LOS ANGELES >> Students and campus leaders at UCLA on Friday called for more research into the causes of increasing gun violence at American schools, just over a week since the campus was put on lockdown following a shooting that killed a professor.

The fatal shooting of UCLA professor William Klug by a former student, who then turned the gun on himself, led to an uprecedented, hours-long lockdown of the entire Westwood campus on June 1, leaving students and faculty barricaded in their classrooms while also frightening parents across Southern California.

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The UCLA Undergraduate Students Association (USAC), in a news conference in the heart of the campus on Friday, announced plans to create the UCLA Institute on Campus Violence, a research center that would “utilize the university’s research and public service capacity to study strategies to combat campus violence.”

USAC Vice President Rafael Sands decried the lack of progress on stopping gun violence from killing elementary to college-age students. He noted that four years have passed since 26 people, including 20 children, were killed in the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

“Sandy Hook seems like it happened yesterday, but it didn’t. It was years ago,” he said. “The people graduating today just began at this school when Sandy Hook happened.”

The students said they would dedicate the center to Klug, who was killed in the engineering department building. Mainak Sarkar, a former UCLA student, shot Klug in his office. He then shot himself.

Sarkar had driven to the UCLA campus all the way from his home in Minnesota, where he had killed his estranged wife. Police say Sarkar planned to kill another UCLA professor, who was not on campus at the time of the shooting.

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UCLA Chancellor Gene Block said on Friday that he would create a campus-wide task force in response to the shooting.

The task force would create an active-shooter training program for student, faculty and staff leaders, as well as assess the university’s response to the shooting.

A USAC press release said the university will revamp its alert system that sends text and email messages to students and faculty when emergencies happen.

Lined up behind the students were several local lawmakers from the state Legislature and the city council of Los Angeles.

They announced that the state would pledge $5 million to UCLA to build the research center. A bill to supply the funds must pass the state Assembly and Senate, and be signed by Gov. Jerry Brown.

City Councilman Paul Koretz, who was among the lawmakers at the vent, said that the funding would help prevent campus violence. But he said continued public awareness of the issue would help more.

“Unfortunately, there is no completely safe place right now, but I think, if anything, UCLA and the greater community will be more focused on preventing gun violence than ever before,” Koretz said. “With that focus we are much less likely to have another incident like this one.”

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For incoming UCLA student Yana Demeshko, this was not her first experience with a school shooting.

A former Santa Monica College student, she was at the school in 2013 when 23-year-old John Zawahri, after killing his father and brother, drove to the campus and killed three more people with an assault rifle.

“It’s frankly scary,” Demeshko said. “I know that a lot of my peers are terrified.”

Demeshko was visiting UCLA on June 1 when she received a text message from the university about an active shooter.

“Alerts started going out after the shooting began,” she said. “I hope they seriously look into preventative measures.”

Staff writer Marina Pena contributed to this report.