Letter from President Paxson: ‘As we start a new semester’

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] - With most spring semester classes at Brown University set to begin this week, President Christina H. Paxson reflected on grieving the lives lost in a senseless attack in December, and the gradual process of healing as a community and working to restore "what makes Brown feel like Brown."

The road to recovery for some will be long, she wrote in a Tuesday, Jan. 20, campus message - but this moment alone does not define the Brown community.

"I have been truly overwhelmed by the many students, staff and faculty saying how much they wanted to come back to their dorms, offices and classrooms," Paxson wrote. "Really, how much they need to come back. So that Brown could still be Brown - for them, and for the world."

Paxson shared that members of the campus community will receive an invitation to a University Memorial Service scheduled for Saturday, Feb. 7, to memorialize the victims, while alumni, parents, families and others will be invited to participate via webcast. She also encouraged students, faculty and staff to participate in an under-development effort to recognize an outpouring of support received from members of the Providence community.

The president's full letter is included below.

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As we start a new semester

Dear Members of the Brown Community,

Tomorrow marks a kind of new beginning for our community. We will forever be a campus where a senseless attack brought devastating tragedy, and we continue to grieve the lives lost and support the healing of those injured on Dec. 13.

The road to recovery for some will be long, and there will be steps forward and steps back along the way. You will see me share again and again my commitment to providing the resources necessary to bring our campus through this difficult moment.

But this moment alone does not define us. And as members of my team and I have met and spoken with students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends of the University over the past several weeks, we have heard a shared longing expressed by many members of our community - an intense desire to restore what makes Brown feel like Brown.

For some, that means a return to familiar rhythms and opportunities for connection. For others, it is the hope that space will open for healing, recovery and community. For many, it is reclaiming what it means to be Brown in everyday moments. And those moments will not look the same for everyone. We know that many on our campus may travel a long path to healing - that many are just finding their footing. This means dedicating ourselves to being thoughtful and caring for our colleagues, classmates, students and friends for whom a sense of peace will take time.

But our conviction is strong. As increasing numbers of our community members have returned to campus since the new year, I have been deeply moved and inspired to see a special uplifting of the resilience, resolve and determination to reclaim what makes this place so special.

We heard this as staff working across campus over the break and into the new year expressed how they found solace in preparing for the transition from the fall semester to what lies ahead. We heard it from faculty, graduate students and postdocs returning to their labs, and then from students in the Warren Alpert Medical School resuming their medical training - a resolve to uplift the meaning and purpose of their education and research.

And we heard from our alumni who opened their homes across the country and abroad to host students over break to simply provide space to be in community with one another. They remarked how our extraordinary students held sadness and loss, but also amazing joy at the same time.

I have been truly overwhelmed by the many students, staff and faculty saying how much they wanted to come back to their dorms, offices and classrooms. Really, how much they need to come back. So that Brown could still be Brown - for them, and for the world.

And we are still Brown. We are a university that cultivates amazing talent among our students, our faculty and our staff. We continue to conduct research that finds treatments for patients and transforms lives, and we engage in scholarship that advances understanding and shifts conversations that help shape society. We collaborate with other institutions and with each other to tackle some of the most difficult issues of today. And we nurture and launch initiatives as a community uniquely defined by taking joy in the good we can do in the world.

We do all this while still holding the memories of Ella Cook and MukhammadAziz Umurzokov in our hearts. We do this while recognizing the healing of the nine students injured on Dec. 13, and while caring for our community as a whole.

In the coming week, members of the campus community will receive an invitation to a University Memorial Service scheduled for 4 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 7, to memorialize the victims, while alumni, Brown parents and families, and others will be invited to participate at the same time via webcast. We are working with students and faculty and staff partners across campus to host a shared experience of remembrance and care as the Brown community grieves the loss of Ella and Mukhammad and as we continue our path to healing and recovery.

At the same time, we are planning an effort to recognize the outpouring of support we have continued to receive from members of the Providence community, which has shown Brown so much kindness over the past several weeks. I hope the full Brown community will participate in these efforts, as well as other programming and events being offered throughout the spring as part of the Brown Ever True initiative.

I know that many in our community will continue to struggle, and neither the path nor the pace of recovery will be the same for everyone. The work we will do together as part of Brown Ever True's roadmap to recovery will be important for our campus. The website continues to highlight support resources, programming and events, and safety and security actions we have undertaken to ensure students, faculty and staff feel secure as they live, work and study on campus.

With the start of the semester, we begin again as a community that will grieve even as we recover - that will reflect and remember, even as we heal and seek repair. We are a community that feels loss, while at the same time reclaiming all that it is to be Brown.

I look forward to finding and creating these moments together.

Sincerely,

Christina H. Paxson, President