WEDNESDAY, FEBUARY 11, 2026
Michigan State’s Independent Voice
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WEDNESDAY, FEBUARY 11, 2026
Michigan State’s Independent Voice

MSU hockey wins annual Duel in the D
Michigan State hockey bounced back from an overtime loss the night before to defeat rival Michigan 5–2 at Little Caesars Arena in the annual Duel in the D, taking over first place in the Big Ten standings and securing the Iron D trophy for the third straight year.
On third anniversary of shooting, questions linger over future memorializing
On the third anniversary of the shooting, MSU now faces the tricky question of how to memorialize a day that was not experienced first-hand by most on campus.
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MSU
Panic and anger erupted across campus Tuesday morning after Michigan State University erroneously sent out an emergency notification to students, faculty, staff and parents, alerting recipients to an “active violence incident.” PAGE 6
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By Audrey Dayton adayton@statenews.com
Michigan State hockey entered its weekend series trailing Michigan by a point in the Big Ten standings, facing its final ranked conference opponent with the regular season title race tightening.
It left Detroit in first place — and, by Monday, was back atop the national rankings.
After dropping the series opener in overtime Friday night, the No. 2-ranked Spartans responded with a 5-2 win over No. 1 Michigan Saturday at Little Caesars Arena in the annual Duel in the D.
MSU improved to 13-5-0 in Big Ten play (226-0 overall) with 39 points, moving one point ahead of the Wolverines with three conference series remaining.
With Michigan, Penn State and Wisconsin still scheduled to face each other down the stretch, the race remains unsettled, but the Spartans now control their position.
“Our conference in general is a gauntlet, and every night’s a tough night,” MSU coach Adam Nightingale said. “Michigan’s having a heck of a season, got a heck of a team, and I think both games felt like tournament games… You’re trying to peak at the right time and try to play
Each goal came from a different Spartan, highlighting MSU’s team-first identity. MSU held a 37–27 shot advantage, built during the first two periods.
Junior goaltender Trey Augustine was sharp in net, stopping point-blank, spinning and rebound chances. He finished with 25 saves for a .926 save percentage. Augustine and the MSU penalty kill shut down all five of Michigan’s power plays, including a critical opportunity with six minutes remaining. Michigan ranks No. 1 nationally in scoring offense and No. 3 on the power play.
The most defining moments of the game came in the final period. The Spartans entered with a 4-1 lead, and Michigan’s response came five minutes in.
The Wolverines scored on a rebound by winger Nick Moldenhauer, trimming the Spartans’ lead to 4–2. Michigan continued to generate scoring chances and earned another power play, but with six minutes remaining in regulation, the Spartan penalty kill delivered. Disrupted passing lanes and strong positioning killed the penalty, prompting chants of “Go Green” and “Go White.” With three minutes left in regulation, Michigan pulled its goalie. While the Wolverines attacked hard, senior center Tiernan Shoudy got a stick on the puck and sent it the other way, with junior forward Tommi Männistö
hoisted the Iron D trophy in Detroit.
While execution in the final moments sealed the game, the Spartans’ open set the scene. Nightingale said he loved the team’s execution at the start.
The Spartans lit the lamp halfway through the first period. Junior forward Gavin O’Connell took a pass from freshman forward Anthony Romani, approaching the left faceoff circle before releasing a shot he buried for a 1-0 lead. It was just his fourth goal of the season.
Still in the opening period, freshman forward Porter Martone extended the lead on a power play. He waited for senior center Charlie Stramel to screen Michigan’s goaltender and then fired a shot that rattled in and around the net.
The second period opened with 4-on-4 play after matching roughing penalties were assessed at the end of the first. Neither side capitalized on the extra space, but the Spartans added to the lead in the fourth minute. Junior defenseman Maxim Štrbák looked to shoot from the top of the zone before finding Stramel at the right side of the crease for a quick put-in.
