A Blog on McConnell Center Life

The world is too nice. Too kind. I sometimes think that if politicians, feminists, little league parents, students, busybodies and families had more problems to resolve and more losses to mourn, our society would remember its humanity. Who would harass their neighbor, sprint to the spot where he has the chance to cast the first stone or cry out that the world handed over satisfies him not if he has a sick child at home, a troubled marriage to tend to, a neighborhood to renew or a home in ashes on the ground? You may look around yourself and see that you find these things in your life or in the lives of those around you-- maybe you even find them in abundance. Alas, why is it that, knowing this, we continue our harassments and maliciousness towards others? We demand that we get what we need at the expense of all others; forsake them! If I wish not to do some task, I shall wait for you to do it for me; if I have no income, you must pay for my bills; if I am ...

Dr. Paul Lake, author of Cry Wolf: A Political Fable , conducted a seminar with the scholars. He is a classically trained poet and writer. Cry Wolf , similar to Orwell’s Animal Farm , is set up with personified animals tackling the difficulties of statehood. Lake emphasized that, besides immigration, education is there biggest quagmire, a definite commonality with Animal Farm . His book, through Orwellian symbolism and metaphor, satirizes the current and possible climates of immigration policy in the US. Lake, who unabashedly admits that he is “no immigration expert,” spoke of the parallels between the Green Pastures Farm (his manifested society) and the United States. Some scholars took issue with the drastically xenophobic moral of this story, citing the necessity of positive and fairly open immigration policy to keep our society functioning. Lake stressed the fact that this novel was a satire and thus quite purposefully overstated in its themes. In respon...

Paul Lake’s Cry Wolf expresses the provocative words, “No Trespassing” in a world faced with constant influxes of immigration. While the book is not meant to necessarily be anti-immigration, the spoof of modern day views of immigration in an animal setting allows the reader to view both the comedic ideology of the characters and a new view of how education influences paradigm. From the very first instance of an unknown animal on the farm, a hurt deer which was later appropriately named “Xena” meaning guest, the animals started showing how they analyzed the situation. According to International Politics on The World Stage 8 th edition , “An individual level of analysis is based on the view that it is people who make policy. It analyzes the policy-making process by examining how people (as a species, in groups, and individually) make decisions.” (Rourke/Boyer Pg. 78) In Cry Wolf , the individual level of analysis is noticed as the animals examine whether it is appro...

As I am writing this blog, I realize how thankful I am to have the opportunity to even write it as one year ago today I was nervously pondering on how my interviews went for the McConnell Scholars Program. But here I am a scholar and now that I have experienced the interview process from the other side of things, I realize how much pressure is put on the applicants who made it to interviews to test then to the best of their abilities. The weekend though long, is effective in the sense of reaching out to most subjects that affect every applicant. The reactions of the semi-finalists were the same as every class that has come through the system, stressed and wondering what is the outcome going to be. It was nice to see how interview weekend was for the parents of all the applicants goes. After getting a brief spiel on the University of Louisville, the Q and A panel is open to discussion for all the parents to have their questions about college answered. Many interesting questions were ask...

Dr. Andrew Tadie, a professor at the University of Seattle , came to speak to the scholars on the literature of GK Chesterton, specifically Napoleon of Notting Hill . The novel portrays a futuristic London that devolves into a feudalistic state structure. In this society, Tadie explained, there is a system of fiefdoms divided along the lines of traditional London neighborhoods, with lords ruling over them. The towering flame-haired Lord of Notting Hill, Adam Wayne, and the enigma that is the cynical comic of a king, Auberon Quin, dominate the story. Dr. Tadie emphasized the motivating factor of this and other Chesterton’s works, imagination. This underlying motivation was compared to the “moral imagination” described by Edmund Burke, which the scholars learned about in the fall when studying the works of Russell Kirk. Tadie had a wealth of knowledge and information to share on the book and the background of Chesterton. He was very forthcoming with the literary qualitie...