Over 100 students, faculty, alumni and friends gathered Thursday evening to honor UC Berkeley graduate student Larkin Brogan after her sudden death on Monday.
Known for her energetic personality, her talent and her habit of calling everyone “dude,” the 25-year-old was in her second year pursuing a master’s degree at the College of Environmental Design. Classmates, who planned Thursday’s gathering, pinned up personal stories, drawings and photos of Brogan on a wall in Wurster Gallery.
“I will miss your silliness, sincerity, hugs, beautiful eyes, music taste, jokes, (and) late night nonsense in the studio,” read a note pinned on the wall by classmate Gwen Fuertes.
According to Tom Buresh, professor and chair of the architecture department, Brogan was part of a tight-knit cohort of 30 students within the college and “was loved deeply and will be greatly missed.”
“She was an amazing young woman,” Buresh said.
Another classmate, Katie Floersheimer, said Brogan always knew what to do or say. Floersheimer added that she will remember Brogan’s trademark “Larkin moments.”
Brogan’s parents — Kevin and Nena Brogan, who also graduated from UC Berkeley — and siblings attended the gathering. Members of Kevin Brogan’s fraternity, campus community members and faculty from various campus departments came to remember the student.
Brogan enrolled in UC Berkeley after graduating from Princeton University in 2009 with a bachelor of arts in architecture. Kevin Brogan said that after graduating from Princeton, his daughter worked at an architecture firm that helped with the construction of Memorial Stadium. Brogan also spent part of the last two summers in Hawaii working for a construction firm.
“She loved the studio,” said her father. “(Especially) hijinks in the studio.”
Kevin Brogan said art was an outlet for his daughter. She is in a better place now, where she could be happy, he said.
After work over the summer, Brogan spent her time surfing and running, according to her father.
“She was just such a wonderful classmate and an amazing friend,” said classmate Sarah Ramsey.
Contact Chloe Hunt at [email protected].
Comment Policy
Comments should remain on topic, concerning the article or blog post to which they are connected. Brevity is encouraged. Posting under a pseudonym is discouraged, but permitted. The Daily Cal encourages readers to voice their opinions respectfully in regard to the readers, writers and contributors of The Daily Californian. Comments are not pre-moderated, but may be removed if deemed to be in violation of this policy. Click here to read the full comment policy.
Some editors choose to disclose nature of death. Others don’t. It’s a judgment call. There’s more to think about than people’s lurid need to know particular details in this kind of a case. At this point, for the sake of community: RIP, Larkin. And the deepest condolences to her family and friends. Such sadness
Memo to Chloe Hunt: Tell Cal you want your money back from any journalism class you have taken because you obviously didn’t learn a damned thing about how to write. This is not just bad journalism, it is *disturbingly* bad. Shame on you. If you can’t give the details, don’t bother to write the article.
Chloe Hunt’s refusal to fix her mistakes demonstrates her arrogance and dishonesty. I won’t be surprised if she’s promoted to an editor position next semester or the editor-in-chief position next year. She has all the necessary qualities.
interesting to note how much classier the comments are over on the princeton website. rip and condolences to the family.
“sudden death” – wow that’s a shameless euphemism,
the coroner ruled it a suicide,
get real DailyCal, b/c this shit is journalistic malpractice
http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2012/10/25/31624/
“The Coroner’s Bureau of the Alameda County Sheriff’s
office on Thursday ruled the death a suicide but was unable to identify a
date of death.”
Definitely not even a sudden death. The coroner doesn’t even know when she died. The Daily Fail likes publishing inaccurate information.
Why do you even care? You’re not her family. Get a life. It’s none of your business.
Of course this matters. The censorship and whitewashing in the Daily Fail severely damages its credibility. In how many other stories are the Daily Fail writers glossing over the truth with platitudes and lies?
“Kevin Brogan said art was an outlet for his daughter. She is in a better place now, where she could be happy, he said.”–Dad admits she was troubled.
Alameda P.D. ruling it was a suicide and not knowing what caused the death-LIKELY MEANS- they found a suicide note- but can’t tell what she took – until an autopsy/tox screen comes back
Didn’t her friends/profs sense there was something amiss? Cal needs to step it up in terms of not letting these students fall through the cracks
I know someone with depression and he is very good at disguising his true feelings/struggles.
Heartbreaking for the Brogan family. RIP Larkin.
Only an idiot would go to Tang Center Counseling and Psychological Services.
There’s no meaningful assurance of privacy or confidentiality and the staff are dumber than dirt.
You know nothing about the girl or about her situation, so keep your mouth shut and have a little respect for the family during this unbelievably difficult time.
lol your whining does not help matters at all.
http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2012/10/25/31624/
Larkin Brogan ’09, an architecture student who played catcher on the
women’s softball team, was found dead in Berkeley, Calif., on Monday.
She was 25.
The Coroner’s Bureau of the Alameda County Sheriff’s
office on Thursday ruled the death a suicide but was unable to identify a
date of death. Her body was found by police officers in an apartment
building adjacent to the campus, a police dispatcher said.
First, The Daily Princetonian had the integrity to post Larkin Brogan’s cause of death: suicide.
Why not The Daily Cal? Why no mention of the cause of death in this article or in the first one: http://www.dailycal.org/2012/10/25/uc-berkeley-graduate-student-25-dies/
Second, The Daily Princetonian article’s author, Loully Saney, is a freshman: http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/accounts/profile/2613/ (Class Year: ’16).
Why is Loully’s article so much better-researched than Chloe Hunt’s? The Daily Cal needs to step up its work.
Because her parents can pick up the phone and call Cal. Tragic all the way the around.
Couldn’t they have called Princeton too?
They both graduated from Cal. And they’re not big enough donors for Princeton to notice, unlike Cal.
Lol. Something is not right here with The Daily Cal bowing to outside money and pressure.
I think the powers that be (ie her parents and the Cal administration) don’t want to dwell on how she died–who can blame them? On the other hand, does Cal have sufficient mental health outreach for troubled grad students? Did she ever try to get help? Odd that there are no quotes from close friends from this year.
But doesn’t the Daily Cal pride itself on being supposedly independent from the Cal administration (http://www.dailycal.org/tag/40th-anniversary-independence/)?
I’m thinking that the pressure didn’t come from the administration but from the parents perhaps. I wonder, has the parents given donations to the Daily Cal in the past? That would explain the Daily Cal’s euphemistic reporting.