by Alicia Buskirk
On October 31st at approximately 12:20 a.m., a shooting occurred at the Parkland Point apartment complex that left one young man dead. As of this reporting, the Champaign Police Department has not announced any arrests in relation to the shooting.
While the incident did not occur on campus, the Parkland Point complex is home to many students, especially student-athletes. Sophie Young, a Parkland volleyball player recruited from New Zealand, learned of the shooting via text messages from her roommates who were home at the time. “I mean, I knew [gun violence] was a more common thing here in the US, but I still didn’t really think it would happen where I lived.”
The incident on Halloween was not the first fatal shooting of that weekend. Just eight hours earlier, an unrelated shooting left another young man dead on Holly Hill Drive less than two miles from campus. Since this crime was farther from campus, it did not fall under the recording of Parkland’s Daily Crime Log. According to the Public Safety page, the log is meant to “give you information about crimes which have been reported in the area of the college during the previous 60 days.”
In response to recent events, Parkland offered walk-in counseling sessions on Monday as well as multiple listening sessions throughout the week. Donna Tanner-Harold from Parkland Counseling Services described listening sessions as open groups where students can discuss concerns, ask questions, and learn about resources in an informal setting. Individual counseling is also available for students through Counseling Services.
Tanner-Harold said that it is important for professors to be mindful of the ways in which a stressful event might affect students. “These kinds of things can have an impact that goes beyond just being upsetting. Students may not be as able to focus or to concentrate. They may be a little forgetful or fearful, and that impacts their ability to complete their work.”
For students who want to help their friends or classmates she advised, “Just be supportive. If they want to talk, fine. If they don’t want to talk, that’s fine too. If you think that they might need more help in talking about it or processing it, remind them that we have counseling services.”
