When someone we know passes, the world suddenly gets louder—not with clarity, but with questions.
Questions about fairness. About legacy. About who a person was beyond the surface we all see every day.
Some people move through college wearing chaos like armor and compassion like second nature. Some people shine so brightly that their struggles become the least interesting part of them.
And some losses remind us that achievement and resilience don’t make a person invincible – they make them human. Unforgettable and worth listening to.
Over winter break, we lost a young alumna named Adiba Chowdhury, whose life was anything but one-dimensional. She had pink hair, a sharp wit, and a fierce desire to make sure no one around her ever felt alone. Adiba was alternative, outspoken, and unapologetically herself. To some, that made her a “hot mess.” To those who truly knew her, to me, it made her extraordinary.
Photo from Roma Angalkudru
Adiba was the kind of friend you never forget. If you were trailing your friends when walking, she was the one who noticed and yelled out for the whole group to stop and wait. If you felt insecure about what you were wearing, she would give you the clothes off her own back.
I remember the first time I met Adiba. We had met at a social event off campus, and when I had lost sight of my friends, she approached me and asked if I wanted to join her and her group until I found mine. Because that was the kind of person she was. The kind that never wanted someone to feel left behind.
And she was much more than empathetic; she was brilliant in every way.
Adiba was the only person I ever met on campus who earned a full-ride scholarship. She not only graduated magna cum laude but also had a six-figure job offer from a top four accounting firm.
Yet she chose to defer that offer to go to rehab. Adiba chose to get clean, to fight for a future she believed in, and returned to the job still waiting for her. That is not a life that was slipping away. That was a life working towards something bigger.
And that’s the part that makes this loss feel so stomach-dropping.
Adiba’s Instagram bio, “There’s more to life than this,” wasn’t just words; it was her philosophy.
More than campus hierarchies. More than gossip economies. More than the hatred that gets minimized as “drama” until it is too late to take back.
When Adiba was being cyberbullied on digital platforms like Fizz and Yik Yak, the University told her that there was nothing they could do because they could not control the platform. Adiba confided in me that Seton Hall chose not to escalate action or implement additional protections when she was facing severe bullying by many students who hid under the guise of anonymity.
Despite having gone to the University multiple times to report harassment and bullying of different kinds, Adiba expressed that no action was taken beyond the bare minimum.
She had even told our friends that the only advice Seton Hall gave her was to stop defending herself, to let the bullying die down—which it didn’t—and to remove herself from the equation to prevent herself from being a target.
In short, the University’s solution was to tell a victim of bullying to disengage from campus life and to make herself smaller, quieter, and less visible.
SHU’s cyberbullying policy states that if someone uses University resources to harass or threaten others, this violates the Appropriate Use Policy. Additionally, verbal abuse by someone in the campus community violates the Student Code of Conduct. When harassment or bullying cases arise, SHU’s response includes reaching out to impacted students and transferring them to the appropriate resources.
Adiba is not the only student to receive this ‘unhelp’ from Student Services. While writing this piece, I interviewed another SHU student, Gia Manchisi, who agreed to go on record about her own experiences regarding Student Services.
Like Adiba, Manchisi describes feeling disregarded rather than protected when reporting her own harassment. Manchisi said that the dean she met with did not help her at all.
“[The Dean] told me Fizz is out of Student Services and the school’s control,” she stated. “She did not escalate further action to protect me.”
And when asked if she was given any formal options, action plans, or follow-up steps, Manchisi said, “No.”
“It made me feel like I couldn’t go to them for anything else,” Manchisi went on to say, “Because if they couldn’t do anything for this, why would it make me think that I can go to them for anything else?”
Despite this, Manchisi still encourages students to follow protocol and report bullying and harassment to the university, “It just depends on the admin you’re talking to.”
University Relations said Seton Hall continues to evaluate its student support services, expanding mental health resources, reporting pathways, and education on proper digital conduct. Additionally, there is little the university can do when it comes to reports of anonymous bullying on public, privately owned social media platforms, like Fizz and Yik Yak.
