Planning for the two-year mark of the violence on Feb. 13, 2023, is underway. A committee of students, staff, and faculty is working with the Office for Resource and Support Coordination to plan this year’s commemoration. It includes several tented spaces, placed across campus in meaningful areas, to provide opportunities for students, faculty, staff, and community members to gather, reflect and grieve on the two-year anniversary. There also will be a day of service for students to participate in.
As a reminder, most classes will not be held on Thursday, Feb. 13, 2025, though the university will remain open to support students and our community. Classes will resume Friday, Feb. 14, but assignments and exams will not be due on this date. The university will remain open those days, including dining halls, mental health support services, recreational sports facilities and CATA transportation.
A livestream of the Beaumont Tower bell ringing will be available below beginning at 8 p.m.
Join the Center for Community Engaged Learning for Caring Through Service, an opportunity for community building, service, and advocacy. Visit the Breslin Center Hall of History between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. to support mental health initiatives, create meaningful connections, and give back to the community. Food will be available, as participants come together in community to support one another through service. Visit this site for more details.
Tented, heated spaces will be open and staffed with volunteers to navigate resources and support, offer luminary kits (white paper bags with green electric tea lights) for pickup, provide bottled water and hot cocoa, and direct community members to QR codes to provide feedback on permanent memorial design proposals. Comfort dogs also will visit these spaces. The three locations are:
The Breslin Center’s Hall of History, open 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., and the MSU Alumni Chapel, open 1 p.m. to 9 p.m., will be staffed with volunteers to assist with resources/support, luminary kit pick up, and QR codes for feedback on the permanent memorial .
There are plans for music to be played, a moment of silence and then the ringing of the Beaumont Tower bells from 8:10 p.m. to 8:25 p.m. Beaumont Tower, as well as the MSU Union and Berkey Hall, will be lit green from 6 p.m. Feb. 13 until 6 a.m. Feb. 14. A livestream of this is available for viewing by Spartans around the world via the Spartans Together website .
Luminaries (picked up at the locations above) can be lit and photos captured and shared on social media starting at 8 p.m., using the hashtag #spartanstogether.
There are several opportunities for campus community members to engage:
MSU Counseling & Psychiatric Services (Olin Health Center, 3rd Floor, 463 East Circle Drive; 517-355-8270) and the MSU Employee Assistance Program (110 Linton Hall, 479 W. Circle Drive, 517-355-4506) will have drop-in appointments available from 8 a.m. through 4:30 p.m. Feb. 13. Visit the websites or call for more details or to inquire more generally about available services.
Community members may choose to gather in remembrance of those we lost, those injured and all those impacted at any of the tented locations, outside the impacted buildings, in front of Beaumont Tower, at any other space that feels meaningful to them or follow the live stream from a comforting location of their choosing.
MSU hopes community members will find support in one another and take time to remember the students we lost and honor those injured in the violence that impacted so many of us two years ago.
Below are additional resources and guidance to help leaders and educators as the remembrance nears.