ALEX LIBRE

April 2017 - Scholarship Presentation and Benefit Dinner Dance

2012 Scholarship Recipient Comments

Five years ago, I stood at this very podium, so honored and humbled to accept this scholarship award that I feared my trembling hands would prevent me from delivering my speech as prepared. And as I stand here now, I am no less overwhelmed, yet there is a steadiness to my hands that has developed over the last half-decade. Tonight, rather than facing the daunting task of promising to uphold Kevin’s legacy during my years at Dartmouth and beyond, I am thrilled to be able to share with you some of the ways in which I have.

First, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to everyone in this room—to all of you—for enabling me to follow my dreams. Your generosity and inspiration have shaped the person I am today by giving me both the gift of education and a special connection with the person whom the Fund honors, and no words will ever truly capture my appreciation for your support. Second, I would like to thank Kevin himself for being the architect of so many of those dreams. Although I never had the chance to meet him, Kevin has served as one of my most formative role models since I first learned of his extraordinary life years ago. His values, passions, and achievements have helped me piece together a narrative of my own life that reflects a celebration of his. And for a 17-year-old with trembling hands, a sense of a coherent narrative is invaluable.

Now, I don’t want to imply that my education or career thus far has followed some perfect storyline—in fact, the road leading to this moment has meandered and doubled back on itself at various times. But it is precisely that spontaneity—that faith in intuition and one’s final destination—for which I am most grateful, and of which I am most proud. My education at Norwalk High School allowed me to explore many possibilities later on, and your support through Kevin’s Fund enabled me to receive the best liberal arts education I could have ever asked for. By keeping in mind Kevin’s emphasis on holistic achievement and breadth of experience, I strove to take advantage of as much of Dartmouth as I could, rather than isolating one particular area of academic or extracurricular focus.

I began my college experience by literally walking to school. With my best friend from Norwalk High School, who also attended Dartmouth, I spent two weeks backpacking along the Appalachian Trail and ended our journey right on Dartmouth’s campus. We spent much of that time in the woods discussing our plans for the future—how I would major in biology, write for the school newspaper, and run every morning at 6:30am before going to class. Needless to say, some plans were more realistic than others. And if someone had told me the truth—that I would go on to major in philosophy, take nearly every single pre-medical course, tour the East Coast and Midwestern U.S. with my a cappella group, live in rural Guatemala while volunteering at a medical clinic, fall in love with statistics, write computer code into the early hours of the morning, receive an academic citation for excellence in upper-level psychology, and eventually accept a recruiting job at Google—I would have laughed.

One of the first college courses I took was an introduction to philosophy. Although I expected to learn about the meaning of life and how to be a virtuous person, I ended up getting hooked on the mathematical way in which formal logic and rational argumentation can bring us closer to the truth. I found that philosophy challenged me to think critically in a way I never had before, and hammered home the obvious but humbling realization that sometimes—even when I’m so sure I’m right—I’m wrong. Especially in today’s ideologically polarized society, in which admitting to be wrong is often equated with ignorance or moral weakness, I have come to cherish this lesson as the cornerstone of my Dartmouth education. By striving to fully understand the positions of those who disagree with me before trying to argue with them, I’ve inculcated a sort of ideological empathy that has come to transcend the boundaries of academia, inform all of my major decisions, and play a critical role in my relationships with others.

In fact, one thing that has not changed for me, since speaking here five years ago, is the paramount importance of those interpersonal relationships. The same sense of belonging and camaraderie that I felt on Norwalk High’s sports teams and in the school’s musical productions manifested itself in new ways when I got to college. For example, I sang in an all-male a cappella group—the Dartmouth Cords—for all 4 years, and by spending 6-10 hours each week rehearsing, performing, and recording albums together, I formed some of the closest and most rewarding friendships of my life.

My sophomore year, I joined Psi Upsilon fraternity, which proved to be one of the most formative aspects of my college experience. In addition to fulfilling Mrs. Eidt’s strong recommendation that I remember to make time for fun, my fraternity provided me with countless positive role models and the opportunity to develop my leadership skills when elected Rush Chairman two years in a row. In hindsight, my passion for recruiting new members to Psi Upsilon may even have foreshadowed my current career at Google. In fact, despite their obvious differences, both organizations keep beer on every floor of their buildings.

