EAST LANSING, Mich. (WOOD) — An administrator at Michigan State University is bringing her experience following the campus shooting at Virginia Tech to help students, faculty and staff in East Lansing.

Christina Brogdon is a vice president and the chief human resources officer for Michigan State University.

She worked at Virginia Tech in 2007, when a man shot and killed 32 people on campus. She said the work to provide support is only beginning with MSU students returning to campus on Monday.

“As well as could be expected. Obviously mixed emotions, some anxious to get back and just find some sense of normalcy,” Brogdon said.

Brogdon is all too familiar with the aftermath of a mass shooting and has other former colleagues who have gone through it again.  

“I have friends who work at UVA who worked with me at Virginia Tech and so now we’re in an exclusion club of having to endure this twice,” Brogdon said.  

Nearly 16 years ago she was working on Virginia Tech’s campus in the office of equal opportunity.

“My office faced Norris Hall the location of the second incident,” Brogdon said. 

She was in an office holding a meeting that morning.

“We could hear what we thought was construction. They were doing construction on the back side of the building and then someone yelled, ‘Those are gunshots,’ and so we did what we should not have done and we jumped up and went straight to the window and can see law enforcement officers trying to get in,” Brogdon said.

Brogdon was not on campus when the shooting happened at Michigan State but has been working to help guide the university and provide knowledge she learned and experienced in the days after at Virginia Tech.

“The saying became, ‘Today we’re all Hokies,’ and I see a lot of that in what happened here at MSU last week. … An enormous outpour of love and generosity and support. I’ve heard from my counterparts at institutions all over the country,” Brogdon said. 

She said the university will closely review what happened, provide flexibility on returning to class, and work to also address employee and faculty needs.     

“My heart is sad but I am hopeful for brighter days at MSU,” Brogdon said.

To learn more about the counseling resources available, you can visit the university’s website.