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“Going Home When I Go to Dartmouth”: A Conversation with Bob Greenspon P'00

November 2007

Colin Greenspon '00 graduated magna cum laude from Dartmouth, then earned a law degree from the University of Virginia. He now works in the New York office of a London-based international law firm, Linklaters. Seven years after Colin graduated, his parents, Claire and Bob Greenspon, continue to support Dartmouth. Bob, a partner at the law firm of Latham & Watkins in New York, specializes in international aircraft finance. He spoke recently about his family's affinity for the College.

When Colin visited Dartmouth, there were kids jogging, kids walking along the Green, kids coming back from practice. It had a different feeling than the other schools we'd looked at. I think Colin's Dartmouth experience was exactly what he had hoped for and we had hoped for as parents.

He's a well-rounded kid; he's smart, but his interests aren't strictly academic. He came to Dartmouth hoping to play tennis. He was a very good player in high school and he started with the tennis team, but realized after a little while that he probably wasn't going to play much. The tennis coach suggested he talk to the squash coach. He'd never played squash in his life, but he lettered in squash for four years and made a lot of good friends. I think of that as a typical Dartmouth story.

I've been up to Hanover to speak to the Daniel Webster Legal Society, and I'm going to speak in November to Doug Irwin's economics class on international trade. I think college campuses—and Dartmouth in particular—are extraordinarily cool places. There's just a lot of energy there. You've got wonderful professors who are very focused on their disciplines, but they're also good teachers, so there's a lot of interaction with kids who are at a very exciting stage in their lives.

Why do we still contribute to Dartmouth seven years after Colin graduated? Our family's philanthropic choices are weighted heavily toward education. Jim Wright always talks about joining the Dartmouth family, and it being a lifelong experience. I think that's exactly right. When Colin came to Dartmouth in 1996 we joined the Dartmouth family. Even though Colin has graduated and is making his own contributions to Dartmouth, we feel a continuing connection to the school.

For us, Dartmouth offers the best balance of academics, athletics, and groundedness that we've seen. I've been around a lot of great institutions and each one has its own strengths. Dartmouth manages to combine a lot of things very well—the scale is right. People talk about a sense of community. Dartmouth has that. The kids are extremely bright, but they also have a spring in their step. They keep their heads up. They're not looking down with the weight of the world on their shoulders. I think Dartmouth makes you want to be there. Even though I didn't go there, I always feel like I'm going home when I go to Dartmouth.