A Blog on McConnell Center Life

By Advocate Scott , Class of 2017 Advocate Scott I’m a big Lord of the Rings fan! The books and the movies are amazing. This is a series you can enjoy over and over again and always get something new out of it. The battle for Middle Earth never gets old. But it all started with The Hobbit . And as I watched the new Hobbit movie again ( part 2 comes out in December!!!) a couple weeks ago I got something out of it that I never had before—life lessons.  I decided to write about it as a continuation of notes my mom and I have done together called “10 Lessons”. We began with “10 Lessons in organizing” from Harry Potter, and then “10 Lessons in organizing” from Transformers. She’s now doing “10 Lessons in service” from the Hunger Games. Because I’m a first year McConnell Scholar I’ve been focused on gaining leadership development lessons from Plato, to Eleanor Roosevelt; from General Marshall to Sherlock Holmes. So here are my 10 Lessons in Community Leadership from The Hob...

By Sean Southard , Class of 2015 Sean Southard A discussion of community in the 21st century revealed diverse opinions regarding the subject. This past weekend, I engaged in that discussion at a conference co-sponsored by two McConnell Center partners, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute and Liberty Fund. To prepare for the conference, participants read writings of notable social critics such as Alexis de Tocqueville, Richard Weaver, Robert Nisbet, and Robert Putnam. Out of the readings required for this conference, I was unfamiliar with Ferdinand Tönnies’ “Community and Civil Society.” Tönnies, a German and early social scientist in the late 19th century, described two different forms of relationships in “Community and Civil Society,” and rather than arguing for one overt the other, Tönnies drew distinctions between the two forms of communities that bear the title of his work. Although Tönnies wrote about community, Gemeinschaft , and civil society,  Gesellschaft , th...

Image via http://whereamiwearing.com/ Go take a look at the tags on some of your favorite clothes. The cotton t-shirts alone will likely comprise maps of Central America and Southeast Asia.  While a vast majority of the World’s cotton is grown in the American Southwest, very few cotton t-shirts are produced here. Factories in China, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Honduras, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic pay workers below a livable wage so that stores like Walmart, Target, Forever XXI, and H&M can lower prices and increase profits. This semester I am taking an honors seminar course at the University of Louisville entitled The Fabric of Globalization . While this class was not my first choice, it has quickly become one of my favorite classes. We discuss the globalization of the garment industry, tracing the life of our clothing from production of the fabric through construction, to stores, to wear and maintenance, and then finally disposal. The goal for the seme...

By Andrew Stewart , Class of 2015 “Do what you feel in your heart to be right – for you’ll be criticized anyway.” –Eleanor Roosevelt A couple of weeks ago Dr. Robin Gerber came and spoke here at the University of Louisville, through the McConnell Center. She spoke about a very interesting topic on leadership from Eleanor Roosevelt. I was privileged enough to attend Dr. Gerber’s lecture and I was vastly surprised by how interested I was in what she had to say. Mrs. Roosevelt was a fascinating lady. She came from a poor background, and faced many hardships as a child. She married one of the most influential Presidents in the history of the United States and she revamped the office of the First Lady. She held a government position under President Truman, begin appointed as a member of the UN delegation.  What is disappointing is that I never fully recognized, or acknowledged, all of the great things Mrs. Roosevelt did for this country. She fought for women’s rights, f...

By Benjamin Whitlock , Class of 2015 Benjamin Whitlock Introduction According to the Center for Rural Development in Eastern Kentucky, I am an Appalachian.  I have always been aware that my family had a unique culture – a culture all its own.  My grandfather, a career dairy farmer, and my grandmother, who worked beside him every day until they sold the farm, are an integral part of my life.  In the dimness of their two-room cabin (no they don’t live there, the cabin is a merely a part of their prominent antique collection), they recline in rocking chairs, coffee in hand, to tell stories from their childhoods.  Likewise, my maternal grandfather, a career Army NCO, extends everyday wisdom to me through stories.  Likely, neither set of stories are non-fictional.  They are, at times, absurd.  Instead of being fact-based, they are entertaining, imaginative, and spew wisdom that few are privy to.  If story-telling is a part of Appalachian cul...

