Brandeis canceled classes Monday and Tuesday, Jette said, to allow students to return home with family and friends, and to give students who remain on campus opportunities to meet and receive support.
“We are providing counseling and support to students and will continue to do so in the coming days,” Jette said, in an email Sunday morning.
The bus, which was chartered by Brandeis, was traveling “from a Cambridge to Boston route” when the accident occurred on South Street, Jette said.
Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan and Waltham Police Chief Kevin O’Connell said in a statement Sunday morning that the bus crashed into a tree on South Street at approximately 10:32 p.m.
One student was pronounced dead at the scene, while 26 students and the bus driver suffered “injuries of varying degrees” and were transported to area hospitals, the statement said.
The identity of the murdered student has not been released. Many of the injured have already been released from hospitals.
The cause of the crash remains under investigation, according to the statement, and no charges have been filed.
The students were returning to Brandeis from a hockey game at Northeastern University when the accident occurred, according to the statement.
University officials held a meeting for students on campus on Sunday morning.
Brandeis freshman Jadyn Maher, who attended the meeting, said she takes the same shuttle to Boston most weekends, but she had too much homework on Saturday and some of her friends had already left. home for Thanksgiving, so he stayed.
“It could have been anyone,” Maher said.
“It’s so accessible and easy and convenient,” she said of the free shuttle she often takes in front of her dorm room.
Maher went to the meeting to learn what he could about the accident and the university’s response.
”[The meeting] it was just for them to show us that we have resources to support them and they are not taking it lightly,” Maher said. “They are taking time to acknowledge it. This is a big problem.”
University officials told students to contact friends and family, Maher said.
“This is a small, tight-knit community. Usually anyone here is a friend of a friend, everyone is connected in some way,” Maher said. “We know someone’s family, someone’s friends had to get that difficult call last night or this morning.”
The toll the tragedy has taken on the Brandeis community was noted in a statement from officials Sunday morning.
“This has been a difficult night for our community; We know that many students have been up most of the night waiting for information about their friends who were on the Boston/Cambridge shuttle that crashed on South Street,” said the statement from Carol Fierke, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, and others. officials.
“Please take care of yourselves and others as we process this terrible event,” the statement read.
A swim and diving meet scheduled for noon against Tufts University was canceled, according to a statement from Brandeis Athletics.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with the entire @BrandeisJudges community during this difficult time,” Tufts University Athletics posted on Twitter.
Ryan Lee said he and his wife drove overnight from Montville, New Jersey, after learning their 21-year-old daughter had been hospitalized after the accident.
“I’m glad she’s alive,” Lee said as his wife surveyed the crash site.
The town of Waltham expressed sympathy for the Brandeis.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with our Brandeis community as they work to recover from this horrible accident,” the city tweeted.
Brian Belliveau, 40, was on his way to his South Street residence Saturday night when he came across the scene of the accident across the street.
He described seeing the vandalized bus, broken glass on the road, people sitting on the sidewalk, bloody faces and shirts, and a wave of first responders.
Belliveau and her neighbors responded to a call for blankets for the injured in the first minutes after the crash, bringing what they could find from their homes, she said.
“It was kind of a surreal thing to witness.” he said. “The bus was totally destroyed, all the side windows were blown open and the front part was completely smashed.”
Belliveau said the gravity of the situation got the better of him when he heard a police officer calling for help with first aid.
“I had the feeling that there were probably some victims when I heard a police officer say: ‘We need CPR on several people.’ At that moment I had the feeling that some people might have lost their lives last night, which was really sad,” Belliveau said.
Belliveau said he was up until 3 a.m. watching police and first responders process the scene.
Waltham Police urge witnesses or anyone with information regarding the accident to contact the Waltham Police Department at 781-314-3600.
Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff
Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff
Globe correspondents Breanne Kovatch, Bailey Allen and Isabela Rocha contributed to this report.
Tonya Alanez can be reached at tonya.alanez@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @talanez. John Hilliard can be reached at john.hilliard@globe.com.