While that sense of brotherhood served as a foundation for much of my time at Dartmouth, friendship was not the only kind of connection I developed with others. My desire to give back to the community around me motivated me to volunteer as a tutor for the critical reading and writing sections of the SAT. Much like I had tutored underprivileged middle school students at the Norwalk YMCA while in high school, I taught my own small classroom of local high school students how to excel on standardized tests and write powerful college essays. Although every student I worked with improved their scores to some extent, I was particularly inspired by one student whose score increased by 510 points during our time together. When I recently received a Facebook message from his father, thanking me for helping his son get into his first choice school, the value of giving back and helping others was as clear as ever.

Countless similar experiences have reinforced my desire to build a career that benefits as many other people as possible. And although I’m proud to have graduated with a GPA of 3.6 overall and 3.8 in my major, no number alone could give me the sense of meaning and fulfillment I desired post-college. In an effort to challenge myself with a fast-paced work environment while still engaging with and helping other people, I have spent the last 7 months working as a full-time recruiting coordinator for Google in California. Focusing primarily on new university graduates, I work with all of Google Staffing to recruit, hire, and retain some of the best talent in the world. And I love it.

Although I plan to eventually leave the corporate world for a career as a clinical psychologist, I’ve learned more in the last half-year of work than I ever could have hoped for. Even when I do pursue clinical psychology—something that ties together many of my academic interests and personal passions—I’m confident that my experiences in Google’s unconventional workplace will serve me well.

To conclude, despite the circuitous path that led me here, I could not be more pleased to present my personal narrative to you all tonight. However, the last five years have not always been as easy or rewarding as this speech may imply, and much like Kevin’s own passing, I’ve lost several people about whom I care deeply, watched as seemingly invincible relationships faltered with time, and struggled with certain personal challenges of my own. But through it all, I’ve upheld the commitment I made at this event in 2012. Five years ago, I promised you all that I would never take life for granted, never let a day go by without having heard or played good music, never stop learning, never stop helping, and last but not least, never stop smiling.

And here, tonight, with all of you, I’m proud to report that I never did, and never will.

About the Fund

Background

The Kevin M. Eidt Memorial Scholarship Fund was established through the generosity of the many people Kevin touched in his short life. Kevin, an 18-year-old dean's list freshman in the honors program at Boston College, passed away from cardiac arrest on January 23, 1997 while playing intramural basketball. Kevin set the example of the passion and sincerity we should bring to each day. He was an individual with vision, commitment, abiding hope, aspirations, and compassion. And when we look back, it was a life, albeit a glimpse of life, by which people can be measured and judged by.

Mission

The mission of the Kevin M. Eidt Memorial Scholarship Fund is to preserve Kevin's spirit by paying tribute to achievements in academics, athletics, arts, and the virtues of service and faith that were the essence of Kevin's life.

Fund Facts

With 12 scholarships, valued at $160,500, awarded to the class of 2023, Kevin's Fund will have provided $2.7 Million in financial support to 222 exemplary young men and women matriculating at over 85 diverse colleges and universities in Kevin's memory. The dramatic growth in scholarship awards is directly related to the financial success of our annual benefit dinner dance, which began in 2000 and funded scholarships for the class of 2001. As a result of this generosity, Kevin's Fund has awarded the following scholarships.

To the class of 1997   $3,750
To the class of 1998   $5,000
To the class of 1999   $12,000
To the class of 2000   $13,000
To the class of 2001   $47,000
To the class of 2002   $55,000
To the class of 2003   $70,000
To the class of 2004   $85,000
To the class of 2005   $100,000
To the class of 2006   $111,000
To the class of 2007   $127,000
To the class of 2008   $139,000
To the class of 2009   $140,000
To the class of 2010   $118,000
To the class of 2011   $117,000
To the class of 2012   $115,000
To the class of 2013   $121,000
To the class of 2014   $122,000
To the class of 2015   $124,000
To the class of 2016   $122,250
To the class of 2017   $124,000
To the class of 2018   $127,000
To the class of 2019   $128,000
To the class of 2020   $128,000
To the class of 2021   $126,500
To the class of 2022   $156,000
To the class of 2023   $160,500

For the 2023 – 2024 academic year, Kevin’s Fund is providing financial support to 15 students matriculating at American University, Boston College (2), Champlain College, Columbia, Dartmouth, George Washington University, Liberty, Northeastern, Sacred Heart, Southern Connecticut State, UConn (2), Univeristy of Delaware, and UMass-Amherst.

Scholarship Fund Accomplishments as of June 30, 2023
Recipients	222
Awards	$2,700,000
Funding as % of Contributions	99.5%