Reader Responses to Our American Elm

Congratulations on an excellent issue capturing the response to the December shootings. All of the stories were outstanding, full of the right mix of information and emotional tugs. I especially liked how you showed the responses from alumni themselves and how you documented the actions they took to support students and others. All of that made me feel more connected to the community and reminded me how special Brown is. I can imagine you were wondering how it would feel to the reader to receive an issue in April that necessarily focused on an event months earlier. As a longtime journalist (and onetime chair of the BAM board) I was especially impressed at how fresh it all felt. I consumed all the news in the mainstream media and especially the BDH as it unfolded, but a smart magazine take builds on all we know and adds depth; you did that extraordinarily well through both the text and the photos. As a contemporary of Debbie Bradley, I am always glad to see her expertise in your pages, and Afaa Weaver’s poem was a brilliant touch. Thanks for the outstanding work on an issue that was important but probably not at all easy to pull off.