Opinion
We, like many in the Dartmouth community, were stunned by the news that former member of the Class of 2010 Mohammad Usman had pled guilty to fraudulently claiming $18,615 in College grants and federal work study funding ("Former Dartmouth student pleads guilty to financial aid fraud," April 3).
Although the full details of the case have yet to emerge, it is clear that Usman lied, forged the signature of former Dean of the Tucker Foundation and current Associate Provost Stuart Lord, and may have falsified time sheets in order to avoid detection during a period of fraudulent activity spanning from winter 2007 to fall 2008.
In the words of Hanover Police Captain Francis Moran, Usman "manipulated the system and manipulated people to get what he wanted" ("Usman pled guilty to separate charge in 2007," April 9).
No matter how distasteful, however, the actions of a single student should not be interpreted as a referendum on the culture of our college, nor on the level of oversight currently exercised by its administration.
Dartmouth is defined by the sense of trust shared by the members of its community, and has long been a place where students feel comfortable leaving their dorm rooms unlocked, where professors trust their students to take exams unattended and where administrators have confidence that applicants will make appropriate use of awarded grant and scholarship money.
We cannot allow that sense of trust -- one of the things that makes Dartmouth the place that it is today -- to be undermined by an isolated, if unpleasant, occurrence.
Clearly, Usman's recent actions represent the exception, not the rule, when it comes to student integrity at the College.
