It's a beautiful, yet sad day in Chapel Hill. Eve Carson's passing is truly a tragedy. She was a wonderful and brilliant woman. You've probably heard, but if not, she was shot and killed yesterday in the early morning in what seems like a random carjacking, something so rare in Chapel Hill.

I had a chance to meet Eve a few times when she was co-chair of Nourish International a couple years ago and on February 8th at a Carolina for Kibera event. It's really a tragedy when someone who does everything right in life gets taken from us so abruptly and for seemingly no reason whatsoever.

I just got back from Chancellor Moeser's speech at Polk Place at UNC. There were about 10,000 people there, helicopters overhead, and about 20 news cameras from all the major stations. Mayor Kevin Foy, Chief of Police Brian Curran, and Chamber of Commerce President Aaron Nelson were all standing together. Thousands and thousands of students, faculty, staff, community members, pastors, business leaders--it seemed like the whole town was there.

The Chancellor's speech (one of his last as Chancellor) was absolutely uplifting. He spoke about the Carolina community, and how as a university and town we should come together in the spirit of true love to continue the work that Eve began. He encouraged us to hug one another, and held a moment of silence followed by the belltower playing 'Hark the Sound of Tar Heel Voices'.

The Chancellor then directed the students who had been given flowers to place them within the makeshift memorial, fittingly right behind the Campus Y, the center for Social Justice on campus. There will be a candlelight vigil at 7pm in the Pit. The Facebook Group is here. Eve, you will be missed, and your memory and work will live on.

From Bio on UNC Website: Eve Marie Carson, 22, was elected student body president at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in February 2007. Her term would have ended in April. A native of Athens, Ga., Eve was born Nov. 19, 1985. She came to Carolina in the fall of 2004 as the recipient of a prestigious Morehead Scholarship.

A member of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society, she was a pre-medicine student majoring in both political science and biology. As a North Carolina Fellow, she was part of a four-year leadership development program for undergraduates. While at UNC-Chapel Hill, she was extremely active in both leadership and service roles. As student body president, she was also a member of the UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees.

She served as co-president of the Honors Program Student Executive Board and as a member of the Committee on Scholarships, Awards and Student Aide; the Academic Advising Program; and the Chancellor’s committee for University Teaching Awards. Teaching and working with children were key service interests for Eve. In 2006, she taught science at Frank Porter Graham Elementary School in Chapel Hill as part of UNC’s INSPIRE program, whose mission is to encourage young students to pursue science as an interest. In her junior year, Carson was a tutor at Githens Middle School in Durham. She was also an assistant coach in the Girls on the Run of the Triangle, a character development program for girls ages 8-12 that uses running to teach values and a sense of self.

Eve's service extended well beyond the Triangle, however. In the spring of her sophomore year, she participated in a study abroad in Havana, Cuba, and she spent her summers working and volunteering in Ecuador, Egypt and Ghana as part of the Morehead Summer Enrichment program. "I credit my prior experiences, especially my past two Morehead summers, for preparing me to get along with pretty much whatever comes my way," she wrote in an e-mail posted on the Morehead Web site. On campus, she became involved in Nourish International, an organization started by UNC students in 2002 for hunger relief. Eve served as freshman volunteer coordinator (2004) and co-chair (2005) for the group.