Moving forward, one step at a time

Northern Illinois University's Cole Hall stands locked and empty as an uncomfortable reminder of the Feb. 14 shooting that killed five students. State legislative gridlock over a capital construction bill means a plan to renovate the building, retire Room 101 and build a new auditorium elsewhere is going nowhere.

But the university and the surviving victims of Feb. 14 are doing some rebuilding that doesn't depend on Springfield.

They're rebuilding their sense of community, their strength of mind and their resolve after a crime so senseless and so grievous it would have been understandable to fall apart.

This week, in the three-part series "Return, Remember, Recover," the Daily Herald chronicles the journey from Feb. 14 through the approaching completion of the first "normal" semester since the shootings. What we found was this:

• The administration of one of the largest universities in the state being decidedly unbureaucratic, with a level of caring, service and connection to those affected by the shooting that is somewhat unexpected and certainly helped lay the road toward recovery.

• A new sense of cohesion among the 24,397 students, the alumni who flooded back for homecoming and the towns of DeKalb and Sycamore that are raising money for a permanent memorial.

• A resilient, reflective group of young men and women who were in the classroom that day and are figuring out how to mesh this new piece of personal history with their lives and their goals.

We heard about an administrator who found a student crying in the hallway after fleeing Cole Hall and kept in contact, later offering her a job. About a teacher, wounded in the attack, who led the Cole Hall class through the rest of that semester, fostering a close-knit forum where many students said they began to heal. About a student who, aided by the campus police chief as she lay badly injured, returned to NIU and is studying to become a police officer with him as her mentor. About a new Office of Support & Advocacy that is prepared to do virtually anything that will help students, staff and even new graduates.

Families of the five who were killed - Gayle Dubowski, 20, of Carol Stream, Catalina Garcia, 20, of Cicero, Julianna Gehant, 32, of Mendota, Ryanne Mace, 19, of Carpentersville and Daniel Parmenter, 20, of Westchester - draw comfort from the campus' concern and from its determination to remember their children. Work on a memorial garden begins in the spring.

The mantra "Forward, Together Forward," drawn from NIU's fight song, has grown in 10 months from a mere expression of hope to a description of the university's actual journey.

We'd love to see the state come up with the $7.7 million it'll take to get the same sort of rejuvenation going for Cole Hall.

But we're glad the NIU community didn't wait to take its own first steps.