Less than two minutes later, the Spartans struck again. Männistö fed Shoudy in the same spot as Stramel for a 4–0 lead, prompting a Michigan timeout, though the Wolverines opted to keep goaltender Jack Ivankovic in the game.
two-straight minutes in the attack zone for nine shots on goal — but Ivankovic passed. After the Wolverines cleared the puck, they converted with fresh legs.
Forward Josh Eernisse pulled Augustine out on a shot that missed wide but produced a rebound for forward Jayden Perron, who cut the deficit to 4–2. It was the type of play that challenged the Spartans to respond. It was also the kind of chance the Spartans worked to eliminate all night through defensive detail — from sophomore defenseman Owen West battling to prevent a deflection to sophomore defenseman Colin Ralph blocking four shots.
After tonight’s win, Nightingale said Michigan deserved to win the first game of the series, adding that he spoke to the team this morning about areas that needed improvement.
“We need to be better, and big-time response by our guys tonight,” Nightingale said. MSU will take a bye week before facing Notre Dame, Ohio State and Minnesota. The Spartans will likely need to sweep all three series to

Michigan will host No. 6 Penn State next week, before finishing its conference play against No. 13 Wisconsin and Minnesota. Aside from MSU, Penn State and Wisconsin are the only Big Ten teams to have beaten



By Alex Walters and Theo Scheer awalters@statenews.com / tscheer@statenews.com
On a recent Monday evening, the scene inside the MSU Union was seemingly ordinary. As the last customers of the day mulled around the in-house coffee shop, a group of skaters reclined on the lobby couch, fans took a picture with a bronze statue of the university mascot, and blearyeyed students typed away at laptops.
The building — long the idyllic center of campus life — recently celebrated its centennial. In a newly renovated common area on the first floor, a poster lists decades of notable events through the history of the MSU Union, from a visit by Martin Luther King Jr. in 1965 to the closing of its basement bowling alley in 2020.
It makes only a passing reference to the mass shooting that took place in that very room, on another cold Monday night, three years ago. A single, inch-wide tab on the timeline read: “Feb. 13: MSU Community Violence Incident.”
As the shooting, which killed three students and injured five, approaches its third anniversary, MSU’s students and leaders face difficult questions over how long to memorialize a tragedy.
Will the devastating event remain a living, breathing, and aching part of campus life?
Or will it become a one-line blip in the long history of a storied institution?
The passing years and convenience of the calendar lend themselves to the latter. The last four-year undergraduates who experienced the shooting first-hand will graduate in mere months. And the university’s leaders will not have to choose whether to hold classes on the anniversary until 2029.
But, for some, the anniversary was supposed to be more than a temporary acknowledgment of passing trauma. They wonder how, if at all, it will live on.
Discussions about how to best handle the anniversary began soon after the shooting itself in the spring of 2023, said Thomas Jeitschko, who was MSU’s interim provost during the shooting and until August 2025. Academic calendars are set years ahead, and subject to scrutiny from accreditors, so cancelling classes for the anniversary presented a logistical challenge, he said. For the first anniversary in 2024, though, Jeitschko recalled that MSU’s leaders were in agreement that it was the right thing to do. Classes were cancelled, and large
assignments and exams were discouraged. The university remained open and offered supportive programming, he said, “because we wanted to be together as a community.” In the end, Jeitschko said he was pleased with how the first anniversary went.
But some wanted more. Members of the undergraduate student government demanded the anniversary become a permanently observed part of the academic calendar.
The university has not adopted such a measure. But the choice to call off classes again for the second anniversary pressed the issue, said Mark Largent, vice provost and dean of undergraduate education, who was among the administrators involved in the decision.
“We did it the first year,” he said. “But then the question was, if you do it a second year, when do we stop?”
The administration eventually chose to cancel classes for the second and third anniversaries, in part because of what Largent called the “poetic logic” of the ensuing calendars.
The first three anniversaries have fallen on weekdays. But for the next two years, the anniversary will be on Saturday and Sunday. So, the next time MSU’s leaders
will have to consider canceling classes is Monday, Feb. 13, 2029.
