by Kaelynd Brouillette ’29 on January 22, 2026
Opinion - Campus
On Dec. 13, 2025, I was sitting in my boyfriend’s dorm, watching college football. Just after 4 p.m. I received a news alert to my phone from AP News, which immediately sent me into a state of fear, grief, and sadness. There had been a shooting at Brown University, a mere 10 minutes from our campus. This event was tragic, ending the lives of Ella Cook and Mukhammed Aziz Umurzokov and injuring nine others. Being a smaller city, Providence has a great sense of interconnectedness, allowing this event to reverberate throughout many neighborhoods and institutions in Providence. In the days that followed this all-too-normalized event, anxiety, grief, and institutional uncertainty began to take precedent, which exposed weaknesses in communication, leadership, and response on our campus, and ultimately led to the cancellation of all final exams on our campus, with some professors holding online ones instead. Providence College’s decision to cancel in-person finals was shaped by fear, student pressure, and an inadequate safety response, raising serious questions about crisis leadership.
Throughout many social media platforms, including YikYak, there was a general consensus about the lack of communication and information provided by our college’s Public Safety department, which amplified the uncertainty. The shooting occurred around 4:03 p.m., and students did not receive any notification from Public Safety until 5:43 p.m. This message, along with the alerts that followed, was vague and lacked reassurance, pushing many students into a further state of panic, with many going home the same day or the next morning. The absence of concrete information was not just a theme on campus, but throughout the Providence Police Department and other investigative units. Students relied on social media rather than official channels due to the repetitive nature of the press conferences held by Providence’s mayor, Brett Smiley, as well as other safety officials in our area. The confusion and lack of information provided fueled uncertainty and panic, which left room for speculation and fear to grow. Strong, timely, and transparent communication could have reduced unrest and uncertainty, allowing students to better judge the situation and allow grief to supersede fear. In the absence of clarity, students filled the void themselves.
I recall opening YikYak not long after this tragedy took place, just to see one of the top posts being about the desire for finals being cancelled. Student pressure escalated quickly, with emails to professors and administration, social media campaigns and petitions, and the framing of finals as unsafe and emotionally impossible. This is not to say that the grief and fear were not real. Nonetheless, for some students, the ongoing situation became a justification to get out of taking finals.
On Dec. 15, the decision was made by our administration to cancel all in-person exams, with many professors cancelling exams altogether as a safety and mental health measure. The decision, from a student perspective, appeared to be reactive rather than strategic. Student pressures and pushback made the decision almost impossible for administration. The options were to either have exams, and lose the trust and respect of some of our student body, or move finals online or cancel them altogether, which begs the question of academic fairness and equity.
The lack of clear threat assessment made the move feel disproportionate to the situation at hand, without taking away from the tragedy itself. There was also a sense of the decision that was left up to professor discretion, which made for inconsistency that left students feeling more stressed. Students may have benefited from a more uniform and cohesive decision, rather than one that left room for unpredictability. This put students at a disadvantage, as many did not know about the state of their exams until up to the day before. Many students were delighted by the ultimate decision of cancellation, some for the purpose of feeling unsafe on campus, understandably, but some because of the convenience of no longer having the academic pressure. Students who spent time, effort, and prepared honestly for these exams, such as myself, lost the chance to demonstrate their work and improve their overall grade, while others personally benefited from cancellations without the same academic effort. Overall, although the decision could be deemed as what is best for our students, it could have been done with more consistency and by taking equity into account.
The event that occurred on Dec. 13 is not to be taken lightly. It demands respect for the victims, grief for the Providence community, and commitment to change and reform. Tragedy demands empathy, but also clarity and leadership. The communications from Public Safety and administration matter, student voices matter, but institutions must resist making permanent academic decisions in moments of panic. Crisis should strengthen campus leadership, not expose fragility. In the end, the situation serves as a reminder that navigating tragedy requires careful balance between compassion and structure, urgency and deliberation, and student voices and institutional responsibility.