“I have dedicated most of my life to the pursuit of education, and that has led to some of my greatest experiences and hardest challenges. One of the best lessons I have learned over my years of moving between programs and colleges is that, more than the place itself, the people you are surrounded with can make every day amazing. The communities I form at each school I go to are part of the reason I loved being a student and working at universities. But it never gets any easier moving away from those people whenever the next chapter of my academic journey starts. I have close friends scattered across the country; some I rarely get to see. Many of my best friends don’t know each other because I met them in different places. It is hard to be a member of communities that are no longer connected by space, even if our friendships are unchanged.
My frequent movement has taught me how to hang onto things that matter, like friendships, and accept things that have to change, like physical location. I have learned that once you find people who understand and accept you for who you are, nothing as simple as distance can break your bond. My tie to these dispersed communities is one of the few constants in my life.
Yet even my place in the academic community has changed over time. For most of my life, I was a student, but in recent years I have moved into different roles: first faculty, and now staff and mentor. This change has forced me to reflect on my academic experiences and really think about the teachers who shaped it. I use these amazing people as guides for the ways I now connect with my own students. For example, one of my professors held an event called Feast of Scholars where we all came together for a meal at the end of each semester to celebrate and reflection our achievements and the community we built in her class. Ever since I came to Dartmouth, I’ve been holding Feasts of Scholars for my own students to connect them to an academic and activist lineage I truly am proud to be a part of and celebrate. I want them to know these things do not exist in a vacuum and are produced by communities of scholars who want to change the world, together, one generation at a time.
I try to be someone who inspires and supports in any way I can. I am now about to watch the group of students who were freshmen when I started here beginning their senior year and prepare for graduation. This time I am the one staying put as others move away. Luckily, my life has prepared me for this, so I know that the connections I have with my students won’t fade anytime soon.” –Seth Arico, Hanover, NH.