“Our focus remains on ensuring that students know where to turn, are treated with respect when they do, and receive appropriate follow-up and ongoing support,” University Relations said.
I write this not only as someone who loved Adiba, but as a student at Seton Hall who has had similar experiences with the same campus resources meant to offer support. I have seen how easily serious harassment can be reframed as interpersonal conflict, and how often the responsibility to “keep the peace” is placed on those already being hurt.
Recognizing those same patterns in Adiba’s experience made it clear that this was not about one person or one moment, but about a culture that too often asks students to endure harm quietly rather than confronting the root cause directly.
These stories reflect a campus truth we refuse to say out loud, that:
Students who don’t conform are hyper-scrutinized and socially punished.
Jealousy gets weaponized into rumors, social isolation, and sl–t-shaming instead of introspection.
Institutions only send condolences when a staff member, current student, or staff family has passed, but not when it’s a recent alumna, reflecting a cultural failure normalized through silence.
Brilliance and achievement don’t make you immune to a hostile environment.
According to University Relations, Seton Hall evaluates condolence communications based on the individual’s current relationship to the university and how the loss directly affects the campus.
“In general, institution-wide messages from the Office of the President or Campus Ministry are reserved for current students, faculty, staff, and other circumstances involving a direct and immediate campus impact,” University Relations said. “Because the alumni community is large and geographically dispersed, the University does not generally issue institution-wide condolence messages for alumni deaths.”
This piece is not about how Adiba died. It is about how she lived, how she fought, how she cared, and how we failed to build a campus culture that protects the very people it claims to praise.
This is about stopping a cycle.
Accountability does not mean naming villains out of individual students. It means naming the conditions that let bullying feel normal.
If we truly believe in community, then we as a student body need to:
Believe students immediately when they say they’re being targeted socially.
Take harassment and rumors seriously before they become compounded trauma.
Offer the same institutional care and acknowledgement to students that is extended to staff-adjacent grief.
Protect women who refuse shame—women whose resilience is dismissed as “college mess” rather than recognized as persistence.
SHU should establish a clear and transparent protocol for responding to reports of repeated harassment and cyberbullying. This should include defined escalation pathways, documentation, and follow-up.
Photo from Roma Angalkudru
Additionally, the University should create an independent review mechanism for harassment complaints, with student representation, to ensure reports are not minimized, dismissed, or reduced to “drama.”
According to University Relations, allegations of harassment, discrimination, or bias, whether occurring in-person or online, are taken very seriously and reviewed under the University’s Code of Conduct, related anti-harassment, and nondiscrimination policies.
“We extend our deepest sympathies to the family and friends of this member of the Seton Hall family,” University Relations said. “Seton Hall University is deeply committed to the well-being of every student, and we recognize that issues of harassment, belonging, and mental health are serious and deeply personal matters.”
Every weekend, students either go home, hide away in their dorms, or escape campus in some way, shape, or form. The bitter truth is that many of us are miserable here, and the only way to change it is by realizing there is a problem and addressing it head-on.
Grief doesn’t always look like tears. Sometimes it looks like anger at injustice and love for the person who deserved more.
This loss is real. The parallels are real. The harm is real. The only part we can still change is the cycle.
This isn’t about vengeance. It’s about awareness and prevention. Because another girl like Adiba shouldn’t have to tell herself, “There’s more to life than this,” just to make it out of college alive.
Adiba was right. There is more to life than this. The goal is to make sure the cruelty stops being a part of “this.”
And to my angel, I hope I’m making you proud.
If you or someone you know is struggling, here are some resources available on campus:
CAPS number: (973) 761-9500
New Jersey Bullying Hotline: Call (877) 962-8559 or text “njbully” to 66746
Suicide prevention hotline: 988
Roma Angalkudru is a guest writer for The Setonian’s Opinion section. She can be reached roma.angalkudru@student.shu.edu.
