The Creighton Student Union, campus ministry and the Heider College of Business collaborated to organize a memorial for Akuel Majouk, Jennifer Guzman, Yoselin Deleon and Mariana Ramirez in the Harper Auditorium last Thursday.
“We gather here tonight to celebrate the lives [of the four young women] through music, prayer, reflection and memory sharing,” said Edward O’Connor, Ph.D., provost of Creighton, in his opening greeting. “Tonight we offer a promise that we will remember, we will not forget.”
The first half of the memorial was comprised of a prayer service, during which members of the audience were invited to share stories about the four young women in between Gospel passage readings and songs.
“Our professors have been very kind and very understanding of how rough this is,” said College of Business senior Elei Titiml. “Jen, Akuel, Yoyo and I were the oldest girls in our sorority in the College of Business and I feel like I have the obligation to graduate on behalf of all three of them.”
Many staff members shared their stories as well.
“I was speechless; I’ve had this happen before, but this one really hit me,” said Curtis Taylor, the Assistant Director of Multicultural Organizations and Programming in the Office of Multicultural Affairs and Student Leadership and Involvement Center. “Knowing all the women made it really difficult to attend funerals, vigils and Masses.”
After the service, people marched to the Skutt Student Center in a candlelight procession to the altar for the Day of the Dead set up by OMA and CULSA.
Ricardo Ariza, the director of OMA, said that a Jesuit priest in Rome found out about the accident and made arrangements to hold Masses there on December 11-14th for each of the victims.
Kayman Nixon, CSU president and College of Business junior, came up with the idea of the memorial.
“I decided to meet with campus ministry and I said we should do something to celebrate the lives of the girls and make sure they were being remembered,” said Nixon. “I think it really worked out well — Fr. Carlson did a fantastic job presiding over everything.”
Ariza expressed his appreciation for the Creighton community’s solidarity.
“I am very proud of the Creighton community — everybody coming together to support one another,” said Ariza. “There’s no other place that does it so well and with such authenticity, such compassion, so much love.”
“I’m just grateful that the university has done them justice in remembering [the girls] in the most beautiful way,” said Titiml. “If they were to see this they’d be extremely grateful.”