By then, even the undergraduates who were freshmen during the shooting will have graduated years ago. Largent said that timing was discussed when deciding to cancel classes in 2025.
“That was the worry then: if we do it a second year, how do we stop?” Largent said. “But there’s a sort of poetic logic to saying that the students who were here are gone by the time we get to ‘29, so it has this natural end.” (A university spokesperson said no decision has been made about how to handle the anniversary in coming years.)
In Jeitschko’s recollection, administrators imagined that the anniversary would serve a purpose aside from helping those who experienced it directly process trauma: respecting and remembering those who were killed. That, Jetischko said, could theoretically continue long after those who most directly experienced the shooting leave campus.
At the same time, Largent said that administrators have worried about treating the anniversaries with such longevity. They could “impose the trauma” of the shooting onto new students who did not experience it themselves. But, Jetischko said, even students who weren’t at MSU for the shooting may already feel affected by gun violence and school shootings in general, or from past experiences. The anniversary could then function as a day of reflection for that greater societal stress.
“These are a part of where we are as a society,” Jeitschko said of shootings. “Even a student who was not here on that particular day could very well reflect and have some connection.”
At the same time, Jeitschko said he has worried that the day off of class could become “just a party day or a long weekend.” It would be “personally upsetting,” he said, if students now or in the future took it lightly.
Largent, meanwhile, wondered whether it’s realistic to expect all students to engage with the anniversary in a truly solemn way. He said he thinks about a bench outside the administration building, which he and some colleagues paid to be dedicated to James Murphy, a longtime information technologist who died in 2021. Or a nearby tree, which is dedicated to James Lucas, a vice provost who died last year.
When Largent visits those landmarks, he thinks about his old colleagues. But when a student rests on the bench or enjoys the tree’s shade, he asked, do they know who they are? If they don’t know, or don’t care, is that disrespectful?
In a way, Largent said, MSU’s campus is “full of ghosts.” It’s nearly 200 years old.
Almost every spot has surely earned special meaning for someone, for reasons only they understand.
In time, Largent said, the shooting may mature into yet another piece of the university’s history, something “that has more consequential meaning to other people than it does to you.”
With the physical plans MSU has to memorialize the shooting, these considerations have concrete effects.
The MSU Museum is still in the process of cataloguing thousands of items placed on campus after the shooting, like signs, artificial flowers, letters, and stuffed animals. There aren’t “immediate plans” to display the items, said Director Devon Akmon, and the museum would consult with trauma experts before doing so.
“We just need to be sure that our university is ready,” Akmon said.
The university is also constructing a
“We still send the flowers; we still sign the card; we do it because we are at a loss as survivors. We are at a loss for the right gesture.”
Divya Victor Associate Professor, English
permanent memorial, which is expected to be completed in the fall.
MSU largely let the community decide the direction of the project. In August, trustees approved the design — a reflective pond with three benches to symbolize the three lives lost — after multiple surveys and feedback sessions.
Its location in the Old Horticulture garden is accessible, but private, said Judith Stoddart, vice provost for University Arts and Collections and co-chair of the ten-person committee overseeing the project.
The memorial is meant to provide a physical location to process the trauma of the shooting. But it’s also a way to remember the event decades from now, when there’s no one on campus that was impacted by it, Stoddart said.
“That’s the best way that we can, in perpetuity, continue to remember and honor both what happened but also the process of ongoing healing from that event,” she said.
In 2024, survey respondents indicated the memorial should be most focused on
“honoring and remembering,” and least focused on “providing commentary.”
But memorialization efforts that are divorced from political action ring hollow, said Divya Victor, an associate professor in the English department who thinks the university should be an advocate for gun regulation.
Relying on an aesthetic gesture to remember a tragedy is “a very limited way of understanding grief and our responsibility to each other,” Victor said. “It’s like sending a Hallmark card to a funeral.”
“We still send the flowers; we still sign the card; we do it because we are at a loss as survivors. We are at a loss for the right gesture.”
