UNLV students share mixed emotions on 1st return to campus since shootings

By Grace Da Rocha (contact)

Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2024 | 2 a.m.

Students walk about UNLV’s campus Tuesday morning, the first day of the spring semester, some chattering happily in groups and others making the solo trek to their classes.

For many students, like Alina Langit, 20, it’s the first time they’ve stepped foot on campus since the Dec. 6 shooting that left three professors dead and one in critical condition. The tragedy that unfolded at the Lee Business School inside Beam Hall led UNLV President Keith Whitfield to call off the remaining two and a half days of classes that week and cancel finals. With few exceptions, like winter commencement, students had no need to return to campus until after the holiday break.

“I didn’t go to my classes yet, but I think I’m still a little bit anxious to start the year,” Langit, a third-year journalism major, said Tuesday morning. “I think with all, like, the police officers now and all the updates we’ve been getting I feel a little safer coming back to campus.”

Langit and her brother were on campus when the shooting occurred.

She was in the Judy Bailey Theater on the same side of the campus as the shooting but further north; he sheltered in place at the Flora Dungan Humanities Building, right across from the Student Union and Beam Hall.

The sibling pair had stayed in lockdown for four hours before going home, Langit said.

While Langit expressed her own anxieties about returning to campus, her brother is even more worried because he will attend class in the humanities building this semester, she said.

Many signs of last month’s shooting are gone.

Windows from the Student Union and Beam Hall — some shattered during the shooting — have been replaced and the strips of crime scene tape removed. But the impact still remains.

Security guards in blue and yellow shirts patrol different areas of campus in a way much more visible than previously. Many people pass in front of the now-empty Beam Hall, which Whitfield announced earlier this month would be closed for the spring semester. Classes originally set to be in Beam were moved to other buildings or online.

Even local therapy animal groups, like Alliance of Therapy Animals’ Las Vegas team and Courtroom Critters, have come together to lend their services for students needing some comfort.

These groups are most often seen during finals week, but were spread throughout the union Tuesday morning. A representative from the Alliance of Therapy Animals said they were going to be at UNLV as often as they could this semester.

In a Jan. 12 letter to students posted on UNLV’s website, Whitfield said that he had established a Committee on Campus Security and Safety to “review existing security measures and develop and implement a comprehensive safety infrastructure plan.”

He also revealed that extra security will be present on campus in the form of university police as well as a private security firm.

“I know that this semester will be unlike any we’ve experienced as a university, as we individually and collectively process last month’s tragedy and continue our recovery together,” Whitfield said in his letter.

“I also understand that this process is different for everyone. We will heal as individuals and as a university, but it’s going to take time, and we won’t rush it. As you continue your Rebel journey with us this spring, be assured that UNLV remains fully committed to the safety and wellness of our students, faculty, and staff,” he continued.

In addition to the security and therapy dogs, local tribal leaders also hosted a healing ceremony in the Alumni Amphitheater to perform a purifying blessing for the university.

For some students, the university’s response to the shooting has brought them a greater sense of comfort.

Kaide Kim — a 21-year-old psychology major — said it was “kind of weird” to see the increased police presence on campus, but he “wasn’t too worried about it” because he knows they “got (his) back” in an emergency.

The senior wasn’t in class the day of the shooting, but he lives nearby at The Degree, a five-story residential complex just off South Maryland Parkway on UNLV’s campus. He’s used to walking across campus to get to the gym or grab a bite to eat at one of the restaurants just past Greenspun Hall.

Although he didn’t share the same anxieties as other students, Kim did acknowledge that some students may still be frightened and said he hoped the university would continue bringing therapy dogs on campus or employing extra security if it would make students feel safer.

It could be a long time before some people feel completely comfortable though.

When an ambulance siren wailed through campus around noon in response to a situation at John S. Wright Hall, 20-year-old Alexa Harvey’s thoughts immediately turned to the worst.

“We see those ambulances over there and that was a little alarming to see right now,” Harvey said while sitting with two of her friends. “I heard sirens and I was like, um, that’s not what I want to hear right now.”

Harvey, a journalism major, was in Greenspun Hall when the shooting happened.

She said her classroom door was open and they saw other students running down the hall — yelling for others to get out —­ before the university’s emergency text was sent out. Some of her classmates shut the door, and everyone climbed under their desks, where they would wait in anticipation until law enforcement escorted them out an hour later.

One of the most memorable moments from that day, she said, was hearing the police sirens pass by their classroom along South Maryland Parkway. It was a “weird” experience that left Harvey shaking even as she went home later that day.

Because of her job on campus, Harvey, along with many other employees, was able to ease some of her nerves by coming back to the university a week before classes restarted. Harvey said she didn’t know how much the university’s actions would make people feel safer.

“It’s such a new problem, (in) like, (the) past decade or 20 years, so I don’t really know what the right thing to do is,” Harvey said. “I like the heightened security, I guess, (but) I don’t know. I’m not sure.”

Despite that, she doesn’t want the shooting to affect the rest of her time in college.

“I didn’t want that to ruin my college experience in a way, like, I didn’t want to ignore it or forget about it, but I didn’t want to let it take over,” Harvey said. “It’s still college; we should still get together and unite and not let that take our university down, in a way.”