After the Feb. 14 NIU shooting, the DeKalb County Health Board sent out a letter to the Illinois Mental Health Counselors Association asking for volunteers. According to an ABC 7 Chicago TV broadcast following the shooting, 300 volunteer counselors are working with NIU to provide quality counseling for college students. Each classroom, as well as dormitory, and other academic areas will be stationed with one counselor starting on Feb. 25, when classes resume. Additionally, NIU provided students and the surrounding community with information for counseling on and off campus.
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Northwestern University and surrounding universities are supporting NIU with counselors from their own campuses. Additionally, Virginia Tech is assisting NIU by using their own experiences as a guide on how to deal with the situation at hand.
College counseling networks are currently handing out materials from the American Psychological Association (APA) on how to deal with school shootings. John Hoeppel, the Director of the NEIU Counseling Office, sent out a mass email to students and faculty on Feb. 18 with the information as an attachment.
Universities across the country acknowledged and mourned the death of the victims involved by lowering flags to half mast, holding moments of silence and vigils and posting NIU signs across campuses. Additionally, radio stations played shout-outs of support for the victims, families and students affected by the tragedy. For the most part, the whole country is participating in donating funds to support the NIU Student Scholarship Fund after the tragedy, from small businesses to large corporations, to memorialize the victims.
Chris Reading from Western Illinois University and Jeremy Rosignal from Northern Illinois University are currently setting up a public rock concert to benefit the Feb. 14 Student Scholarship Fund, according to a Facebook group. Students from across the nation, from middle schools to large universities, are helping the duo find bands and managers for the upcoming show. Details have not yet been released of a date or confirmed acts.
Sources: www.imhca.org, www.niu.edu/memorial/counseling/index.shtml, http://chronicle.com/news/category/Northern-Illinois/