For a year afterward, Victor heard her students lower their voices when they talked about the shooting. These days, however, she said that doesn’t really happen.
“It’s falling a little bit out of memory,” she said.
As memory of the shooting fades, so has its gravity. As statistics junior Peyton Paungam studied in the MSU Union Monday evening, he said that while the shooting was “tragic” — on its first anniversary, he went out of his way to place flowers at the Spartan statue — for him, the building didn’t hold much of an emotional weight.
Urban planning sophomore Reed Papakonstantinou once witnessed leaders of a student organization decide not to host a meeting in Berkey Hall out of consideration for members who were students during the shooting. The moment struck Papakonstantinou, who transferred to MSU last year.
“To me, it’s just another building,” he said.
Jeitschko said he visited Berkey Hall last month. After a meeting in the area, he decided to spend some time in the reflection rooms that were built in the part of the first floor where much of the violence took place.
He watched as students went about their days, he said, realizing that most of them, or maybe all of them, were not at MSU when the shooting happened.
An untrained observer, he thought, may not know that anything had happened here —that the space had seen such violence, that it had been deliberately redesigned and carefully reopened afterward. Nothing about it is frivolous, he said, and there’s nothing “that ignores what happened.” But, on that day, it may have looked like any other hallway, in any other building, on any other campus.
For him, though, the space means more. It was solemn, he said: “If you do know what it is, you would see that it’s a special place.”
By Demonte Thomas dthomas@statenews.com
Michigan State University will hold a variety of events across campus Friday, Feb. 13, in recognition of the third anniversary of the campus mass shooting that killed three students and injured five.
Most classes will not be held on Friday, though other university functions including dining halls will remain open.
The Breslin Center’s Hall of History will be staffed with volunteers providing support to community members from 1-3 p.m., and the MSU Alumni Chapel will be open from 12:30-3:30 p.m. Keyboard students from the College of Music will perform the organ in the Alumni Chapel.
From 1-3 p.m., community members can participate in Caring Through Service, a service-focused meeting at the Breslin Center’s Hall of History. Food will be available at the event.
In the late afternoon, a heated tent will open near West Circle Drive and East Circle Drive by the Grand River Parking Ramp from 4-8 p.m., offering hot cocoa, bottled water, resources, volunteers and luminary kits. QR codes with links to support resources will also be provided.
8:10-8:30
There are plans for music to be played at Beaumont Tower, followed by a moment of silence and the rining of the tower bells from 8:10-8:30 p.m. Beaumont Tower, the MSU Union and Berkey Hall will be lit green from dusk on Feb. 13 until dawn of Feb. 14. A livestream of the ringing will be available here.
MSU Counseling & Psychiatric Services and the MSU Employee Assistance Program will have drop-in appointments available from 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Friday. Immediate support for students is available through the CAPS CrisisLine at 517-355-8270, #1, to speak with a licensed counselor. For employees, after-hours support is available by calling 517-355-4506, #2.

By Ria Gupta, Lucas Gentilia and Julia Roeder rgupta@statenews.com/lgentilia@statenews.com/jroeder@statenews.com
Panic and anger erupted across campus Tuesday morning after Michigan State University erroneously sent out an emergency notification to students, faculty, staff and parents, alerting recipients to an “active violence incident.”
The notification was sent out to the entire campus and parents from the university’s Department of Police and Public Safety. The alert said to “run/avoid, hide/barricade or fight/confront” if in the presence of danger.
The first text message was delivered at 10:52 a.m., followed by a series of phone calls and emails. Sirens across campus were also activated by the department.
Roughly one minute after the initial notification, a second message was sent, saying the emergency notification was delivered in “error” and to “please disregard” it. The second message was posted to the police department’s social media pages.
MSU and the Department of Police and Public Safety did not respond to requests for comment.
The rapid correction led to some contradictory signals, with students receiving phone calls and emails alerting them for minutes even after the correction was sent out. Adding to the confusion was the fact that the messages contained discrepancies between each other.
