Honoring a Mentor and a Friend

When Marty Cole ’78 talks about Dartmouth, one phrase keeps weaving its way into the conversation: “I believe in giving back.”

Giving has been a through line in his life. He learned it early, from watching the example of his parents. Looking back at his humble origins in urban Chicago, he says "I remember as a kid, my parents would send money to local charities in the belief that you give back where you can to causes that are important.”

In 2019, through Dartmouth’s initiative to create 250 scholarships for the 250th anniversary, Marty was inspired to make a $100,000 gift to the Raymond Hall Scholarship Fund in honor of the sociology professor who had made a lasting impact on him. Dr. Hall, one of Dartmouth’s few Black faculty members at the time, went on to become his friend and mentor. “I wanted to make a donation in his honor because he was so important to me,” Cole said.

In his sophomore year Cole had enrolled in a sociology class taught by Professor Ray Hall that became a turning point in his life. “I started exploring things that were more consistent with my urban background, building an understanding of people and environments. I declared my major in sociology and Ray Hall became my advisor.”

As they got to know each other better, Hall’s mentorship grew into a friendship. “We had a very good rapport,” Cole recalls. “He had also been a college athlete —and he also understood what it was like to be thrown into a different environment than the one in which he grew up.”

Following the sophomore year Spring quarter LSA program in Granada, Spain, Cole began working with Professor Hall on research and took a couple more of his courses. “In one of the courses I took with him, I did a research project looking at voting patterns in Chicago, testing the application of the concentric zone theory. Hall and I had a passion to understand patterns and behaviors. Why do people do what they do?”

“We worked together and built up a relationship where we could spend time talking about many things, like politics, government, people, and more broadly life. At the time he was doing research and publishing materials around separatism and related causes. I was doing research for him on various separatist movements around the world.

“Ray and his wife Terry were my parents away from home. They would host me at their house, including for Thanksgiving dinner.”

Ray coached Marty to attend graduate school in Texas, suggesting it would open up new frontiers for the city kid from Chicago with a Dartmouth education. He was right: From there, Marty achieved a great graduate education that helped launch a highly successful professional career.

After graduation, Marty saw Ray a few times over the years, but it was hard to stay in touch. After years of no contact, the two friends met again at one of Ray’s daughter’s college basketball game in Connecticut and reconnected over dinner.

Last year, when word of Marty Cole’s bequest to the Hall endowment reached Ray Hall, he sent Marty a thank you with warm remembrances “like it was just yesterday.”

“Ray was the person I could turn to as a mentor, somebody I could turn to, respect, and follow. He helped me develop both personally and professionally. It’s a privilege for me to give back to Dartmouth—and to honor Ray—this way.”

Marty and his wife Terri have been generous to Dartmouth beyond this gift. They established the “Martin I. Cole ’78 Family Scholarship Fund” They’ve also established a bequest to the Family Scholarship and they contribute each year at the 1769 Society level to the Dartmouth College Fund.