More than 100 members of the Indiana University Bloomington community gathered Monday for the annual Remembering Hoosiers Ceremony to commemorate the lives of 10 students and 12 employees who died since the last ceremony in March 2025.
IU holds the ceremony, which began in 2024, every spring. The inaugural event was planned to replace a similar ceremony that specifically honored students, to now honoring IU faculty and staff.
The event, hosted in Presidents Hall, began with live instrumental music played by the Kuttner Quartet, a group made up of Jacobs School of Music students. Following the music, IU Bloomington Chancellor David Reingold spoke to the attendees, and discussed the contributions that the students, staff and faculty brought to the IU community.
“The loss of these individuals leaves a void in our community,” Reingold said during his four-minute-long remarks. “However, their presence remains with us and the memories we hold, and the legacies they leave behind.”
Reingold invoked the words of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address to illustrate the impact each honored individual left on campus, saying “the world will little note, or long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did.”
Interim IU Bloomington Provost John Ciorciari and Director of Counseling and Psychological Services Kodee Walls spoke after Reingold’s remarks. Ciorciari thanked the attendees for traveling to the event, and thanked the Remembering Hoosiers work group that planned the event.
In her remarks, Walls asked those present to take a moment and acknowledge the people around them and remember the shared purpose and connections between everyone present.
“We find strength not by avoiding pain, but by facing it together,” Walls said.
According to 2023 Indiana Public Media reporting, IU does not track student death or causes of student deaths. Police generally notify the Office of Student Life when a death occurs, and the office then works with the family to handle matters like tuition, housing and issuing families refunds. It is the family’s decision whether to release information about the student’s death.
“I think it’s super important because we really don’t have another mechanism by which we can sort of acknowledge that someone has passed,” Associate Dean of Students DeeDee Dayhoff said.
Dayhoff said there is a cutoff ahead of the event that decides who will be honored that year, partially for planning reasons, but also to allow family and friends time to process.
IU student Sarisa Kongduang, who was killed by a speeding car in Miami Beach on March 17 alongside 2024 IU graduate Greathomon Laowatdhanasapya, was one of three IU students who died in the last year and was not included in the ceremony, Dayhoff said.
“It can feel too soon to come back to campus and do the things, and so those folks will be included in next year’s ceremony.” Dayhoff said.
The event concluded with an informal time for food, drink and conversation. Those present, from family members to friends to coworkers, gathered to talk and remember the individuals honored.