For some students and parents, the word “drill” was omitted from the initial alert they received, causing them to fear an actual active violence incident was occurring. That notification plainly read, “Emergency! Active violence incident at the MSU East Lansing Campus. Avoid the area”.
It does not appear as if the drill was previously scheduled. MSU tests its campus-wide alert system once a semester, with the most recent test occurring on Jan. 21.
The alert sent in error comes mere days before the third anniversary of the MSU campus shooting on Feb. 13, 2023.
MSU President Kevin Guskiewicz and Chief of Police Mike Yankowski apologized for the error Tuesday afternoon, writing in a statement that the alert was accidentally sent during a routine system test by MSU’s Security Operations Center.
“As part of standard protocol, the SOC performs a required monthly test to evaluate the university’s emergency notification tools in a designated test environment,” the statement read. “During one of these routine checks, a message was accidentally sent through the live alerting system. This was human error. We are confident that our alert system is in no way compromised.”
“We understand how emotionally activating this incident might have been for members of our university community, and we sincerely apologize for the error,” the statement continued.
Human Development and Family Studies sophomore Reyna Atkinson, who was in her dorm at Rather Hall when she received
the notification, said the initial notification she got did not make it clear that the emergency alert was not a drill.
“This was an unacceptable mistake to make,” Atkinson said.
Samantha Smith, a current graduate student who was enrolled at MSU during the 2023 campus shooting, said the notification bore resemblance to the one she received during the shooting.
“It felt like a sick joke,” Smith said. “It was so traumatic for me because a concern that I’ve had in the back of my mind is, if I ever experience it again, I will live through another mass shooting — maybe not live through one.”
Professor of Journalism Rick Epps has taught graphic design at MSU for 10 years, but wasn’t on campus during the 2023 shooting.
That night, he acted as a parent of a student in the Broad College of Business; today, Epps acted as a professor.
Epps received the alert in a classroom of 15 students in the Communication Arts and Sciences Building. He said the alert was a reminder of the shooting three years ago.
“It’s the reminder that everything has to stop. I spend however much time planning today’s class, everything stops when I see that,” Epps said. “We’re all scarred by what’s happened here. We all remember it. We never forget it. As a professor, it’s my job to stop being a design professor and remember that the safety of everybody in this room is all that matters.”
Epps said he was sad the error took place, but was glad that somebody was thinking about safety at MSU.
“I would hope somewhere in the university, there are preparations to practice. What are our emergency measures, active shooter measures?” Epps said. “You never know what could happen in a moment. Anniversaries click in people’s minds for things, for better or for worse. So I hope that’s why it happened. I hope somebody was practicing as a dry run for Feb. 13 safety preparations.”
Art history senior Willa Brainard was attending class in Berkey Hall when she received the alert notification. At first, only the students showed any reaction to the barrage of alert notifications as history professor Shayan Rajani continued to lecture. Brainard felt panic as she read the message, then confusion.
The alert reminded her of the email sent by MSU during the campus shooting three years ago, Brainard said. While the school has made various improvements to its alert systems, Brainard said the lack of additional information reminded her of the confusion on campus during the shooting
“Even though it was a drill, it just reminded you of that,” she said.
In the classroom, Rajani turned to look at his slides, where the alert notification was now emblazoned in the corner of the screen. He went to lock the door.
Despite the message noting that the alert was a drill, Rajani felt “alarmed, but I was able to recall some, most of my training, and so my process was to lock those doors,” he said.
Still, all Brainard could think was, “Oh, I’m really not safe on this campus anywhere.”
Guskiewicz and Yankowski wrote in their statement that campus police will be implementing additional safeguard to ensure test messages are not sent through live channels, conduct a review of how alerts are authorized and look at potentially adjusting the software the department uses to issue alerts.
By Julia Roeder and Anish Topiwala jroeder@statenews.com atopiwala@statenews.com
In the wake of immigration crackdowns on a national scale, Michigan State University’s first Board of Trustees meeting of the semester spent its opening minutes addressing students and faculty concerns, which dotted the public comment period.
