Post your online condolence for Eve Carson.

Good afternoon. We are brought together because we have lost someone whom we cherish and love. We are all in a state of shock. The death of any parent’s child or any student is a tragedy, but this is a tragedy magnified and multiplied by the number and depths of the relationships—meaningful relationships—Eve Carson had on this campus. This enormous throng of students, faculty and staff is a testament to those many and deep relationships. Eve Carson personified the Carolina spirit. She did it perhaps more profoundly than anyone I’ve known in my whole time here. She felt the very pulse and heartbeat of this university.

Eve and I often talked about what it is that makes Carolina such a special place. I recall this year at Freshman Camp when—and many of you are alumni of Freshman Camp and were counselors with Eve which was a place she particularly loved—and I was asked a question this particular fall if I could sum up in one phrase this university, what makes it so special. And I thought for a moment and I said, “Excellence with a heart.”

And Eve particularly resonated to that and I heard her use that expression many times afterward, but the expression I heard her use more than any other was, Eve loved to talk about the “Carolina Way.” You all have heard her say that, and she knew what that meant, and the way she lived her life embodied the Carolina Way, a commitment to others, an embracing of this university’s commitment to access and affordability, a commitment to this university’s outreach of service to the community, to the state and indeed to the world. Eve embodied that in her travels, in her activities, in her commitment to causes, and each of you I think has your own private memories of your relationships with Eve and the causes and issues and commitments that you shared together.

She was loved by so many on this campus and involved in so many facets of the life of this campus that she touched us all. And now she has been taken from us suddenly in a terrible, terrible act of violence. None of us understands why these kinds of events occur. We simply can’t fathom this kind of violent act that’s so foreign to our culture and our community.

And now it is our struggle to come to grips with the reality of this event, and so we must go through a period of grieving and accepting this reality. We are all hurting, we are all grief stricken, stunned. And to the campus community, I want to say that the university wants to reach out and put its arms around you, embrace you and tell you that the only way we can get through this is together as a Carolina community.

To our students, I want to encourage you to reach back to the university and let us help you through the Office of the Dean of Students, through the counseling of wellness services. Counselors will be available to you in the Upendo Lounge in the Student Activities Services Building and in the new addition to the Carolina Union until 11 p.m. this evening.

All of our counselors, and indeed I want to thank Duke University for sending counselors to us to help meet what we think will be the need on this campus for individual counseling. Resident advisors in campus housing and Granville Towers are also available to be of assistance and support. We want to reach out to you. If you live off campus, you’re as much a part of this community as the people who live on campus, so don’t hesitate to call us.

But most importantly, I want you to reach out to each other. We can only get through these kinds of crises by hugging each. This university needs an enormous group hug. I’ve seen you across this university today weeping and consoling each other. It’s OK to cry. It’s OK to be filled with grief. We have to go through this. This is a part of life we all have to experience, and this is a particularly tough moment because it touches so many of us.

Tonight, in honor of Eve, the executive branch of student government is inviting the university community to a candlelight vigil at 7 p.m. in the Pit, and I know many of you will want to be there.

Finally, I know how difficult it is to begin to comprehend something so tragic, so unjust, so unfair that such a beautiful person—a person not only of great physical beauty but a person who was truly beautiful to the core, who enjoyed life to its fullest, who was so engaging, so filled with life—could suddenly be cut off from us and from life itself.

It is times like this that test us as a community. Let us be the university that Eve Carson envisioned. Let us show the Carolina Way that she lived, that she talked about but more importantly that she lived in her life, and we do that by caring for each other. If we want to respect and remember Eve Carson, we will do it by embracing each other and demonstrating the true love that exists on this campus that embodies this great university.

I ask you to conclude this moment with a moment of absolute silence. We’re going to establish a temporary memorial for Eve over here just behind the Campus Y. We’ll observe this moment of silence, after which, the Patterson Morehead Bell Tower will play Eve Carson’s favorite song, “Hark the Sound of Tar Heel Voices.” And then after that, the important part of this ceremony really begins and it is your embracing of each other, living and demonstrating Eve’s Carolina Way of compassion, of love for each other and concern for others. Let us be that University.

Eve Marie Carson, 22, was elected student body president at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in February 2007. Her term would have ended in April.

A native of Athens, Ga., Eve was born Nov. 19, 1985. She came to Carolina in the fall of 2004 as the recipient of a prestigious Morehead Scholarship. A member of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society, she was a pre-medicine student majoring in both political science and biology. As a North Carolina Fellow, she was part of a four-year leadership development program for undergraduates.

While at UNC Chapel Hill, she was extremely active in both leadership and service roles. As student body president, she was also a member of the UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees. She served as co-president of the Honors Program Student Executive Board and as a member of the Committee on Scholarships, Awards and Student Aide; the Academic Advising Program; and the Chancellor's committee for University Teaching Awards.

Teaching and working with children were key service interests for Eve. In 2006, she taught science at Frank Porter Graham Elementary School in Chapel Hill as part of UNC's INSPIRE program, whose mission is to encourage young students to pursue science as an interest. In her junior year, Carson was a tutor at Githens Middle School in Durham. She was also an assistant coach in the Girls on the Run of the Triangle, a character development program for girls ages 8-12 that uses running to teach values and a sense of self.

Eve's service extended well beyond the Triangle, however. In the spring of her sophomore year, she participated in a study abroad in Havana, Cuba, and she spent her summers working and volunteering in Ecuador, Egypt and Ghana as part of the Morehead Summer Enrichment program. "I credit my prior experiences, especially my past two Morehead summers, for preparing me to get along with pretty much whatever comes my way," she wrote in an e-mail posted on the Morehead Web site. On campus, she became involved in Nourish International, an organization started by UNC students in 2002 for hunger relief. Eve served as freshman volunteer coordinator (2004) and co-chair (2005) for the group.
The daughter of Bob Carson and Teresa Bethke, Eve was also the student body president of her high school, Clarke Central, in Athens, Ga. When she ran for the same office at Carolina, she was elected with 55 percent of the vote in a runoff with a bigger turnout than the previous year's general election.