Willis-Starbuck was known on campus for her activism and warm personality. At the time of her death, 19-year-old Willis-Starbuck had already made a strong impression on the Dartmouth campus. A sociology and African and African American studies double major, Willis-Starbuck was an enthusiastic member of the Dartmouth Afro-American Society, the Dartmouth Alliance for Children of Color and the Dartmouth College Greens.
"Meleia was someone who was an activist; she wanted to make a difference," Dean of Upperclass Students Sylvia Langford said shortly after Willis-Starbuck's death.
Unlike most of the Class of 2007, Willis-Starbuck did not stay on campus during her sophomore summer. Instead, she worked as an intern at the Women's Daytime Drop-In Center in Berkeley, her hometown, providing health and social services to low-income women.
The incident took place shortly before 2 a.m. on July 17, 2005. After Willis-Starbuck became involved in a fight with a group of football players from a local college, she called her high-school friend Christopher Hollis for assistance. Hollis arrived at the scene with a firearm, which he then shot into the crowd, unintentionally but fatally wounding Willis-Starbuck.
Students reacted with an outpooring of sorrow to the news of her death.
"That was my friend -- that was more than my friend -- that was my sister," Jonathan Lesesne '07 said in 2005.
Friends remembered Willis-Starbuck at a memorial service on the one-year anniversary of her death.
"She inspired everyone to move and do something," Simon Trabelsi '08 said at the service. At a Black Solidarity Day event later that year, Trabelsi dedicated a poem he had written to her memory. To Trabelsi, Willis-Starbuck embodied the spirit of activism, "whether it was campus-wide, interpersonal, or in society at large."
In honor of her dedication to social activism, the Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Committee presented the late Willis-Starbuck with the Emerging Leadership Award at the Fifth Annual Social Justice Awards in 2006. Willis-Starbuck was the first person to receive such an award posthumously and the first to do so before earning a college degree.
Friends and family remember a "free spirit" and a loving person, in addition to a passionate advocate for social justice.
"Meleia was a wonderful human being," Jordan Page '07 told the Dartmouth in 2005. "She was always someone that her friends could always run to for whatever because we all felt that she would always understand."
