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Posted 01/29/01
Monday, January 29, 2001, 2 p.m.
Hayward Lounge, The Hanover Inn, Dartmouth College
Present: Dartmouth President James Wright, Dean of the College James Larimore, Director of Counseling Services Mark Reed.
LAUREL STAVIS, DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, DARTMOUTH COLLEGE: Thank you for being with us here today on what it is a very difficult day for Dartmouth College. I would like to introduce to you, the President of Dartmouth, James Wright.
JAMES WRIGHT, PRESIDENT: I want to thank all of you for coming; for making the trip up to Hanover. We would just as soon these circumstances hadn't drawn you here, and we understand your need to have more information. You've been very patient and we appreciate that. I have no substantive information to provide for you today. That is up to the Attorney General.
I have been at Dartmouth for thirty-two years. I have lived for probably twenty of those thirty-two years in Etna, in fact, for several years lived very close to the Zantops. They were friends, they were neighbors, they were people whom I enjoyed very much as colleagues.
A community like this focuses on academic issues and the growth and education of young women and men and we know that we're privileged to have a college in a quite special place: A place where people really have a sense of confidence, of optimism, of security and a sense of belonging that I think have been terribly important at Dartmouth. Obviously events such as this shatter for many that sense of optimism, of confidence and of security. Our resolution is to try to deal with that. Surely my focus has been to try to spend as much time as I can talking to faculty and talking to students and dealing with the issues of grief, because even though we've had a terrible and a tragic loss under circumstances that are just hard for any of us to begin to fathom, we also know that we have lost two people whom we love and whom we respected as colleagues.
I think a community such as ours has to find ways to grieve, and I think it's hard for us to do that under the circumstances with the questions that remain outstanding. But that's where my focus has been. My focus has been for us to move ahead and to deal with the loss and to think about how we deal with this as a community. I'm a teacher, I'm a faculty member, in addition to being president, and that's how I define my role.
I am confident that the Attorney General and all of the authorities that are investigating this will have some answers for us very soon, and we're all looking forward to that. But that is not where my focus is.
I would like to have an opportunity to share with you some of the things that we are doing for the community, and I've asked a couple of colleagues to join me for that purpose today. I would turn the podium over to Jim Larimore, Dean of the College, with a responsibility broadly for student life and security on the campus and Dr. Mark Reed will make a few comments, then we'll have a chance for some questions that you may have. Dean Larimore.
JAMES LARIMORE, DEAN OF THE COLLEGE: Thank you, Jim and good afternoon everybody. It probably goes without saying that times such as these test the strength and character of any community. During the brief time that I've been here in Hanover, now slightly over a year and a half, I've had the opportunity to see this community come together under very difficult circumstances, and certainly it is hard to imagine any set of circumstances more difficult than the ones that we now face. As you all are aware, people handle grief and shock in a variety of different ways and that certainly is the case here in this community. What I would like to do this afternoon is share with you just a bit of information about measures that we have taken and what we are currently doing to respond to the needs of our community. First, it's important to start with an understanding that the state Attorney General's office has not advised us that we need to take any additional measures with respect to campus safety at this time. They have assured us that they'll notify us if their view of that situation changes at all. Nonetheless, we have taken some additional measures to ensure the safety and well-being of our community. We have increased our campus safety and security efforts. The Department of Safety and Security on campus has increased their visibility and presence on campus, and we've also expanded our outreach efforts through that office to provide reassurance and comfort to those who need it. Our Safety & Security office continues to patrol the campus and to provide transportation for those who desire a ride or an escort from one area of the campus to another. Typically that's a service that is provided during evening hours, but we have for the time being expanded that for 24-hour coverage as our community deals with these difficult circumstances. If you have been around the campus-and I suspect that you have-you will also notice that several years ago Dartmouth began the process of installing a blue-light emergency system that is monitored 24-hours a day to ensure that we are able to respond immediately to an incidents or any concerns that people have on the campus. I hope that will be helpful to you.
We have provided a variety of resources for students and are now in the process of providing a very broad network of support to students and other members of the community. Last night, we gathered as a community in Rollins Chapel to have an opportunity to speak with one another. And it was also an opportunity for us to share information with students about a variety of resources. We have been working very closely through the College deans - the deans in the first-year office, the upper-class dean's office, also with the dean of graduate studies office - and to provide personal and academic advising and support to students. We're coordinating our efforts with the Tucker Foundation and the associated campus ministries, and we're working with a variety of counselors on campus through the Faculty-Employee Assistance Program, through our college health center, and we're receiving back-up support as needed from the psychiatry department at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. All of this is part of a larger environment of support that we have here on the campus on a regular basis. We are a residential campus. We have a staffing group in residential life that includes on-site live-in professionals in a number of our residence halls and a student staff that has been quite active in offering support and assistance to students since news of this tragedy reached us on Saturday evening.
