EAST LANSING, Mich. — On February 13, a gunman walked into two buildings at Michigan State University and shot and killed three students. Five others were hospitalized.
Over a month later, on Sunday March 19, dozens of students gathered by the Spartan statue to process and heal through pen and paper.
“A story can be 'here’s what happened to me and here’s how I feel about it.' A story can just be in one word 'here’s how I felt about everything',” said Hannah Greenspan, one of the organizers of the event. “A story can be 'here’s an interaction I had after February 13 that made me feel good, that made me feel bad, here’s a poem I wrote about February 13, here’s a text I sent to my parents on February 13.' All of that can be a story.”
She encouraged attendees to write their stories on index cards
A few weeks ago 2 psychology majors at Michigan State University wanted to create an exhibit filled with index cards of students memories of the tragedy, all in an effort to help them heal.
— Lauren Edwards (@LaurenEdwardsTV) March 19, 2023
Today they saw it come to fruition. // @FOX17 pic.twitter.com/aue3hM9DzI
Greenspan came up with the event with fellow psychology student Kirin Krafthefer just days after the shooting tragedy occurred. They envisioned students and staff rallying together and writing their stories down on paper. Then, Greenspan and Krafther would post them all in an exhibit at the MSU museum.
Greenspan said as soon as they emailed their idea to the museum, they got a reply within 15 minutes. The next day, they had a Zoom meeting with museum officials, planning out the details.
“Our focus has mainly been on mental health. As a trauma-informed event we have our psychiatric services here and they’ve vetted everything we’ve said and done and we’re looking mostly to make this a healing event for our community,” Krafthefer said. “When you write something down or you are processing or you’re speaking your story out loud of trauma it moves from the emotional side to the logical side of your brain. That can be super helpful in dealing with PTSD or a traumatic event.”
Since that tragic Monday night, vigils and memorial services were held for Arielle Anderson, Brian Fraser and Alexandria Verner. The hospitalized victims were honored as well, some of whom have since gone home.
Greenspan said the tragedy impacted everyone in different ways.
“Everybody includes students. Everybody includes professors. Everybody includes regular faculty members. Everybody was impacted,” Greenspan said. “So, all these stories in one place is a powerful statement of what something like February 13 can do to a community.”
Sunday, students, in their coats, hats, scarves and gloves, wrote their stories on index cards at several tables on the lawn.
Greenspan and Krafthefer said the exhibit will be open until mid-April and students can add to it at anytime there. Afterwards, it’ll be preserved with the museum forever.
“A huge motivating factor, that vision that Hannah and I have both had is that in 20 years these are going to be preserved for the university. In 20 years you can take your kids and explain to them this is a life-changing event that happened to everybody on campus,” Krafthefer said. “If you choose to take part in it you can take your kids in 20 years and look at what exactly you said when you were 18, 19, 20. And I think that that’s a super impactful thing because this thing has forever changed MSU.”
