Recently, a friend from Cornell emailed me out of the blue to ask, "Were two professors really murdered at Dartmouth?"
Yes, I replied, they lost their lives to a random act of violence that nobody could have seen coming. Though they were professors at Dartmouth, the incident happened in Etna, not Hanover. However, there was no denying the effect that it had on all of us, regardless of how well we knew the Zantops.
Now, I usually type fast. But as I wrote this, my typing halted to a slow pecking as I consciously and very deliberately chose my words to describe this situation. It was unfair. This deed was a gross misrepresentation of Dartmouth life and life in the Upper Valley in general.
As human beings, our introspection always leads us to attempt to rationalize, to make sense of the events that happen around us. Could we have avoided this tragedy? Probably not. Friends and the administration alike point out, quite correctly, that it is time to move on, albeit with a heavy heart. But how, indeed, should we "move on?"
The salient point is that we cannot lose a handle of the sense of trust that is the essence of Dartmouth. This is what makes us unique and welcoming among the Ancient Eight and the rest of our peer institutions. Indeed, walking around campus at 3 a.m. with complete security is something that we have come to take for granted. Compare this to a school at which just two blocks down the road from my friend's dormitory building, a man had run into a McDonald's brandishing a gun only an hour after she had left the restaurant. Trust is not something that can be easily built, and it would be a shame to see it disappear at Dartmouth.
In my short time here, I have seen so many examples of trust in this closely-knit community. I was at the gym once when a total stranger approached me for help with his locker combination -- he did not know the exact way to operate the lock and was baffled even after a good 15 minutes or so of tinkering with his lock.
"You sure you want me to see the combination? I can just tell you how to try it."
"Go ahead," he said, nonchalantly waving his hand, "I trust you."
Somehow, that total stranger wearing a Dartmouth t-shirt had trusted me with his combination. He placed that trust in me -- the trust that I would not pry into his locker when he had left, that I would forget his lock combination as readily as he had asked me for help.
I can confidently say that this is not a banal assertion or a blind conviction. I have come across so many similar incidents in my time on campus. Take, for example, the old man that sits at the Hop every Sunday in search of a game of chess. He sits there with a hand-written sign on the table proclaiming his name, email address and a simple desire for a game of chess with anyone who is willing. I remember sitting down and playing a game with him during winter finals -- I lost in an excruciatingly long end game dominated by pawn movements, but it was the conversation we had that, in retrospect, was most intriguing about that afternoon. He told me about his life, where he lived and what he did and I, in turn, told him about my life at Dartmouth. He was trusting, friendly, and even after the Zantop tragedy he was eager to share and befriend. He was a member of the community, and part of the Dartmouth family.
This is the same thing I see in the morning when students, faculty and community alike enjoy a run down Rip Road. I know students who do not lock their doors when they sleep, as recent reports by Safety and Security have pointed out. Faculty members that I know who live in the outskirts of town feel perfectly comfortable walking to and from Dartmouth, no matter the time of the day. A good friend of mine sometimes takes walks down to the Connecticut River late at night on a whim. We see this sense of trust and intimacy around us so often that we've begun to take it for granted, and perhaps we will only fully appreciate it only in the event that it is lost.
This sense of trust is too precious, too integral for us to lose as a community. It is what makes the quality of life here excellent in spite of the many faults that we (and other institutions) have. The immense pride we have in our school builds on this foundation, and we cannot allow the deaths of the Zantops to weaken it.
I can even boldly venture that this is one of the things that makes me proud to be at Dartmouth, and this sense of community is something that I can identify with even after I graduate. Perhaps, even as an '05, I'm finally beginning truly to comprehend what a Dartmouth alumnus meant when he said, "When you graduate from Dartmouth, no matter where you are and wherever you go, whenever you meet with a current Dartmouth student or a fellow alum, there is this instant bond." This is a bond, I believe, that is established by a sense of unerring confidence in the Dartmouth community and in the individuals that emerge from a wholesome four year stint in Hanover, N.H.
Recently, when my family members and several prospective members of the Class of 2006 asked me, "Is Dartmouth really safe?" I felt like I was going to explode with everything that I wanted to express. All at once, I wanted to tell them how I really felt. But I unfailingly managed to condense my emotions into a calm and collected reply.
"Yes," I always reply, "It is. However, that is a true delight that you get to come here and savor for yourself as a member of our community."
We, as members of the Dartmouth community, must endeavor never to allow this sense of trust to be lost, for if it did vanish, the College would be much worse off, and the spirit that so embodies Dartmouth would be irreparably damaged.
