I sat in the stands two days ago listening to speeches given as part of President James Wright's inauguration. It was a beautiful autumn day, like the postcards they sell in the Dartmouth Bookstore. Dartmouth was celebrating and welcoming a new leader. However, the most meaningful part of the day's events for me was Student Assembly President Josh Green's speech on student leadership and heroes.
I recently came to Dartmouth College as the Director of Fellowships and Internships at the Tucker Foundation. Staff and students at the Tucker Foundation have been grieving for the past week over the tragic death of David O'Brien '91, one of Dartmouth's heroes.
He died at age 29 in a hospital in Bombay, India while doing hunger research in a small Indian village. David had committed his life to fighting hunger. At Dartmouth, he founded the Students Fighting Hunger student organization, which is still an active organization based at Tucker Foundation. After graduating, he worked in Africa, Central America, India and the United States on hunger relief and earned master's degrees in nutrition, law and diplomacy.
At David's funeral, his sister Claire told Reverend Gwendolyn King, interim College chaplain, and Jan Tarjan, associate dean of the Tucker Foundation, that she had found a quote by William Jewett Tucker, the ninth president of Dartmouth, tucked into David's wallet among personal possessions he had with him in India: "Be not content with the commonplace in character anymore than with the commonplace in ambition or intellectual attainment. Do not expect that you will make any lasting or very strong impression on the world through intellectual powers without the use of an equal amount of conscience and heart."
In his speech, Green also mentioned Chrisanthy Menkhaus '00. Christy came to me last Spring with a Tucker Fellowship proposal to go to Papau, New Guinea to teach and assist with disaster relief after the tsunami. I knew Papua, New Guinea had one of the highest crime rates in the world.
After the tsunami, added dangers of disease and economic, political and social chaos were also considerations.
Christy shared her research on the present state of the country with the Fellowship Interviewing Committee and convinced us that she had the emotional and physical strength and stamina to undertake this work.
In my first term as director of fellowships and internships at the Tucker Foundation, I received an internship application from a student seeking to spend a term working with people living with HIV/AIDS and their families in Alaska. In her application she wrote: "I want my life to be a lifetime of investing in other people." Wow.
This summer I worked alongside alumni who combed personal contacts and alumni networks to find a mentor for a student who wanted to work at a rural residential center for the rehabilitation of adults with psychiatric disorders. This fall, there will be students returning from Tucker community service fellowships and internships who worked with refugees in Bosnia, health clinics in Nicaragua and Kenya, youth living on the streets in San Francisco, working with the homeless in Florida, working with internet projects in American Indian communities, teaching in Harlem, protecting forests in New Hampshire, working to improve educational opportunities for minority students in Boston and New York, among many other projects.
Admittedly, I worry about Christy and the other Tucker Fellows and Dartmouth Partners in Community Service interns serving in inner city schools, third-world health clinics, international development and sustainable agriculture projects. But I can't help admiring and respecting these students for their commitment to living with, learning from and serving their neighbors near and far. Or, as a former Tucker Fellow once said, taking off their "green-colored glasses." Alongside our new president of the College, they are Dartmouth's leaders and heroes.
