DEKALB, Ill. (AP) — The gunman in a deadly university shooting had been a stellar student when he attended Northern Illinois University, winning at least two awards and serving as an officer in a student group dedicated to promoting "understanding of all areas of the criminal justice system."

The suspect was identified Friday as 27-year-old former NIU student Steven Kazmierczak, according to Florida authorities and a university source familiar with the investigation who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the identity has not been officially released.

Polk County, Fla., sheriff's officials said they were asked to notify the suspect's father — Robert Kazmierczak of Lakeland, Fla. — of his son's death. Steven Kazmierczak opened fire on a classroom auditorium Thursday, killing six people before committing suicide.

The gunman received an undergraduate degree from NIU and had also been a graduate student in sociology there before leaving for the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, authorities said.

The Chicago Tribune reported he had an academic interest in the penal system, writing papers on self-injury in prison and the role of religion in the formation of early U.S. prisons.

The newspaper reported the gunman served as vice president of the Academic Criminal Justice Association chapter at NIU, a group with a goal of promoting "understanding of all areas of the criminal justice system."

The Chicago Sun-Times said the gunman wrote in a scholarly paper and in an Internet posting of his interest in social justice, corrections, political violence and peace. The newspaper said he had received two awards while at NIU.

The shooter had been a graduate student in sociology at NIU but was not currently enrolled at the 25,000-student campus about 65 miles west of Chicago, said University President John Peters. The suspect had no record of police contact or arrest record while at NIU, Peters said.

He also had been an undergraduate at NIU, graduating in 2006 in sociology, Peters said Friday on ABC's "Good Morning America."

"There's nothing in our system that he has had any counseling, and I know last night we knew he had no records, so there is no evidence that we had any of that," Peters said.