DeKALB – Kathy Buettner was the last to leave.

Dressed in a long black coat, she lingered near the memorial outside of Cole Hall on the campus of Northern Illinois University last Thursday. Unlike the hundreds of NIU students, faculty and friends who had passed by the memorial in a silent but steady stream, she took her time.

In deep, reflective silence, Buettner, NIU’s vice president of university relations, spent several moments before every one of the five granite markers, each honoring a student she never met.