“It’s a cold evening, but we are certainly warmed by your collective voices and by the notion of community,” said UHart President Lawrence P. Ward in his remarks to open the Back to the Times Carol Sing.
Ward began by calling for a moment of silence to remember victims of the attacks in Providence, Rhode Island, and Sydney, Australia. “In these difficult times and in these joyous times, I think we need to hold in our hearts and in our minds the notion of light and the importance of light,” he said.
“In the city of Hartford and in the Greater Hartford region, it is so critically important to be the light that we want to see in this world. Just as higher education is a beacon and a light, the city of Hartford is a beacon and a light.”
This is the second year the University of Hartford and the University of Connecticut have teamed up to revitalize the carol sing, which was an annual event for many years. Hartford Mayor Arunan Arulampulam said he wants to see it continue to expand.
“For decades, Hartford residents gathered right here to ring in the holiday season, to sing together, to share songs, and to share fellowship with each other,” the mayor said. “In good times and in really dark times, people gathered here because the power of joy and light is so much stronger than the power of darkness.”