After three weeks of memorializing the victims of the Feb. 14 shootings, a decision has been made regarding what is to be done with the makeshift memorials around campus.

Founders Memorial Library decided that items from the memorials will be preserved and placed in the Regional History Center and University Archives.

“We’re trying to preserve all aspects, including the crosses, the mementos, paper items, but not the flowers,” said Cindy Ditzler, interim director of the Regional History Center and University Archives.

Ditzler went on to say that if students have photographs, news clippings or even class projects about the incident, they can submit them to the university library.

The crosses on the mound by King Memorial Commons and the wooden Huskie cutouts in front of Cole Hall will be included in the archives.

The crosses have been on campus since Feb. 15, when Greg Zanis of Sugar Grove came at daybreak and drove six crosses into the mound by the MLK Commons.

“When I walked by that hill, I felt like it was calling out to me,” Zanis said Feb. 20 in the Rockford Register Star. “The (crosses) represent people that died, and I know it means a lot to their families because it offers them hope that they are going to see their children again in heaven.”

Zanis has taken the mission upon himself to travel across the country and leave the crosses he builds where tragedy strikes.

However, there has been much controversy surrounding the sixth cross, as it represents the man who took the lives of the five NIU students and then his own.

Zanis had made the same gesture before, when he made crosses for the shooters at Columbine High School.

The sixth cross has been taken away from the other five and relocated by an unknown person to the memorial at the fountain across the street from the Lutheran Campus Ministry.

As for whether or not the sixth cross will be accepted by the university archives, Ditzler said, “Yes, we will take it. It exists and it’s a part of history.”

The wooden cutouts of Huskies posted at the front of Cole Hall also include a sixth figure.

The cutouts were put into their current location Feb. 21 by their creator, Bianca McGraw, an NIU graduate art major.

Ditzler said there is no positive date as to when the memorials will be removed for preservation, but it will be in the near future.