Florida Phoenix
Students are back on campus at Florida State University, and they’re studying in classrooms better suited for campus emergencies than they were that tragic day, administrators say.
During a Board of Trustees meeting Friday, President Richard McCullough said campus security officials have made “significant enhancements” since a gunman opened fire there on April 17, killing two and injuring others.
“We aren’t moving on, but we are healing. That tragedy certainly will impact many of us for years to come. I appreciate the way we responded to it, in Florida State fashion, with coming together as the family that we are,” McCullough said.
The Floridian reported shortly after the shooting that students barricaded classrooms when they found out that the doors did not lock from the inside.
Days after the shooting, a petition started circulating calling for locks on all classroom doors.
Kyle Clark, FSU vice president for finance and administration, said that over the Summer more than 600 classrooms were equipped with buttons to push in case of an active shooter.
Of those, 330 were ‘“lockdown” buttons, which lock the classroom door when pushed, and 290 were “panic” buttons that alert FSU police and are paired with manual locks on the doors.
“I feel pretty happy to report that a lot of the things we were working on were planned before the 17th. We just took a one-, three-, five-year plan and pushed it into eight weeks,” Assistant Vice President for Public Safety Barbara O’Connor said.
Along with attention to door locks, nearly 3,500 people have completed active-threat training since January 2025, according to the university.
“Faculty and students are so excited to be back but some are, as you can imagine, somewhat anxious or reserved as they continue to process the shooting that occurred on campus and the quick end to the spring semester, and of course in light of news of yet another school shooting, this time in a PreK-8 Catholic school in Minneapolis,” said Jennifer Proffitt, vice chair of the faculty senate.
Adding locks to classroom doors was among the demands FSU students brought to the Capitol following the shooting.
Lori Alhadeff, a mother of a Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting victim and Broward County School Board member, stood in front of Trustees Friday to talk about the changes.
“FSU holds a special place in my heart, not only because of this partnership but because my two boys are here as students. And together, with your leadership, we have the power to save lives and create a future where no parent has to endure what I have,” Alhadeff said.
Alhadeff co-founded Make Our Schools Safe. That charity donated $250,000 to the FSU Foundation for school safety.
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Jay Waagmeester reporting. Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: [email protected].
