The Division of Student Affairs and Undergraduate Student Government dedicated the Student Memorial Sculpture to deceased St. Thomas students Sunday outside the Chapel of St. Thomas Aquinas.
Friends and family members, along with faculty and staff gathered to honor students whose lives were cut short.
“We provide a permanent place to remember their (students’) untimely deaths,” Father Lawrence Blake said.
The memorial has been in the making since the Fall of 2017 and is intended to be a place of remembrance and reflection for those who lost a friend, family member, or loved one.
“It was a sad time for our university community, as we had four students that died that year,” Karen Lange, vice president for student affairs, said.
Staff and students worked together to make the memorial a reality. The university created a Deceased Student Memorial Committee to develop the idea.
A national competition was launched to find an artist to create the memorial. The memorial committee eventually chose sculptor James Dinh to bring the idea to life.
“The fundamental intent of the design is that it will help in the healing process for families and friends affected by the loss of beloved St. Thomas students,” Dinh said.
The granite panels were installed in November 2021 and on Oct. 7, 2022, the glass discs were installed, completing the memorial’s construction.
“Now that the project has been transformed from ideas in my head to drawings on paper, to physical stone and glass, I hope that the University of St. Thomas community will embrace it,” Dinh said.
Derek Badger can be reached at badg7629@stthomas.edu.
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