She returned to her seat. Dr. Voss made a note.
She looked at the agenda. Then she looked at Ren. "You indicated there is an additional witness."
Ren said, "Yes. Deanna Marsh. No relation to Professor Marsh. Former Harwick student, graduated 2 years ago."
Dr. Voss looked at the door. Fuller opened it.
Deanna walked in. She sat at the witness table and folded her hands in front of her. She had the composed quality of someone who has decided to do something they are afraid of, and has moved through the fear to the other side of it, where everything is simply clear.
Dr. Voss said, "Ms. Marsh, please describe your experience as a Harwick student as it relates to the matter before this committee."
Deanna spoke.
She spoke for 7 minutes without stopping. She described the incident in her second year. She described filing the complaint. She described the scheduled hearing, and the 48 hours before it, during which her academic scholarship had been placed under unexplained review. She described the conversation she had been asked to have with an academic administrator during those 48 hours, during which the phrase "institutional disruption" had been used in proximity to the phrase "scholarship review." Not as a direct connection, but as a proximity that anyone in her position would understand.
She described making the decision to withdraw. She described what that decision had cost her. Not in dramatic language. In plain language, which is more expensive.
"I withdrew because I was a first-generation college student, and I needed the money to stay in school," she said. "And I was 20 years old, and I was alone in it, and I did not understand yet that alone does not have to be permanent."
She paused.
"I have thought about that decision every day since. Not because I blame myself for it. I understand why I made it. I think about it because I wonder how many other people made the same decision in the same circumstances and never found out that someone eventually came back to try again."
She looked at Ren. Ren looked back at her.
The room was very quiet.
One of the committee members, a woman at the far end of the table who had not spoken yet, took off her glasses and set them on the table in front of her. The gesture of someone who has heard enough to not need to take notes anymore.
Dr. Voss said, "Thank you, Ms. Marsh."
Deanna returned to her seat beside Ren.
Dr. Voss looked at Derek.