Also, I think I could use your help in getting the word out to parents and alumni and friends that there is an information hotline number that has been set up so that students whose families are concerned about their well-being who are looking for information can either look at the Dartmouth College Web site for information or they contact us at the following number: 1-866-288-8386 or in our local area code-the 603 area code-646-1010. That number, as you understand, will help people out with information about the resources that are available here on campus. But as the President has mentioned in other settings, information about the investigation is really being handled through the State Attorney General's office, and that is the best and most reliable source of information.
And with that, why don't I introduce you to Dr. Mark Reed who is the director of counseling services.
MARK REED, DIRECTOR OF COUNSELING SERVICES: Thanks a lot. I want to start off by saying over the last couple of days I've been talking a lot to students and staff and faculty and I've spoke to a number of folks - they've been really appreciative of how folks from the media have been very sensitive in giving people space, and I just want to give a thank you for that as Dartmouth goes through this grieving time. I know it's difficult, but people have noticed and appreciated that. The other thing that has impressed me is that we're over in Dick's House working with students a lot, and how, as all this came out over the last couple of days, how naturally groups of students and groups of faculty got together, gathered in their homes, and were really there for each other. Last evening we had a community get together, and today, Jim Platt - who's the director of the employee assistance program - and I met with the Environmental Studies and Earth Sciences departments and have been meeting with some of the classes that the Zantops were teaching today. I worried that the faculty and the staff would want their own private place to grieve and the students would want their own private place; but I've been impressed with how open the students, faculty and staff have been with each other. The Earth Sciences department is really opening their arms, scheduling things daily, around noon and later in the afternoon, to give them a real opportunity to communicate, support each other and help each other and not have folks isolated. The Comparative Literature department is working on the same issues.
In terms of a bit of an update of what we're doing: it's mostly outreach now, meeting with groups. The Counseling Service has liaisons to Residential Life so each residence hall has a counselor that's assigned to it. We're going to be offering our services to them and meeting with those groups individually and pairing up with someone from the Tucker Foundation, which is the religious and spiritual arm of the university to go out and provide support services.
My impression, in terms of how people are responding, is really profound disbelief. I didn't know the Zantops at all, but from listening to students and faculty and staff, it is clear me that they were uniformly cherished, loved. Sitting in the classroom that Professor Zantop - Half - was teaching, it was just difficult for the students to believe that he wasn't there. And so over the course of the next days we're going to be trying to help them work through this, and I think that it will be in a matter of waves; where emotion will come up, sadness and disbelief, but the support that they've had from each other has been impressive.
LAUREL STAVIS: I know that many of you have a lot of questions, unanswered questions, as do we. I wanted to provide just a brief period of time when you can ask those questions of the President, of the Dean and of Dr. Reed. I also wanted you to know that there is a gathering at the President's House at 3 o'clock this afternoon. That is not open to the media, but you certainly are welcome to film outside if you like, and if anybody needs directions to the President's House you can see me or my colleague, Roland Adams. Thank you.
REPORTER QUESTION: If I could ask Mr. Wright perhaps what you'll be telling everyone when they gather at your residence -
PRESIDENT WRIGHT: There'll be no speaking - my wife Susan and I just wanted to invite community members over to the house. As I told some people, we wanted them to come for a hug, a chance to have a cup of tea, a chance to talk to other colleagues. There's no speaking planned there at all.
REPORTER QUESTION: They'll be looking to you for leadership and guidance. How will you advise them?
PRESIDENT WRIGHT: It's hard to know how to provide leadership at a time like this. I think that my best instincts are to try to reach out to people, to try to comfort them as much as I can, to assure them that this is a time to grieve and it's okay to grieve - it's okay to grieve openly - and that we have to think about who we are as a community and what defines us. A terrible thing happened to us, and we can't allow something that was vicious and unnatural to come to characterize our relationships with each other.
REPORTER QUESTION: President Wright, what will you miss most about the couple?
PRESIDENT WRIGHT: I will miss them, first of all, as friends. I'll miss the smiles that each of them had, which I wish you would have had the opportunity to enjoy. I'll miss the approach that they brought to life and the way they enjoyed students and teaching. I'll miss the way that they enjoyed each other: they were true members of this community, they made this a richer place and we will miss that.
REPORTER QUESTION: President Wright, have you asked the police why they don't think that, with two people murdered, you need to increase security measures on campus?
PRESIDENT WRIGHT: No, I have not asked them that question directly. We have told them that we would expect them to keep us informed if there is anything that we need to do and they're going to have to make the judgement on that. We want our students to feel secure, we want the members of this community to feel secure, and we will provide additional services and support for them, but we have to depend on the guidance of the Attorney General and the police.
