students," Smith said. "But I finally came to the conclusion that they are all mine, whether they sat in my classroom or not. And I thought, there by the grace of God, this could have happened at CLC."

The Feb. 14 shootings that killed five students hit close to home for many at CLC, where about 9 percent of graduates go on to complete their education at the DeKalb college.

On Monday, as NIU students returned to classes, CLC students paid tribute to the victims.

"Instead of filling our atrium with cheers today, we stand solemnly," said Harrison Ray, student government association vice president. "This is the first day our fellow peers go back into the classroom, and CLC stands with them."

Janet Fisher, a counselor on campus, said in the days after the shooting several students came to her office.

Fisher said students have been affected more now than in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the Virginia Tech shootings.

"It feels a lot more personal this time," Fisher said. "Many students have family and friends that are NIU students or alumni, so that personal connection is there."

Felicia Ganther, executive director of student life at CLC, said the question always posed to her in the wake of tragedy is, "What do we do now?"

"Instead of Gayle (Dubowski), Catalina (Garcia), Julianna (Gehant), Ryanne (Mace) or Daniel (Parmenter), it could have been any one of us," Ganther said. "We can never take back Feb. 14, 2008. The lives injured and lost can never be restored. Those two things we can never change. But what we can change is how we live. We can change how we act, interact and react in our greater community."