As the students took their seats in Room 166 of Brown University’s engineering building on Saturday afternoon, anxiety was in the air. The next two hours would be their last chance to master the material before their final exam in Principles of Economics three days later — an exam that would make up more than a third of their grade.
The course was introductory but tough, covering topics like aggregate demand and monetary policy. Joseph Oduro, a teaching assistant assigned to lead the review session, planned a brisk but methodical overview of the semester.
For Mr. Oduro, 21, the session was a milestone: his last official duty as a Brown undergraduate. He had finished his own degree a week earlier, but had stuck around to help prepare these younger students, mostly freshmen, for their test — a task he relished.
“To really understand material enough to be able to explain it to someone else and see that ‘aha’ moment and that lightbulb click in their head,” he said, “is a reward that I’ve been chasing since my first year.”
Review sessions like this one tended to attract the most dedicated students. Ella Cook, a sophomore from Alabama who was deft in French and mathematics, was among those seated in the lecture hall.
Jacob Spears, a freshman from Evans, Ga., who was the only student in his high school class to attend an Ivy League school, was there too, as was Spencer Yang, a freshman from New York City who had graduated from a private high school.
MukhammadAziz Umurzokov showed up even though he was not taking the economics class. He had run into two friends in the cafeteria earlier that day and decided on a whim to join them for the review, using the time to study for his own exams.
“Got dragged to Econ,” Mr. Umurzokov, a freshman from Virginia, wrote at about 2:30 p.m. in a message to other friends, who sometimes fondly called him “Muk” in texts.
Econ 110 is among the university’s largest and most popular courses, drawing students from diverse disciplines. Some were fulfilling requirements; others were curious, exploring different majors or seeking basic understanding of the subject.
“You had people there who had never taken an economics class in their life and you had people where economics was their passion,” said Areea Fairuz, 22, a Brown student who took the class as part of her economics and engineering studies.
On Saturday, as a few dozen economics students gathered in a lecture hall, dozens of other students and faculty members were studying or working in labs in other parts of the building, Barus and Holley, which is a social and academic hub on campus.
Mr. Oduro, the teaching assistant, knew that some of the students in the class had struggled. At the review on Saturday, one of five before the exam, he spent a lot of time explaining monetary policy, a common sticking point. Standing at the chalkboard at the front of the room, he sketched graphs and wrote out definitions, pressing the students to consider what a government might do if it were heading toward recession.
“What if they wanted to spark the economy?” he prompted, chalk dust covering his hands.
Ms. Cook was among the students attending the session. She was known as a highly engaged learner with diverse academic interests.
Long devoted to both math and French, she had more recently been drawn to study economics, and had tackled it with the same diligence she brought to her Christian faith and to other pursuits, including playing the piano. People who knew her found her humble about her talents, open to new experiences, and quietly encouraging of others. She had an “almost reverent circle of friends,” her family said, and a “persistent courage in following both heart and conscience.”
It would not have been surprising if Mr. Umurzokov, 18, found himself engrossed in the economics lesson, even though it was not his class, those who knew him said.
He had planned to major in biochemistry and neuroscience, and wanted to be a neurosurgeon. But Mr. Umurzokov’s natural curiosity about the world had always drawn him into diverse subjects, his family and friends said, whether he was memorizing global capitals or reading Moby Dick.
“He just liked learning for fun. He was the type of person who valued knowledge for what it is, and not just to pass a class,” his older sister, Rukhsora Umurzakova, 22, said.
As the review session drew to a close, some students packed up their belongings. Others lingered with a few last questions. At the front of the room, Mr. Oduro was saying goodbye to some students, wishing them well, when a commotion broke out in the hallway. Then the door opened at the back of the room, above the ascending rows of desks.
Mr. Oduro looked up and saw a man with a gun. The man said something unintelligible, he recalled, and started shooting.
Students rushed away from him, toward the front of the room. Some fled through the side doors. Others fell to the floor as they were hit. Mr. Yang dove to the floor, between chairs, among the wounded. Mr. Oduro huddled behind the teacher’s desk at the front of the room with terrified students who had run to cover.
When the gunfire stopped, they waited in excruciating silence, according to a classmate who spoke later to victims. Would the gunman leave through the same door, they wondered? Or would he descend the stairs, coming closer, and fire again at closer range?
The man left, the door closing behind him. He had killed Ms. Cook and Mr. Umurzokov and injured nine other students, including Mr. Yang and Mr. Spears.
As they waited for help, Mr. Yang, shot in the leg, shared his water with an injured classmate. Mr. Spears, shot in the back,was able to make his way outside, where passers-by put pressure on his wound until medical aid arrived, his aunt, Michele Saylor, said. Reached on Tuesday via social media, he said he was in too much pain to speak to a reporter.
The exam they had all studied for together would not happen, along with so much else.
Noting that Mr. Umurzokov was not even supposed to be at the review session, his sister said, “It’s just crazy what’s been taken from us and what’s been taken from the world.”
Mr. Oduro, the teaching assistant, said on Monday that he was determined not to let the shooting deter him from his longtime dream of becoming a teacher. He plans to work for a time in the finance industry. Then he hopes to return to Brown as a professor, to stand again at the front of a classroom.
Rich Griset contributed reporting from Midlothian, Va.
Jenna Russell is the lead reporter covering New England for The Times. She is based near Boston.
The post A Last Chance to Prep for the Exam. Then, a Gunman at the Classroom Door. appeared first on New York Times.
