The candlelight vigil at the Essex campus of the Community College of Baltimore County was quiet enough to hear water flowing in the fountain.
Dozens of people were gathered Tuesday evening to remember Andrea Rodriguez Avila, a recent graduate of the community college. Avila had gone on to be a junior at Rice University in Houston, where she was studying political science.
She was found dead in her dorm in August, after her family asked for a welfare check. Police discovered a 22-year-old gunman by her side, who authorities said fatally shot her, then himself.
The community college set up tables where people could write letters to the Avila family on bright pink sheets of paper. There were also two large paper boards with photos of Avila, her peers and mentors.
In some pictures, Avila posed with friends at the Brooklyn Bridge in New York and in front of the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. There were candid photos of her at school events and from a photo booth at an award ceremony. She smiled widely in a photo, taken not long ago, while wearing a graduation cap.
“We are blessed with all the outpouring of support from the administration, the faculty, staff, and especially you, the students,” Avila’s uncle Manuel Albornoz said at the vigil. “We know that Andrea’s memory will not go anywhere and will touch many more as we push for a really strong stance against violence and more resources for mental health.”
She was described as a leader of her honor society, a hard-working, proud first-generation student who was set on a path of success. Her professors, English instructor Carr Kizzier said, had told one another they expected to see her on television one day, maybe at CNN, talking policy. The college’s president, Sandra Kurtinitis, who knew her from afar, said Avila wanted to work at the United Nations.
“To lose a student, to lose a friend, to lose a beloved family member is always a wrenching experience,” Kurtinitis said. Four Peace Poles, which called for peace to prevail, were behind her. “But to do so through violence is harder still.”
At the vigil, Kurtinitis announced the college will award $1,000 scholarships to two students this year to honor Avila.
Three of her friends said that Avila arrived in their lives when they were feeling alone, homesick or depressed. Avila made them feel seen and befriended them, they said.
One of her professors, Andrew Rusnak, read a letter of recommendation he wrote for Avila to colleges, including Rice. Avila, he said in the letter, was well-liked and well-respected. She took honors classes and was part of a summer research program at Johns Hopkins University. She had an abstract on Afrofuturism accepted for an anthology.
Avila had high standards, he said the letter, adding that she would have had “a very promising career in international relations, politics, law and academia.”
Avila’s friends passed candles to the family first, as sky became a darker shade of blue and purple. Family, student and faculty sat quietly as the flags of Honduras and Maryland waved and “Memories” by Dean Lewis played.
They were asked to reflect on memories they had with Avila.
“If you just take a moment and look,” a Community College of Baltimore County staffer said. “It’s a beautiful sight.”
