Senator McConnell often talks about how one of the goals of the McConnell Center is to create an "Ivy League-type" experience at the University of Louisville. This weekend Mary Kennedy and I had the opporurunity to have that experience more literally than usual.
Former Secretary State Trey Grayson has recently invited the McConnell Center to partner with Harvard's(Kennedy School) Institute of Politics of which he was recently named Director . This allowed Mary and I to travel up to Cambridge,Massachusets for a weekend conference on public service and civic engagement.
Together with about fifty other like minded students, we spent the weekend at Harvard discussing issues ranging from civility in the public arena and how to effectively engage others in our community.
Guest speakers included former Congressmen Bart Stupak and Bob Inglis, former speechwriter for George w. Bush, John McConnell, and Blue State Media- the marketing company that oversaw Obama's internet campaign.
As I write this on the flight back to Louisville, I'm reflecting on some of the many things that I have taken from this trip.
First of all, it was really great to meet the other students. My roommate worked for the Center of Politics at the University of Virgina. We, as well as the other students, had much in common simply because our passion for the political process. I was inspired by how many of them were working hard and succeeding with voter-registration or particular policy issues in their hometowns.
Furthermore, it was great to have political conversations that focused on process, civics, and engagement as opposed to advancing any particular partisan agenda. Like the Mcconnell Center, the IOP is focused on teaching students about healthy debate, leadership, and involvement rather than breeding party politicos. In many way's it reminded me of the McConnell Center because it has a distinguished list of guest speakers and hosts forums on a variety of important issues.
Overall it was a great time. The people were pleasant, the trip was fun, and the discussions left me with a lot of food for thought. The whole time I was thinking of ways that I can bring the lessons that I learned back to Louisville. Considering the quality of the conference, I don't imagine this being too hard of a task.