{"id":132,"date":"2007-03-19T07:42:57","date_gmt":"2007-03-19T07:42:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.wabash.edu\/fyi\/2007\/03\/19\/ashcroft-remarkable-for-the-students\/"},"modified":"2007-03-19T07:42:57","modified_gmt":"2007-03-19T07:42:57","slug":"ashcroft-remarkable-for-the-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/2007\/03\/19\/ashcroft-remarkable-for-the-students\/","title":{"rendered":"Ashcroft: Remarkable for the Students"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jim Amidon<\/i> \u2014 Former United States Attorney General John Ashcroft spoke on the campus of Wabash College last Thursday evening. A crowd of over 700 people listened to him recount the days following the tragedies of 9\/11 and the controversial Patriot Act that soon followed.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"I don\u2019t much care how you come down on Ashcroft politically. He tends to be one of those public figures who is either loved or loathed, and was referred to on campus last week as both a fascist and a patriot. Go figure.<\/span><\/p>\n

What I do care about is the remarkable opportunity his visit provided for the students who were able to interact with him. To rub shoulders with someone of such great influence in our government \u2014 someone who will likely become an important historical figure \u2014 was a terrific opportunity for young men enrolled at Wabash.<\/span><\/p>\n

Furthermore \u2014 and significantly more remarkable \u2014 it was a very small group of dedicated Wabash students who managed every single aspect of Mr. Ashcroft\u2019s visit.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now that may not sound like a \u201cremarkable\u201d accomplishment, but as someone who has planned and executed a good number of large-scale events, I can tell you what the students did truly is worthy of praise.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thanks to a partnership with the Washington-based, conservative-leaning Young America\u2019s Foundation (YAF), the editorial leadership of the Wabash Commentary<\/i><\/span> was able to negotiate the former governor and senator\u2019s visit. Alumni donations and support from YAF helped pay the various fees associated with the trip, but the students managed the effort. All of it.<\/span><\/p>\n

The students worked out the details of the contract; arranged for transportation, overnight accommodations, and meals; contracted with local security people; booked rooms; wrote press releases; and served as gracious hosts to Mr. and Mrs. Ashcroft. The students even led an effort to get the former Attorney General into a political science class and purchased books for a book signing reception, two events Ashcroft wouldn\u2019t normally do on this kind of trip.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Commentary<\/i><\/span> Editor Brandon Stewart \u201908, Managing Editor Josh Bellis \u201908, Events Coordinator Tyler Gibson \u201909, and Business Manager Trent Hagerty \u201909 did the work of an entire staff of professional event organizers, and did so with gobs of political baggage to work through.<\/span><\/p>\n

They have every right to feel enormously proud of their accomplishments.<\/span><\/p>\n

Stewart introduced Mr. Ashcroft eloquently, and did so completely from memory. Not bad for a 20 year-old standing in front of a massive crowd while introducing one of the most controversial figures in the post-9\/11 era.<\/span><\/p>\n

After a few self-deprecating remarks, Mr. Ashcroft began to tell the story of what it was like to be in an airplane \u2014 on his way to a literacy event in Milwaukee \u2014 when news of the terrorist attacks came through on a private telephone aboard the plane.<\/span><\/p>\n

I looked around at that moment and as far as I could see in the crowd, all eyes were fixed on the man President Bush would ask to ensure that such an attack would \u201cnever happen again.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Throw out the politics; throw out the legislative and judicial debates about the validity of the Patriot Act.<\/span><\/p>\n

At that moment \u2014 here, in Crawfordsville and at Wabash College \u2014 we were learning how the events unfolded that day and in the days that followed from the man who was front and center. This story wasn\u2019t told to us by the New York Times<\/i><\/span> or Fox News, but by the person charged to track down the perpetrators of the most unlikely attack ever on U.S. soil.<\/span><\/p>\n

After an hour of some fresh, but mostly rehearsed remarks, the students of Wabash gave Mr. Ashcroft a standing ovation \u2014 not because they all support his politics, but because they appreciated the opportunity to meet him and learn his views firsthand. I was pleased when I turned to see Brandon Stewart smiling with pride.<\/span><\/p>\n

As the PR guy, I\u2019d like to say these types of opportunities happen at Wabash all the time, and in some ways they do. The College is committed to bringing to campus scholars of great acclaim and putting them in class with our students.<\/span><\/p>\n

In reality, it\u2019s not often that someone of Mr. Ashcroft\u2019s stature \u2014 politically, internationally, and historically \u2014 comes to our campus. And it wouldn\u2019t have happened if not for a handful of students, who worked tirelessly to create the opportunity for this community.<\/span><\/p>\n

Over the years \u2014 to avoid being overtly political \u2014 I\u2019ve almost never given public praise to the students of The Commentary<\/i><\/span>. In this case, though, I give hearty congratulations to Brandon Stewart, Josh Bellis, Tyler Gibson, and Trent Hagerty for a job well done.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jim Amidon \u2014 Former United States Attorney General John Ashcroft spoke on the campus of Wabash College last Thursday evening. A crowd of over 700 people listened to him recount the days […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"w_featured_image_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}