The life of Skidmore alum Nicholas Cleves, ‘16, was cut tragically short inTuesday’s terror attack in New York City. The New York native, who was a Computer Science major and Physics minor, is remembered by a professor as being a “diligent student” who was “always eager to learn.”
Mike Eckmann, Associate Professor in the Computer Science Department, who served as Cleves’ summer advisor ahead of his first year, expanded: “I remember him as among the most cheerful and friendly students we have had in the department. He had a highly positive attitude….We are deeply saddened at such a tragic loss.”
On Tuesday, at 3:04pm, a man drove a rented Home Depot truck through a bike path in Manhattan, leaving eight dead. Cleves, who graduated with a degree in Computer Science, was living and working in New York City.
In a community wide communication distributed by email, President Glotzbach wrote: “When confronted by a seemingly endless series of tragic and absurd events, we naturally react first with sadness and then anger, and those emotions motivate us to take action to confront such senseless threats to public safety.” Glotzbach warned that despite these events, “our best actions – whether individual or political ones – are guided not just by emotion but much more by reason. As a college community especially, we need to reflect not just on the acts of violence but on their causes and, above all, on the most effective ways to prevent them in the future.”
The news came to campus at a particularly sensitive time, during the same week that marks the loss of first year student Michael Hedges, '19 in 2015. On campus resources available to students in need of support include Counseling Services and the Wilson Chapel, which will be open between 12:00-2:00 and 6:30-10:30 on Friday, Nov. 3. The Student Government Executive Committee wrote in an all class email, “all of us are affected by the tragedy. Whether you knew Nick personally, through small interactions, or not at all–his loss is felt throughout our community.”
This photo was retrieved from Cleves' Facebook account.