REPORTER QUESTION: Some of the students that we have talked to today - it's hard for them to feel secure because they don't know anything -
PRESIDENT WRIGHT: Yes, it's hard to feel secure when something terrible has happened and I think we simply have to acknowledge that we don't know anything, and I think it's the mystery of this - trying to understand something that is not understandable in the best of circumstances, and then having pieces of it that are not clear. So I'm not surprised that people somehow feel different, that they feel less secure and less safe, and I think that we have to try to support them, we have to try to move through this.
REPORTER QUESTION: Have investigators told you that they've ruled out any students as suspects?
PRESIDENT WRIGHT: They have not told me anything, what they have ruled out or what they have ruled in. I really have not been privy to any information, I don't think, that you've not had. I wasn't at the press conference yesterday with the Attorney General, so you may have learned some things there that I don't know.
REPORTER QUESTION: President Wright, a professor mentioned today that the Zantops had an apartment on the side of their house that they often rented out to students or other people that needed a place to stay. Do you know of anyone living there recently?
PRESIDENT WRIGHT: I do not. I'm not aware of anyone who lived there, no.
REPORTER QUESTION: Okay, but are you aware of the apartment?
PRESIDENT WRIGHT: No, I did not know they had an apartment that they rented.
REPORTER QUESTION: Have any measures been taken to fulfill the rest of the coursework that the Zantops taught?
PRESIDENT WRIGHT: Yes. Dean Ed Berger has worked with the departments and faculty members of those departments are prepared to step up. There's no way to replace somebody who's teaching a course, there's no way that somebody else can step in and do the same thing and provide the sort of continuity that I think a course should have, but we surely will make certain that the students will complete the courses. Right now I think we're just trying to deal with them and to comfort them and to allow them an opportunity to grieve and to see what questions they have. But yes, we will complete the courses.
REPORTER QUESTION: How about the daughters - have you been in touch with their daughters?
PRESIDENT WRIGHT: I have not directly spoken to them, but friends have, and they are coming here and I'm looking forward to sitting down with them with they arrive. But they obviously have had to deal with the same shock that all of us have had, except of a far more intense shock.
REPORTER QUESTION: Any indication at all from parents or from students that students might leave the campus - that the uneasiness here might be sufficient that they would leave for awhile?
PRESIDENT WRIGHT: Perhaps Dean Larimore would have something to say about that. I'm not aware of anyone who has left or any parents who have advised them to leave. I think parents are understandably concerned - they don't know what's happening here, and they're concerned. But I'm not aware - Dean Larimore?
DEAN LARIMORE: The only thing I would add is that, no, at this point we haven't heard that from either students or parents.
REPORTER QUESTION: Mr. Wright, is the school planning a memorial sometime?
PRESIDENT WRIGHT: Yes, we will have a memorial service. We've asked the family, of course - they're coming from Europe and from different parts of the United States and we've asked them to agree on what would be the best time for them and then we'll help take care of all of the arrangements. And I expect that we'll hear from them on that within the next 24-48 hours, and I expect it will be sooner rather than later. But that really has to be the family's call, but we surely do want to have a memorial service.
REPORTER QUESTION: And what about scholarships in their name?
PRESIDENT WRIGHT: We have had no discussion of any sort of longer-term recognition. I think right now we're trying to deal with the immediacy of this loss and the grief that we feel but we haven't had a chance to talk about what we will do to acknowledge their significant contributions here.
REPORTER QUESTION: How many people have called the hotline and are they parents or students or faculty members?
DEAN LARIMORE: At this point the hotline number was activated just this morning and so I don't have that information yet. We could certainly make that available. My understanding is that the calls that have been coming in have primarily been from parents.
REPORTER QUESTION: Question for Dr. Reed - what sort of questions are the students asking you - what sort of things will you help them go through?
MARK REED: I think the first question [is] 'what is the process and what am I going to be expected to feel?' In our meetings this morning there were some students who openly - and staff and faculty who were - openly tearful and others who were a bit numb. They were very interested in what to expect, how to support each other. And they were also interested in the last piece that President Wright just talked about: they want to give something back to the family. Mrs. Wright last night had a very nice suggestion that students and faculty and staff can write down some of their remembrances, some of the ways that the Zantops most contributed to their lives, as a way to work through their own grief, but also to present the family with some remembrances. And so the students were very interested in that as well. Ways to manage their grief, support systems, and ways to support the family.
PRESIDENT WRIGHT: I would just like to take a moment to thank you again. I have to go, but I would be willing to work with you and to try to be available as this story unfolds. As I said I respect and appreciate very much your needs and we want to try to meet them as much as we can, and thank you for being here this afternoon.
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