ABSTRACT
In June of 2002, four months before Stephen’s body was found floating in the Ohio River, I was finishing my BA degree at Antioch University McGregor in Yellow Springs, Ohio. I had already walked in the graduation ceremony a month before I had officially completed my coursework, rendering the whole experience rather anticlimactic. The final quarter, as often is the case for undergraduate students, was harried: I had to meet deadlines for my senior project, finish coursework for two classes, and make preliminary preparations to begin the master’s program at Xavier University. In a way, I thought little about what was going on around me, for I was so focused on finishing a degree I had begun eight years and three schools earlier that any concerns not directly related to my immediate goal became secondary. I provide this information as background because, at the time, I was unaware of how important a seemingly trivial comment made by a classmate later would become.
