Arun Stewart ’07, whom friends and faculty alike called intense, ambitious, and independent, will be honored at a memorial on Dec. 20 at 5 p.m. in the Montgomery Library. Arun, a junior at
Brown University, died on Oct. 31 while studying abroad in Beijing, China. He was enrolled in the Inter-University Program for Chinese Language Studies at
Tsinghua University.

According to The Dallas Morning News, Chinese officials reported that Arun lost his footing and fell while gathering with friends on a rooftop terrace of a Beijing apartment building.

"Arun struck me as exuding a sort of casual intensity," said Tom Perryman ‘81, Assistant Head of School. "He carried himself as laid- back, but you could see the intensity in his eyes when he was interested in something.  He loved to learn, to question, to push himself, and to take intellectual risks. He relished a good challenge, and he did all of that with a style all his own. He was witty and funny but always cool."

Many of Arun’s teachers recalled how contemplative and passionate he was in the classroom. Trevor Worcester, Modern and Classical Languages Department Chair, taught Arun for two years in Latin and also interacted with him through Junior Classical League.

Mr. Worcester’s favorite memory of Arun took place at the Area C Latin Convention in Feb. 2006, where Arun had signed up for the English Oratory competition in the regional convention.

Although Arun had pondered the given topic in the days leading up to the competition, nothing was on paper, Mr. Worcester said.

Instead, Arun decided to jot down a few notes at 6:00 a.m. on Saturday morning during the bumpy bus ride to the competition. Still, he delivered a product that earned him second place.

"I believe Arun brought a sense of detail and higher-level thinking that pushed his classmates to
grapple with different points of view," Mr. Worcester said. "As a teacher, I will miss being able to watch and marvel at the great things I know Arun would have achieved in his lifetime."

Josh Becker ‘07 said that Arun was by far the most intelligent person he had ever met.

In all of his classes, Arun constantly pushed his classmates and teachers to strive to be at his level of intellectual intensity.

"He was always pushing for more understanding of the most
basic of things, and he always wanted to know why," Josh said. "He was like an encyclopedia; he wanted to understand everything and the way it worked to the finest detail.

While at Brown, Arun was pursuing a degree in East Asian Studies. During his semester abroad, he practiced "cross-talk," a Chinese form of stand-up comedy
which requires one to have a deep understanding of the Chinese
culture, as well as near fluency in the language.

"While he was in China, I talked to him pretty regularly over the Internet on video chat," Josh said. "He had an intense love of languages, and I really think that kind of set his path of what he wanted to do. All of his professors have said that he was almost like a prodigy. He was incredibly ambitious, and anything he set his mind to do he would accomplish. Well, except for driving… He was really horrible
at driving."

According to Mikael Ferm ‘07, Arun was loyal, always there for him no matter what, and was the best kind of friend.

"He could make anyone laugh at the most stupid of things, and he also really cared about his friends," Mikael said.

"He was definitely very unique and confident about himself," Josh said. "He didn’t really care about what other people thought [about him]. I can’t count how many
different hairstyles he had: colored hair, spiked hair, or a Mohawk.
He was witty, easy to befriend, incredibly outgoing, and aggressively nice, but he wasn’t insincere.
In the end, that’s why he was such a great person."

Mr. Perryman coached Arun’s seventh grade football team and described him as a loyal friend, beloved and admired by his peers and teachers alike.

"Anyone who knew Arun knows about his sly and rich sense of humor, his deep intellect, his love of China—its language, culture, and people—and his embrace of humanity and cultures of every kind,"
Mr. Perryman said.

Josh said that early on in their friendship, Arun proved to be
an individual who was always extremely confident in making his own decisions.

"Arun was someone that even people who didn’t really know him knew him, what he was, and what he stood for," Josh said. "He was the guy who had all the funky hair, and who was into all the music
that no one else was listening to. To him, everything was like a revolution…and he was leading
the revolution."