DeKALB – Most students who attend Northern Illinois University now weren’t on campus four years ago on Feb. 14.

Still, it’s a day many said they will never forget.

She wasn’t a student yet, but junior Alexis Franklin remembers where she was when she heard a former NIU student walked into Room 101 in Cole Hall shortly after 3 p.m. Feb. 14, 2008, and opened fire, killing five students and injuring 21 others before turning the gun on himself.

Students Gayle Dubowski, Catalina Garcia, Julianna Gehant, Ryanne Mace and Daniel Parmenter were killed during the shooting. In 2009, a memorial garden was created next to Cole Hall in their honor. A renovated Cole Hall reopened in January, and classes are being held there for the first time since the shooting.

Franklin, a Rockford native, was getting ready to go shopping with her sister when she heard the news.

“I was in utter disbelief that something like that would happen in DeKalb,” she said.

Although most students in 2008 have graduated, NIU President John Peters said the university community still balances remembering the tragedy with moving forward.

“Obviously, it is a day that I’ll never forget and a day that changed my life and my relationship to NIU forever,” Peters said. “The early hours, days and weeks were very challenging for all of us who were here.”

What defines the university four years later isn’t the tragedy, Peters said, but the way the students, university and surrounding communities responded and the strength they showed.

“That has driven me forward almost every day – it is what you do with a tragedy,” he said. “I’m just so grateful for the way this community responded.”

Peters remembers when students and faculty came back to campus after it was closed the week after Feb. 14, they were greeted with 50,000 cookies from the community. Those simple acts of kindness continue to drive the community forward, he said.

“That really set the stage for healing,” he said. “That has not changed.”

Of the approximately 220 students who were in Cole Hall during the shooting, only about 30 still attend classes at NIU, said Scott Peska, director of the Office of Support and Advocacy. A number of alumni who were in the building at the time plan to attend today’s wreath-laying ceremony at the Forward, Together Forward Memorial Garden.

• Daily Chronicle reporter Caitlin Mullen contributed to this report.