DEKALB, Ill. – “Don’t go to class,” the text message said.

Elissa Stowell, Northern Illinois University teaching assistant in political science and ISU alumna, started her car to go to campus around 3:20 p.m. Thursday when she got the text message from a friend.

“Why?” she replied.

No response.

A few minutes later, her roommate came home from work. She said something was happening on campus, and police were everywhere.

Stowell checked out the NIU Web site, where she saw a campus alert that said there was a reported gunman on campus.

The site told students who were on campus to go somewhere safe and warned off-campus students to stay away.

The university also sent out e-mails to all students, faculty and staff.

She said the e-mail on her TA account came in around 3:20 p.m., but the e-mail into her student account didn’t get to her until 4 p.m.

Stowell and her roommate spent the afternoon watching the news and calling friends.

“It took a while, but we were able to get ahold of everyone,” Stowell said.

Stowell is a teaching assistant for an entry-level political science course.

On Fridays, she leads discussions with a small group of about 50 students from a much larger class.

“I have to stand up in a class. It is kind of hard for me. What if something like that happens to me?” Stowell asked.

Stowell said she normally arrives on campus at noon or 1 p.m., but she stayed up late working on a paper and decided to sleep in on Thursday.

“You can’t believe it happened on your campus,” Stowell said. “I think everyone is in complete shock. Everyone is trying to figure out how to deal with it and move forward.”

She said she can understand that people on campus may feel unsafe for a long time. Every time a door opens in a classroom, students will be thinking about what happened, she said.

“I think it is going to be a while before things will be normal,” she said. “I think it is going to be a healing process. The whole point of carrying on is so that the people who did this don’t win.”

Stowell thinks a situation like this cannot be prevented, and she doesn’t feel unsafe.

“I feel safe because the campus response was so quick,” she said.