Editorial (5/8/08) Few words, fewer answers in ongoing search for Nick

Author: [no author name found]

The offices of the editorial board of The Middlebury Campus are located in the basement of Hepburn Hall. These are shabby rooms, prone to leaks in wet weather. The pipes rattle and clatter in the winter. After a night spent putting together the newspaper, the office is invariably a mess, strewn with half-eaten dinners, discarded design mock-ups and elusive red pens.

But we are student journalists, after all, and that our offices are located in the basement of a student dormitory seems, in that context, strangely fitting. For the most part, we like to believe that our positions as students allow us some handhold on this community, and some editorial legitimacy in our job as newspapermen and women. We write about the Honor Code (which we sign), dining hall dishes (which we steal) and a litany of debates and lectures and on-campus meetings (which we attend).

At the very beginning of this semester, though, when Nicholas Garza '11 went missing, our jobs suddenly seemed grimmer and more daunting. A few editors braved early press conferences, and while more seasoned local journalists chatted amongst themselves we were left wondering just how we would ever write about the disappearance of a fellow student. We eyed the camera crew with wide-eyed worry. That first week, while search crews cut their tracks through the snow stretching between dormitories, we peered at the half-finished newspaper.

We made plans to write an obituary.

A week passed, though, and then another. Over dinner in dining halls with our friends - fellow students - most of us participated in an anxious communal questioning about Nick's disappearance. In our own newsroom, we waited for press releases, and called the local police station for updates. We parsed out the facts as we learned them, but more frequently we worked over old news, perplexed and unhappy. A month after Nick went missing, and deeply frustrated by the handling of the sad affair, we wrote in these pages about our concerns about the search.

Our tenure spent covering Community Council meetings and tuition hikes seemed suddenly inconsequential. In February, we were, of course, woefully unprepared for a story of this magnitude. We still are.

Yet, even now, as conversation about the disappearance tapers off on campus, we want to write about Nick. We want to write about what Nick's puzzling, disturbing disappearance has meant for this community, and what it means to draw to the close of the semester with the mystery of this tragedy still unsolved. We want to do this as journalists, but also as students: one of our classmates is missing, and the questions that have been looming in this newsroom - and on this campus - remain unanswered. But what we've learned, after three months now of heartfelt worry and concern, is that we lack the vocabulary for this discussion entirely.

Should we be discussing security on this campus, and the availability of Public Safety escorts or the quantity of Blue Lights? Should we be asking questions about connections to other disappearances? Should we be speculating about an air of uncertainty on campus in a time of transition? In these matters, like so many others, we have no answers.