Princeton’s Department of Public Safety (PSafe) will increase patrols on campus in the wake of deadly shootings at Brown University and a Hanukkah celebration in Sydney, University officials wrote in a Sunday evening email to campus.
“We are not aware of any specific threats to the campus at this time. However, out of an abundance of caution, the University’s Department of Public Safety has increased patrols,” read the email, addressed from Vice President for Campus Life Rochelle Calhoun and PSafe head Kenneth Strother.
The email follows a mass shooting at Brown University that took the lives of two students and injured nine others, as well as a terror attack at a Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach that killed at least 15 people.
On Sunday night, Providence Mayor Brett Smiley announced that a person of interest who had been detained earlier in the day in connection with the Brown shooting will be released, citing insufficient evidence.
Speaking at the fifth press conference since the shooting, Smiley acknowledged that the decision may cause “fresh anxiety for our community.”
Princeton’s move comes as other Ivy League institutions, including Columbia University, Harvard University, and the University of Pennsylvania, also issued campus communications on Sunday announcing increased security measures and heightened patrols.
The message also said that the University has communicated with Princeton’s Jewish community about additional security precautions at events marking Hanukkah, which began Sunday evening. Rabbi Eitan Webb, the director and co-founder of Princeton’s Chabad House, confirmed that the University reached out to him following the attacks.
“When I turned my phone on, the first text that I received was about Brown,” Webb wrote. “My instant reaction was to reach out to my fellow Chabad rabbi at Brown and check in on him and on his community, and then to reassure our own students. Our students were quite shaken.”
Webb added that news of the violence was compounded later Sunday morning when he learned of the attack in Sydney. “It hit hard because of the intentional attack against Jews,” he wrote.
In a separate message on Sunday morning, Rabbi Gil Steinlauf ’91, the executive director of Princeton’s Center for Jewish Life (CJL), wrote that the weekend’s violence may leave people “anxious, angry, grief stricken, and unsettled” and urged students not to carry those feelings alone.
A Hanukkah dinner and celebration at Chabad took place earlier Sunday at 6:30 p.m., drawing more than 150 students, according to Webb. The event included a memorial for the victims of the Bondi Beach attack. Steinlauf also said the CJL will hold a Hanukkah party on Tuesday at 4 p.m., with candle lighting at 4:57 p.m., and that the community will take time at these celebrations to grieve together.
“Hanukkah itself begins tonight with a single small flame, not because one flame is enough, but because one flame is how we refuse to surrender to despair. We add light, night after night, even when the world gives us reasons not to,” Steinlauf wrote.
Brown is the first Ivy League school in recent memory to have a mass shooting with multiple fatalities. The shooting took place on Saturday afternoon, killing two students and wounding nine others. As of earlier Sunday, one of the nine patients remains in critical condition.
Brown has canceled all remaining in-person final exams for Fall 2025 across the University, with the only exceptions being the Warren Alpert Medical School and the IE Brown Executive MBA program.
Remaining final exams, papers, and reports are no longer required, and students may either accept a course grade based on work completed through Dec. 13 or remotely complete remaining assignments by Jan. 7.
The attack at a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach took place around 6:45 p.m. local time. Authorities have called it a targeted act of terrorism.
In the campus-wide email, both Calhoun and Strother highlighted the University’s support resources, encouraging students to contact Counseling and Psychological Services (CPS), Office of Religious Life chaplains, Graduate School Student Affairs staff, and residential college staff as needed.
“Our hearts go out to all those affected by these tragedies, as well as those in our community who feel their awful impact,” the email read.
Hayk Yengibaryan is a head News editor, senior Sports writer, and education director for the ‘Prince.’ He is from Glendale, Calif. and typically covers breaking news and profiles. He can be reached at hy5161[at]princeton.edu.
Luke Grippo contributed reporting.
Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
Editor’s Note: This article has been updated to include information from Providence Mayor Brett Smiley regarding the release of a person of interest in the Brown University shooting, comments from Rabbi Eitan Webb, the director and co-founder of Princeton’s Chabad House, and attendance figures from the Hanukkah memorial event hosted by Chabad.