Student Council held a memorial to honor University students who died this year May 2 at Old Cabell Hall.
The memorial commemorated late students Margaret Lowe, Paul Kim, John Paul Popovich, Ceili Leahy, Juliana Porter, Kurt Hilburger, Quentin Alcorn and Derek Sousa.
Abraham Axler, a third-year College student and former Student Council president, delivered the opening remarks of the memorial before other students spoke to honor their friends.
Third-year Engineering student Jacqueline Kouri spoke for Margaret Lowe, her big sister in the University chapter of the Pi Beta Phi sorority.
“I think it’s awesome to have a community come together where we’re all feeling the same type of thing, or the same emotion,” Kouri said. “There was a common theme throughout all the speeches and all the students were mourning in the same kind of way.”
Kouri said listening to the other speeches helped her because the rest of the speakers were all going through similar emotions.
Different music groups performed between the speakers.
The University Chamber Singers opened the memorial. The Virginia Gentlemen and the Virginia Belles both sang at the memorial as well.
Batten graduate student Melissa Man Li Carlier performed on the violin.
Additionally, first-year College students Laura Isbell and Aiman Khan performed a duet with french horns.
Many of the families of the students being honored were present at the memorial.
“It was wonderful,” Marcia Alcorn, Quentin Alcorn’s mother, said. “Everything was wonderful, but the music was particularly healing.”
Sarah Kenny, a second-year College student and Student Council vice president for administration, said the memorial is an important event for the University community.
“I know not all schools do this,” Kenny said. “As we’re concluding our semester, amidst finals, I know that it’s hard to take time to reflect upon what we’ve gone through, but what our community has lost as well as what we’ve gained this year — that’s just as, if not more important.”
Student Council passed resolutions at its April 26 general body meeting to honor the late students and made an effort to make the resolutions more personal than in past years by framing them.
This was “more for the parents to see this as a staying effort — that we have truly recognized their [childrens’] contributions to this University,” Kenny said. “That’s not going to be forgotten … that’s going to be a living part of our University.”
Third-year Batten student and current Student Council President Emily Lodge closed the memorial and family members of the students were given the framed resolutions.
“To really bring their families to Grounds and show the impact that they’ve made on this community is a really special thing and an incredible opportunity — as Abraham said in his opening remarks — to heal,” Kenny said.
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