The News No One Wants to See

Credit: Lauren Rhodes / Daily Tar Heel

We were panicking. Our hearts fell to our stomachs. We didn’t know what to expect when we received an alert message from our university that an active shooter was on campus.

It is an alert that no professor, student, faculty, and parent ever wants to receive. But there we were, reading this message and quickly turning on the local news. We had just wrapped up a staff meeting off campus, so none of us were there, but we were busy texting away on our phones to make sure our students were safe and out of harm’s way.

The university initiated a lockdown where students sheltered wherever they could and had the doors locked. We heard from many students that they began downloading police scanner apps because they had no idea what was going on. For nearly four hours, they waited under desks, in food coolers, in barricaded study rooms to receive the “all clear” message.

We began praying that this situation would be resolved and that no one would be harmed. We asked God to keep the students safe.

Unfortunately, the graduate student got to one person - the intended target, Dr. Yan.

Dr. Zijie Yan. Credit: UNC Department of Applied Physical Sciences

The UNC community reeled from hearing the grim news that a faculty member had died. Prayer gatherings, food distributions, and moments of silence began popping up all over campus. Wednesday night, hundreds of students gathered inside the Dean E. Smith center (the “Dean Dome”) to hold a candlelight vigil for Dr. Yan and the UNC community.

This wasn’t the start of the semester we wanted to see, but it’s the one that we got. Just one week after students moved back on campus and had their first week of classes, this happens. It is sad and heartbreaking that we can no longer take for granted being able to walk peacefully across campus and not wonder if today is the day that someone brings a gun on campus.

While saddened by the news of Dr. Yan’s passing, we are grateful to God this did not turn into a mass shooting and that no students were harmed. We have been checking in with our students regularly and offering them any prayer or meet ups that we can. Most of our fellowship have handled the situation better than others.

Walking away from this tragedy, we noted that now is the time for hope. Now is the time to show the love of Christ that offers peace, comfort, and strength that fortify into hope. We believe students are looking for answers that only Jesus can provide and it’s our prayer and task that we make Jesus as accessible as possible to these students.