The meeting marked the turnover of several key MSU administrators, including a new board chair. Also approved at the meeting were renovations to an MSU dormitory, adding laboratories for an engineering program.
Several trustees were physically absent from the meeting, with one not appearing virtually until over an hour-and-a-half into the proceedings.
In his opening comments, President Kevin Guskiewicz addressed the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s presence in Minneapolis, where fellow Big Ten institution, the University of Minnesota is located. This follows multiple protests held on campus against the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration.
“I’ve been spending a lot of time over the past several weeks meeting with students and faculty who are concerned about the aggressive turn of immigration enforcement across the country, particularly what we’ve seen unfold in Minneapolis,” Guskiewicz said.
Yesterday, the Associated Students of MSU passed a bill standing in solidarity with University of Minnesota students affected by violence in Minneapolis which it claims ICE caused. ASMSU president Kathryn Harding said the student government will release a statement on the issue in the coming weeks.
Faculty Senate Chair John Aeni-Flessner reminded the board of the number of students and faculty who have visas, saying the faculty senate has asked the board to ensure faculty records, physical and digital, are kept safe in this “nerve-racking time.”
“We need MSU to say that we stand with students,” Scott Farver, an associate professor in the College of Education, said during public comment. “To say that we protect all individual rights. We need MSU to say unequivocally that ICE is absolutely not allowed on our campus.”
In closing board comments, Trustee Dennis Denno voiced his support for members of law enforcement who are “doing [their] jobs the right way.”
When the meeting began, only half of the trustees sat in front of their placards. Trustees Renee Knake Jefferson, Kelly Tebay and Sandy Pierce were present virtually over Zoom. Trustee Rema Vassar was not present

either virtually or in-person.
MSU President Kevin Guskiewicz acknowledged the contingent of trustees present over Zoom, adding that Tebay was “en route” to the board meeting and Vassar would be “joining a bit later this morning.”
“We need MSU to say that we stand with students... To say that we protect all individual rights. We need MSU to say unequivocally that ICE is absolutely not allowed on our campus.”
Scott Farver Associate Professor in the College of Education
Tebay arrived at the board room around ten minutes after the meeting commenced. Vassar joined virtually almost two hours in. By the time she joined, the board had already voted on all
the items present on the agenda.
All trustees on Zoom did not speak during their allotted trustees comment section of the meeting.
University Spokesperson Amber McCann said Jefferson, Vassar and Pierce informed the board secretary prior to the meeting that they had conflicts that they could not move for the meeting.
The board voted to move forward with renovating a former dining hall and kitchen located on the second floor of Wilson Hall for the College of Engineering’s technology engineering program.
The board first approved these plans in April 2024.
The roughly 20,000-square-foot renovation would include instructional laboratory space, two single-occupant accessible restrooms, a wellness room and storage areas.
The board’s recommendation also includes life safety upgrades to the residence hall. Proposed upgrades include installing a new fire suppression system and replacing the building’s fire alarm system.
The project totals $34.8 million. Of that, $27 million for the academic renovations would be
debt financed and repaid by central sources, while $7.8 million for life safety improvements would be cash funded by the Division of Residential and Hospitality Services.
February’s board meeting marks the start of Trustee Brianna Scott’s tenure as Board chair. She will serve a one-year term as chair.
In her closing remarks, Scott commended the retirement of Vice President for Research and Innovation, Doug Gage. Gage was appointed into his VP role in 2021 and has worked at MSU for 35 years.
Shashank Priya was appointed to replace Gage, overseeing millions in university research endeavors.
In mid-January, AVP for Student Development and Leadership, Allyn Shaw retired and, within the same week, Assistant Vice President for Student Life and Engagement Genyne Royal resigned from MSU.
ASMSU President Kathryn Harding thanked both the former AVP and VP for “all of the years they’ve dedicated to our campus.”
Suchitra Webster was appointed as the Interim Dean of Students, Division of Student Affairs by the board.
