HILLSDALE, Mich. — When conservative commentator Charlie Kirk was assassinated on Sept. 10, the first response from students at Hillsdale College was prayer.

Hundreds of students, faculty and staff at the small private Christian liberal arts college packed into Christ Chapel for a student-organized prayer vigil hours after the news broke that Kirk had died. Attendees joined their voices to pray Psalm 46 and the Our Father. Soon, a professor began reading Scripture out loud, students spontaneously led hymns, and someone near the front row spoke up:

“Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let your light shine upon him.”

Kirk’s assassination hit many conservative-minded college students hard, but at Hillsdale, it felt even more personal. The Turning Point USA founder had a long-standing friendship with the roughly 1,600-student college, visiting its campus in Michigan on multiple occasions, partnering with Hillsdale for events across the country, and even taking some online courses.

“For many here, Charlie was not just a public figure but a friend and inspiration,” Hillsdale President Larry Arnn, a personal friend of Kirk’s for more than a decade, told the Register. “He showed us great honor with his friendship and example, and we will continue to look for ways to return that honor — both by supporting [his wife] Erika and the children as we can, and by redoubling our efforts to teach and defend the principles Charlie served so well.”

Speaking to the senior class after the assassination, Arnn called Kirk his favorite Hillsdale student who never went to Hillsdale.

Speaking at the memorial for Charlie Kirk Sunday, Sept. 21, 2025 in Glendale Ariz., Arnn shared the news that Kirk would be receiving an honory degree from the college and he also set up a scholarship foundation for Erika and Charlie's children.

"I keep a list in my head of the 6 or 8 young people, and I'm very privileged, I get to know many inspiring young people who are the best I ever saw. Charlie is the only one who was never a full-time student at Hillsdale College who was on that list."

“I first met him when he was 19 years old, just as he was starting Turning Point USA,” he recalled. “He had a rare combination of curiosity, humility and ambition — not the ambition to occupy high places, but to deserve to occupy them.”

Ella Kulhawick, a sophomore involved with student ministry at the college, pulled together the prayer vigil as soon as she heard the news that Kirk had died. She said she wanted to give people a space to pause, grieve and pray for the country rather than just moving on to the next thing.

“Everybody knew of Charlie Kirk,” Kulhawick said. “Everybody was touched by it. And everybody wanted to feel like they could do something. And the most powerful thing that we can do is pray.”

A vocal critic of the higher-education system in America, Kirk said Hillsdale was a notable exception. He had completed more than 31 of Hillsdale’s online courses, according to Arnn. Whenever he finished a course, he texted a photo of his completion certificate to Arnn.

Kirk most recently partnered with the college at its National Leadership Seminar in Phoenix, Feb. 18-19, where he spoke about the migrations of thought in America from the founding to the present and the Trump administration’s current efforts to curtail the bureaucratic state.

“I can tell you if every kid who’s currently in college took the Hillsdale online courses instead of going to that four-year college, America would be a much better place,” Kirk said when opening his remarks at the conference.

Arnn’s chief of staff, Kyle Murnen, met Kirk on one of his visits to the college and stayed in touch with him afterward.

“The first thing you notice about Charlie is that he was never distracted when talking with someone,” Murnen said. “He gave the people around him his full attention and went out of his way to connect with the people around him.”

Murnen said he was struck by Kirk’s deep desire to understand.

“He said has was taking our online courses, and I had a hard time believing him,” Murnen said. “It seemed impossible that someone so busy and famous would devote the time to that kind of learning. But then he started asking serious questions about what he was reading and studying. He would send messages to Dr. Arnn and me about the things he was learning and his favorite professors. He would say that he had football on mute during the weekends, while listening to our online courses.”

Though Hillsdale does not have a Turning Point USA chapter, many of its students were either involved with the organization outside of the college or followed Kirk’s work online.

“I am still processing the fact that he’s dead,” said Angelina Gardner, vice president of Hillsdale College Republicans. “I have never experienced shock like that my whole life.”

Student Greta Jones has started three TPUSA chapters since getting involved with the organization after the 2016 presidential election. She met Kirk when she was 14 and credits him with her decision to attend Hillsdale.

“I think I had the same experience as a lot of other Americans, where you didn’t realize how much he impacted you until he wasn’t present anymore,” Jones said.

Other students like Colsen Conway grew up watching Kirk’s videos online.

“There were not a lot of conservative figures on YouTube, and he was one of the first people to enter into the media and make a big splash there,” Conway said. “That’s why I think a lot of people are super connected with him because they’ve literally grown up with him since they were 13, 14, 15.”

More than a conservative figurehead, Kirk was for many Hillsdale students — Catholic and Protestant alike — a model for Christian life in the public sphere.

Hugh Macaulay, the president of Hillsdale’s Catholic society, said Kirk was a Christian first and a conservative second.

“When I’m evaluating him in retrospect and revisiting a lot of the things he said and those clips, it becomes very evident to me — the priority of the faith and of his Christianity,” Macaulay said. “His political views were an extension of his very sincere and authentic faith.”

Kirk understood the country is struggling because its citizens have lost the ability to govern themselves with morality and faith, Macaulay said.

“On the right today there’s a hollowness,” Macaulay said. “There are a lot of people who have the political views on the right, but they’re not underpinned by any sort of religious sensibility or belief in the transcendent or moral order. … I just think he captured the proper relationship between those two things, and it’s the same one on which the country is founded.”

The path forward for the country and for young people requires a commitment to civil discourse and a full-throated renunciation of political violence and its celebration, Conway said.

It will also require living out Christianity and seeking truth in everyday life, Gardner said.

“Our job is not to have a platform like Charlie Kirk,” Gardner said. “But our job is to speak truth in our workplace. … We need people in churches, in government and business, in medicine, who are willing to stand up for the truth and not shy away just because its unpopular.”

Murnen said he immediately felt pain over the loss of a friend at Kirk’s death.

“It is very hard to accept that someone who moved so many people to think deeply, love and defend America, and follow Jesus Christ was taken at such a young age,” Murnen said.

But in addition to mourning, the tragedy requires a positive response.

“The next thought was: ‘How can we honor Charlie by trying to emulate the virtues he displayed so beautifully in our own lives?’” he said. “How can I be more patient and generous with the people around me? How can I serve my country? How can I commit everything to my faith and trust fully in Christ the way Charlie did?”