By Joel Ben Thomas , Class of 2015 Joel Ben Thomas This past summer, I had the pleasure of venturing to Bangladesh to participate in some ongoing projects with Agape Service Bangladesh Trust, a local non-profit organization serving the needs of many impoverished people groups in their own country. This experience marked my fourth trip to this country, yet things always seem to catch me by surprise. Having never before experienced life there during the Rainy Season, much less Ramadan on top of that, it was as if I was seeing a new side of an old, dear friend. Indeed the cultural sensitivity required on this trip was at a highpoint for myself personally—never before had I been called to be so aware in a time when transportation was utterly contingent on the weather and when religious ceremonies determined the entire pace of the day. The presence of rain determined whether boats or cars were suitable for transportation, and the religious ceremonies and traditions associated with ...

By Arsh Haque , Class of 2015 Arsh Haque I am apolitical. As a McConnell Scholar, that puts me in a distinct minority amongst my politically-charged companions. I left Harvard’s National Campaign Conference, however, with a new political mindset. At the conference they discussed the three branches of helping others: volunteering, advocacy, and government. In the college environment I have avoided the latter two branches because I considered them less useful. After seminars with successful advocacy campaigns such as the Green Movement in New York City, I gained a greater appreciation of how advocacy can be effective. As a National Campaign Ambassador, I am responsible for creating a project coordinating with other schools in the Institute of Politics (IOP). I am joining Meghan Waters and Sean Southard (other McConnell Scholars associated with the IOP) in a joint advocacy campaign.  We received a survey from our department of Political Science that examined discr...

By Sam Whittaker , Class of 2015 Sam Whittaker Each year, the United States Federal and State governments spend 51 billion dollars to fight the War on Drugs. The intention behind the War on Drugs and supporting legislation is to keep drugs off the streets, reduce violence, and generally keep citizens more safe. As the famous economist Bastiat would argue, what is seen from the Drug War is increasing arrests and the driving of the drug culture underground. However, the War on Drugs has many negative and largely unseen secondary effects that the United States government fails to acknowledge or address.  One such secondary effect is that the War on Drugs, intended to punish suppliers more than demanders, actually has made the drug trade more profitable for the suppliers. This is because demand for drugs is relatively inelastic, that is to say that drug users do not respond to price increases by buying fewer quantities of drugs. As a result of their illegality, the quantity ...

By Cathrine Mountain , Class of 2015 In her book, Mastermind , Maria Konnikova begins to pick apart the various ways that we can begin tapping the limitless resources that exist within our mind. Konnikova claims that we can begin “thinking like Sherlock Holmes” if we practice a number of tricks to increase our mindfulness and simple observational skills. By doing so, Konnikova claims, we can make our minds more productive and get more work done in the day.  The concept of keeping track of small details, like counting the number of steps that lead up to a building, something that Holmes appears to care a great deal about, seems more like an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder than any sort of useful knowledge to me. However, Konnikova used this practice to further explain that observing things in your environment that may seem trivial can actually help optimize your deductive reasoning skills and further hone your mental capabilities.  A group of Scholars that were able to...

By Hunter Pittman , Class of 2014 Hunter Pittman Many people may already know this, but I was probably the most excited I have been about anything in a long time when we were told that Dr. Rajiv Shah would be coming to the McConnell Center to speak.  International development, global health, private/public partnerships, health economics and many more of Dr. Shah’s areas of expertise are of extreme interest to me.  Having watched many previous talks and speeches by Dr. Shah I also knew that his time at our university would be exciting and engaging for all.  My blog was actually postponed because I had planned to write about Dr. Shah’s visit. Dr. Shah’s talk was cancelled on September 20 th , but only because the administrator was called on for an extremely important meeting at the White House.  While this may have disappointed some, it did not do so for me.  Instead, for me, this only affirmed Dr. Shah’s dedication to our country and our world. ...

By Samantha Roney, Class of 2015 Samantha Roney Junior Year. The time when adults stop asking you what your major is and start asking you what you want to do with your life.  I can honestly say I (still) have no idea, but the McConnell Center is certainly trying to help me figure it out. Last Friday I had the opportunity to do mock interviews for an internship at the McConnell Center. I dressed in a business suit, was greeted at the door, and told to wait until an interviewer came to get me. After two twenty minute interviews I had the opportunity to sit down and talk with both of my interviewers about what I did right and wrong. That is something I like about the McConnell Center. I figured when I came into the Program that I would learn mostly philosophical leadership qualities and very little practical skills. However I have been pleasantly surprised. We do read Plato and Robert Penn Warren, but we also meet with leaders that can give us more practical leadership s...