A Tragic Loss

Professors Half and Susanne Zantop will live on in the lives and work of their students.

On January 27 Dartmouth lost two of its finestprofessors, Half and Susanne Zantop. At presstime, their deaths, ruled homicides, remained underinvestigation. The following is excerpted froma eulogy the president delivered to several hundredmourners who gathered February 3 for amemorial service in Rollins Chapel.

Today we must reach deep into our spirits and draw upon the best of our emotions as we try to confront the worst of our fears. We gather to affirm our aching sense of loss and grief, but also to comfort one another and, most importantly, to testify to our feelings of friendship and love. For surely friendship and love would be words that we would all agree described the Zantops—and represented their enduring gift to us.

Susanne and Half joyfully embraced life and people. They were gifted educators and mentors, respected scholars and, for so many of us, exemplars of considered lives, well lived. We share a profound gratitude for Susanne's bracing energy and honesty, for Half's quiet listening and smiling responses, and for the beauty and goodness of the life they made together.

Dartmouth College is an academic, residential community—a place defined by the life of the mind and the creative spirit, a place that encourages a sense of community, a place seeking always to enable the best of our instincts to meet the highest of our aspirations. An institution such as this does not simply happen, though, and does not survive and thrive for as long as this College has, by accident. Our strength derives from things that seem fragile: trust, optimism, openness, an enthusiasm for learning, a vigorous curiosity and our unwillingness to ever be satisfied with our answers.

These qualities that invigorate our common purpose are finally human qualities—not institutional characteristics-and they are sustained by individuals who value them. Today we mourn our loss but we also share a profound sense of gratitude for two colleagues who represented and advanced the finest of these qualities. Our best memorial to them is to make certain that their deaths will not lessen our resolve to protect our common values and our shared purposes.

Susanne, the Parents' Distinguished Research Professor in the Humanities, was a scholar of distinction as well as an excellent teacher and mentor. A model for interdisciplinary innovation, she shaped the field of German studies through her publications, and she left her mark on the Dartmouth curriculum through her work on the committee that shaped our current degree requirements.

Half, an economic geologist and a superb field scientist, brought to his teaching a gift for communicating complex ideas and a special ability to nurture his students' enthusiasm. Despite his exceptional record as a teacher, he worked constantly to make his classes even stronger. He guided an extraordinary number of students through undergraduate and graduate theses.

Henry Adams said "a teacher affects eternity." Half and Susanne live on in the lives and work of their students. Caring, challenging, demanding, they encouraged their students toward continued intellectual growth. Any look at Half's and Susannes students gives cause for rejoicing. Scattered over this country, and indeed the world, they are, in turn, changing the lives of others.

Half and Susanne modeled the sort of people we would like to be. They opened their hearts, sharing their zest for conversation and enthusiasm for knowledge. They entertained friends, students, colleagues and guest scholars. They cared passionately about the world beyond our campus and participated actively in debate about national and international issues. We learned much from their lives and we benefit—and must continue to benefit—from their challenge to be the best that they knew we could be.

Times such as these, when we mourn the loss of those we love and are uncertain of how we can cope and get by, may leave us feeling adrift. But our own best memories will converge with our own best hopes to sustain us finally.

Wendell Beny wrote:

When despair for the world grows in meand I wake in the night at the least soundin fear of what my life and my children'slives may be,I go and lie down where the wood drakerests in his beauty on the water, and thegreat heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild thingswho do not tax their lives with fore thoughtofgrief. I come into the presence of stillwater.

And I feel above me the day-blind starswaiting with their light. For a timeI rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Be free, good friends. Be at peace.

Susanne and Half Zantop

The complete eulogy can be found at www.dartmouth.edu/~news/zantop/eulogy.html.