Noman Ibrahimi ’29 always planned to stay on campus over winter break, and knew some friends who intended to stay as well. But after the mass shooting, some of his friends left, and there weren’t many students still on campus. Still, Ibrahimi said he found community at the nearby gatherings hosted by alums.
He was invited to a gathering in Mansfield, Massachusetts hosted by Alumni Relations Vice President Zach Langway ’09, who Ibrahimi met through the Global Brown Center.
After the Mansfield gathering, Ibrahimi also attended a gathering hosted at the Harvard Club of Boston. There, he saw classmates he had not talked to during the semester and exchanged contacts. “I learned about their lives, they learned about my life,” he said.
“The fact that there was no agenda and we could leave or go anytime we wanted was pretty cool,” he said. “The alumni were very nice for doing all this, for putting their time into this.”
Across the globe, students and alums gathered at similar community events hosted by Brown alums after the Dec. 13 shooting. It was important that these spaces were unstructured, “giving people space to be together,” Langway said. He helped to coordinate and organize these gatherings.
Alums hosted the gatherings in their homes or local community spaces, and students who completed an interest form were notified by email about the meetings near them. The Office of Alumni Relations provided financial support to students for travel to the gatherings.
“It is truly a gesture of love for Brown and for this incredible community because our alumni are processing in their own way,” Langway said.
Langway himself hosted around 15 to 20 people in Mansfield.
“It was beautiful,” he said. “When you are holding grief and you’re holding mourning, as we all are right now, it is also really meaningful to see community members holding joy and optimism and a desire to be back on campus and an appreciation just to be with other Brown students.”
Ifeoluwapo Abe ’29 said she hoped to find a space to be around people she knew when she attended the gathering in Mansfield. “I wanted to be reminded of the good parts and the beautiful aspects of my experience at Brown,” she said.
“I formed really meaningful connections during the gathering,” Abe said. “I think honestly that it was a beautiful experience.”
Some gatherings hosted by alums were smaller. In London, Joshua Leight ’09 hosted a gathering at a local pub, and only one student attended. In East Greenwich, Rhode Island, Rebecca Bliss ’92 hosted a gathering at her home. The small group sat around Bliss’ kitchen table, which she had loaded up with food, and spoke about life, academics and experiences at Brown.
“It was relaxed and comfortable and in many ways felt like a gathering of Brown alums of different eras sharing their experiences and … enjoying the opportunity to hear from and learn from each other,” Bliss said.
Franklin Young ’18 hosted a gathering in Atlanta, Georgia, which he said was attended by five or six students, some accompanied by parents. Amid the tragedy, the “silver lining is us being able to connect as a community,” he said.
The Brown Club of Chicago already planned to host a gathering for alums, but extended the invite to students after the mass shooting.
“It was an important time for the Brown community to reach out and support each other,” Cliff Saper ’72, the events chair of the Brown Club of Chicago, said.
Luke Barbieri ’29 attended a gathering in the DC area with his friend, and found the hosts to be “incredibly positive and welcoming.
Barbieri said he was initially worried that “the vibe or culture that (he) experienced during the fall semester would be changed.”
But the gathering reassured Barbieri that “Brown is still Brown.”
