Students, faculty and staff spent over an hour remembering former Elizabethtown College student Mackenzie O’Brien at a vigil Wednesday, Sept. 19 at 5 p.m. According to assistant professor of education Dr. Peter Licona, many in attendance did not want to leave.
“I felt sadness, yet strength as all in the room were trying to make sense of Mackenzie’s passing,” Licona said in an email.
O’Brien, who was a senior early childhood education major, passed away Tuesday, Sept. 18. According to an email sent to the campus community, O’Brien was heavily involved in the Department of Education, participating in the Education Organization (Ed Org) and Etown’s chapter of the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) and student teaching in the Cornwall-Lebanon School District. She was also on the women’s volleyball team.
The vigil in Leffler Chapel and Performance Center featured words of grief and support, stories about O’Brien and time for members of the College community to remember one of their own.
Chaplain and Director of Religious Life Dr. Tracy Sadd opened the vigil with a tribute to O’Brien and some words of comfort for the students, faculty and staff who attended. O’Brien first met Sadd in her purposeful life work class.
“I was both a leader of the service and also a mourner, who wept,” Sadd said.
Next, Catholic Campus Ministry Coordinator Ann Schwartz offered a prayer.
Assistant Chaplain Rev. Amy Shorner-Johnson invited everyone in attendance to stand in a circle in the center of the room. During this time, anyone who wanted to could share “a memory of Mackenzie as a future teacher, as a friend and as a servant leader,” according to Sadd.
“Mackenzie loved photographs, because to her, a photograph was not just a photograph, it was something that pointed to an experience, an adventure, a memory, that was much greater than the photograph itself,” Sadd said.
According to Licona, several people shared stories, including Education Department Chair Dr. Rachel Finley-Bowman, who knew O’Brien well. After a candlelit moment of silence, members of the Department of Education gave attendees paper for writing messages to compile into a book of memories for O’Brien’s family.
Throughout her time at Etown, O’Brien was in three of Licona’s classes. “[O’Brien’s] work was thoughtful and, at heart, she always had her students, both current and future, at the center of her work in the education department,” Licona said.
Licona was in his first year of teaching at Etown when he met O’Brien, who had just come to the College as a transfer student. He and O’Brien would sometimes talk about music, the outdoors and other shared interests. He described her as an empathetic person who could be counted on for support or a shoulder to cry on among her fellow students.
“She was the first student at Etown who approached me as a human being,” Licona said. “She was friendly and spoke to me as a person and not necessarily as a teacher.”
