Cornellians in Sage Chapel fell silent April 19 as the university organist struck the first notes of a prelude in a ceremony memorializing the 32 students and faculty at Virginia Tech University who had lost their lives three days earlier in a campus shooting by a Korean student, who subsequently killed himself.

Lighted candles and a vase of white lilies adorned the altar, and near a podium a poster titled "In Memory" displayed photos of students walking across the Virginia Tech campus. As midday light streamed through the stained-glass windows, the mourners prayed or reflected upon the April 16 shootings.

Kent Fuchs, dean of the College of Engineering, whose son Eric is a junior at Virginia Tech, closed his speech by reading a few words from his colleague, Virginia Tech Engineering Dean Richard Benson. "And we will never forget the friends that we lost," Fuchs quoted Benson. "As long as there is a Virginia Tech they will be remembered. They are more than friends. They are family." Fuchs also noted that he was at a meeting with Benson when the shootings occurred.

"We are one," said Cornell President David Skorton. "We are one community, one people, one planet. We are here today to affirm that oneness ... We are here to bear witness to the passing of the 33 members of our family at Virginia Tech University who have met an untimely and terrible fate."

And, he said, "We are here for all of those who are gone, for all 33. We are here for the 32 who have passed from the immediate to another place, not by their own choice. We are also here for the one who has also passed."

He added that those present were there to "join with our friends in the Korean and Korean-American communities for we are all one family, most especially today we share the same sorrow and the same need for comfort and reassurance."

Returning to the phrase, "We are one," throughout his elegy, Skorton ended by saying, "We will stay together, we will go forward together, we will never forget our loss. We are one."

Following Skorton's remarks, Rev. Heewon Chun, chaplain of the Korean Church at Cornell, delivered a moving rendition of "Panis Angelicus," César Franck's well-known hymn.

Cornell Provost Biddy Martin remarked that she watched the tragedy unfurl on local television while visiting her mother in southern Virginia and was struck by the dignity and humility of Virginia Tech students interviewed by the press. She said that they asked "that we not reduce their experience of their university by this horror," which is now referred to as the largest single shooting in U.S. history. Martin added that the students wished to keep intact their experience of Virginia Tech, in spite of their loss of friends and the loss of their "sense of safety and thrilling openness of a university campus."

Martin quoted Nikki Giovanni, the noted Virginia Tech poet and professor, who had spoken about the tragic events at a Virginia campus memorial, "'We will prevail ... but not by moving on, but by going straight through this loss and sense of grief together.'"

A minute of silence followed Martin's remarks.