The Brown community was the victim of an act of senseless violence on December 13, 2025. The impact was immediate, devastating and far-reaching.
The morning after, a light snow had fallen. Many gathered at the Ratty, seeking solace with friends. Outside, someone wrote the words “Ever True” in the snow. Others hung signs in windows, printed the words on flags, painted them on holiday ornaments hung from trees, or circulated them via hashtags across social media, a clarion call echoing around the world.
Whether on campus or in their communities far beyond the Van Wickle Gates, students, faculty, staff and alumni took up the phrase – an unofficial Brown motto tied to a fight song written in 1905 – as a sign of our collective strength and commitment to one another and our Brown community in the worst of times. It was only natural to connect our community’s path to healing, recovery and repair to these words.
Brown Ever True is the path to support the recovery and repair of our whole community, an initiative whose inspiration comes from students, faculty and staff who, on the morning after tragedy, chose to rally around each other. It reflects the resilience of a community still in mourning after the deaths of sophomore Ella Cook and first-year student MukhammadAziz Umurzokov – whose light was extinguished too soon — and still healing after the physical injuries suffered by the nine students who were wounded on that terrible day, as well as the wounds that are not physical that are felt by the broader Brown community.
Conceived in the wake of tragedy, Brown Ever True focuses on the whole campus, recognizing that the impact of the December 13 attack was particularly broad and that our recovery and repair should be holistic and inclusive. It is a journey of repair that we take individually – and together. As we travel down this road, we acknowledge that we are all carrying this weight differently, and we commit to look out for one another.
A Campus-Wide Effort
Brown is made up of many communities. We know that academic and administrative units and student organizations may develop a range of activities to move toward healing, repair and recovery. Brown Ever True welcomes community input to ensure the initiative reflects what the community needs. It is intended to be inclusive and knit the threads of various efforts together while also providing an overall Roadmap to Recovery with unified activities and programming informed by public health best practices. Campus and community recovery will take time.
Two groups have been appointed to guide these efforts: The Brown University Community Council and a Brown Ever True Operational Team.
BUCC as Representative Advisory Council
The Brown University Community Council (BUCC) is serving as the advisory body for the work of Brown Ever True, aligning with the efforts of an operational team that will coordinate the resources and activities of the initiative. With Brown’s president as its chair, the BUCC is a long-established advisory group made up of faculty, staff, students at every level (undergraduate, graduate and medical), senior administrators, Brown alumni and a member of the Corporation of Brown University.
As Brown’s only university-wide representative forum for discussion, debate and advisory recommendations on a wide spectrum of issues and concerns, the BUCC has long served as a forum for exploration and examination. In the past, the BUCC has proven to be especially valuable when the campus is addressing difficult issues that affect the entire community. We are at a moment when the whole-community input and advice that the BUCC can offer is critically important. The BUCC will convene regularly to discuss the Brown Ever True initiative and advise the operational team on the needs of the community on its path toward healing and recovery.
Brown Ever True Operational Team
The work of Brown Ever True is being coordinated by an operational team led by Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion Matthew Guterl, working in close collaboration with partners across campus. The operational team of Brown Ever True is charged with coordinating existing resources and developing new ones to support a holistic recovery effort over the next two years. All campus groups are encouraged to engage with the operational team as academic and administrative units and student groups seek to develop activities so that we can continue to move forward together as a community and support one another’s efforts along the way.
- Francesca Beaudoin, Interim Dean, School of Public Health; Professor of Epidemiology, Professor of Emergency Medicine
- Mary Jo Callan, Vice President for Community Engagement and Stark Family Executive Director, Howard R. Swearer Center for Public Service
- Carly Kite Lapinski, Vice President for Marketing Communications and Content Strategy
- Matthew Guterl, L. Herbert Ballou University Professor of Africana Studies and American Studies, Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion
- Sydney Menzin, Project Manager, Office of the President
- Juana Parillon, Assistant Vice President of Campus and Community Engagement
- Patricia Poitevien, Vice President for Campus Life and Student Services, Associate Professor of Pediatrics
- Jamall Pollock, Senior Associate Dean of the College for Student Belonging
- James Russell, Deputy Dean of Dean of the Faculty, Professor of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences
- Jai-Me Potter-Rutledge, Chief of Staff, Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion
- Marie Williams, Vice President for Human Resources