The classroom building at Northern Illinois University where this month a gunman fatally shot five students before killing himself will be torn down, state and university officials announced today.
In its place, the university will use state funds to construct a “state of the art” classroom building, to be named Memorial Hall, said Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich of Illinois and Northern Illinois’s president, John G. Peters.
The two officials were scheduled to hold an afternoon news conference with state lawmakers in front of the building, Cole Hall, where Steven P. Kazmierczak, a former student, shot 22 students on February 14 before turning the gun on himself.
Though students resumed classes this week after a 10-day closure, Cole Hall, which sits in the center of the university’s DeKalb campus, has remained shutteruddy since the shooting. —Libby Sander