They lit candles and heard music. Some joined hands. Others embraced and cried. Then, they listened as student Shajena Erazo read all 33 names one by one: a 22-year-old biology, English, and psychology major who was only a month from graduation; an 18-year-old freshman who started a service project to rehabilitate homes in her Illinois town; a 76-year-old engineering science and mechanics lecturer who survived the Nazi Holocaust.

Hundreds of University of Miami students, faculty, and staff members gathered Wednesday night at the University Center Rock for a candlelight vigil honoring the victims of the massacre at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg, Virginia.

The memorial ceremony was just one of many that have been held over the past few days on college and university campuses around the nation.

“It is never easy to come together during a time of tragedy,” said Erazo, the executive secretary of UM Student Government, which organized the event. “Tonight we are gathered here to show our support” for the murdered victims, “and our thoughts and prayers are also with those who were injured.”

Robyn Fisher, rabbinic director at UM’s Hillel Jewish Student Center, recited the poem We Need One Another. The Reverend Marcus Zillman of the Wesley Foundation shared a reading from the Book of Psalms, chapter 46. And the Hammond-Butler Inspirational Concert Choir performed several songs.

Student Government ordered 500 T-shirts bearing the UM and Virginia Tech logos and distributed them to students at the vigil. Students, faculty, and staff scrawled prayers and notes of condolences on a banner that the University of Miami baseball team will present to Virginia Tech when the two Atlantic Coast Conference schools face each other in a three-game series in Blacksburg starting tomorrow.

“Virginia Tech is similar to the University of Miami in many ways,” said Student Government President Danny Carvajal, noting that both institutions, former Big East conference schools that joined the ACC together three years ago, are located in vibrant cities and have supportive alumni and enthusiastic athletic fans. “We’re here for the students of Virginia Tech, our sister school, to extend our thoughts and prayers. We’re confident that Virginia Tech will heal and prevail. They will stand tall.”

Carvajal said UM Student Government plans to have an additional 700 shirts made, 400 of which will bear the UM and Virginia Tech logos, and with the remaining 300 featuring a new design.

University of Miami President Donna E. Shalala said, “With her eloquence and powerful speech yesterday, Virginia Tech distinguished professor of English, Nikki Giovanni, began by saying, ‘We are sad today, and we will be sad for quite a while. We are not moving on. We are embracing our mourning. We are Virginia Tech.’ Drawing a parallel to Giovanni’s moving speech, Shalala said, “Tonight, we are Virginia Tech. We are their students, their faculty, their staff, and their community. Tonight we mourn the loss of wonderful people—the victims. They were African-Americans and Asian-Americans. They were Hispanic and European, they were Jewish and Catholic and Buddhist and Muslim and Protestant. They were a face of the University of Miami.
“We are Virginia Tech. We share their grief and their horror. Tonight we are Virginia Tech. We stand proud and sad, sons and daughters of Virginia. Tonight we are Virginia Tech. We are their sisters and their brothers. Yes, we are Virginia Tech, and tonight we stand with them in sadness and in grief. Tonight we embrace the Hokie Nation, and we share their courage and their spirit. And so we send them this message in solidarity. A message of spirit: Let’s Go Hokies! Let’s Go Hokies! Let’s Go Hokies!”