After One Year Manhattanville Remembers Marissa Pagli

Manhattanville's school color was purple Tuesday.

The favorite color of Marissa Pagli, a Manhattanville freshman a year ago, purple was displayed lovingly on bracelets and ribbons throughout the school on the anniversary of her death. Friends, staff and volunteers handed out hundreds of them this week.

"She was just such an important person and just so wonderful in her life," said Manhattanville sophomore Chelsea Linehan, a volunteer handing out ribbons in the school's cafeteria. "I think it's really important to remember what a wonderful life she led and how great she was, and really make sure that's what people think of when they think of this."

Students and staff listened quietly as church bells rang at 10 a.m., the approximate time Marissa to death during an argument in the campus' staff housing a year ago. A whirlwind day for the small, tight-knit, community.

"We definitely hugged and talked about it," said Tatyana Vega, another sophomore handing out bracelets and ribbons. As one of Marissa's many friends on the campus, she said the hardest part of the day was telling the story to freshman who weren't around last year.

"It does become kind of a sad moment when you tell them," she said.

Marissa graduated from Harrison High School in 2009, but grew up living on the campus. She played volleyball during her freshman year at Manhattanville and her father John Pagli is still a maintenance worker there.

The freshman was so close to the school that Manhattanville has already opened an on-campus housing unit in her name. The Marissa A. Pagli house is home to eight Manhattanville upperclassmen in an isolated corner of the campus overlooking the athletic fields.

Students who live there take an oath to not drink or smoke, living a healthy lifestyle much like Marissa did.

"To sort of embody Marissa's legacy, which was a good athlete and a good student," said Manhattanville President Dr. Molly Easo Smith. "She lived on the campus for so many years and it seamed appropriate."

Smith remembers that day a year ago as a turning point in her young presidency. More so she remembers a small campus community banded together by tragedy. As news of Marissa's death spread that evening she recalls a closed meeting in the school's cafeteria where students and staff joined in grief.

"My memories are of a community that really came together in an extraordinary way," she said. "That moment was a moment that brought everyone together in a common sense of what matters."

Last month Stacey Pagli to first degree manslaughter and will serve 20 years in prison for the death of her daughter. The plea avoided a trial that would have likely brought back even more difficult memories.

But on campus Tuesday the focus was honoring and remembering a loved peer. A few weeks after Marissa's death a swept through the campus, knocking down 35 trees, many of which had stood for hundreds of years. Smith said that a year later several students have related the destruction to Marissa's death, stressing the importance of remembering and rebuilding.

"It's as if all of nature sort of joined the community in a moment of sort of extraordinary abruptness to our lives," Smith said. "There's a sense of community well-being that's in the heart of people's minds."