A Blog on McConnell Center Life

Joel Ben Thomas Class of 2015 Patience. My mother always told me it’s a virtue—one should you should practice daily. Now, probably more than any other time in my young life, this advice couldn’t be more pertinent.  Over the past several months, I’ve worked tirelessly to submit applications for post undergraduate opportunities involving everything from international travel to internships leading to job opportunities (yikes!). Countless hours spent on late nights and weekend afternoons have been devoted to ensuring that I don’t find myself stuck at the end of my undergraduate career. Whether I take a job in Louisville for the next year, or whether I spend a year in Egypt interning at the American University in Cairo, I want to have choices. And while I’m certainly not finished with applications, I recognize that I’m approaching the time where I have nothing left to do but wait—to wait on the results of these applications and the opportunities that arise. This change in b...

Mary Elizabeth Young Class of 2016 In college, free time is a luxury.  With work study, scholarship programming, demanding class schedules, and the ever-competitive job market that requires internships and extracurriculars, free time for college students is scarce and community service—sans requirement—is quickly placed on the back burner. Suddenly, mobilizing students for service becomes an issue of convincing them that it is a luxury worth affording.  But how do you convince students community service is a luxury worth affording? This past weekend I, along with other members of UofL’s Engage Lead Serve Board, found that we are not the only group grappling with this question. In fact, we discovered others are asking the same question on campuses all over the country. We were attending the IMPACT National Conference. Designed to bring college student leaders from all across the country together to discuss community engagement, IMPACT was a weekend full of idea exchang...

Connor Tracy Class of 2016  “What’s the difference?  It’s just easier to watch the movie.” I hear this all the time when films are made based off of a book. Of course there are frustrating moments when movies stray from the plot of the book, but for the most part, many people find movies just as, if not more, enjoyable than reading books. Also, I have to admit, it is much easier to sit for two hours watching a story unfold in front of you, rather than reading hundreds of pages.  However, I feel the need to make a case against watching television shows and movies over reading books. As a small child, I was obsessed with the old Scooby Doo TV series. I enjoyed each new mystery, and always loved the suspense that grew throughout the program until the criminal was unmasked. As I got older, my grandmother passed down a collection of Hardy Boys books that had been my uncles when he was younger. This greatly contributed to my appreciation for reading. When I opened up ...

Natalie Smith Class of 2016 Anyone who knows me well knows that I am an Anglophile. Every month, I read the latest copy of British Heritage so that I can pretend I’m a citizen of the UK, able to frequent the “Top ten tea shops of the West End” (as a recent article informed me). Though I joke about my love of the royal family and fish and chips, England is so much more than the stereotypical images that immediately jump to mind. England is Shakespeare, Lewis, Tolkien, Newman, Churchill, More, and all the other great minds who shaped it and were shaped by it. Their numbers are countless, and most of whose works or stories I have not yet had the pleasure of learning or reading. Though I greatly enjoy learning about the rich politics and history of the United Kingdom, literature is what ultimately holds my heart—and my familiarity with the works of Lewis and Tolkien, as well as other English authors, are part of the main reason why I treasure the opportunity to study and travel in O...

Victoria Allen Class of 2016 During my most recent visit home to southern Kentucky, I was greeted with some disturbing news. A family who lived several streets from my mother and me had been victims of a hate crime. Previously, the mother, along with her three biracial children, had suffered from an electrical fire some days earlier that forced them to leave their home temporarily while it was being repaired. During the interim (while they were waiting to move back in), a couple of teenagers cornered her oldest child at school and told him that his mother was a "n*gger-loving whore" and that this time they would burn his house down for good. A few days later, they made good on their threat, and the family’s home was destroyed in a confirmed arson. I share this story because very few other people will. It is being investigated as a hate crime, but unless someone steps forward to accept blame, very little will come of this. I have spent the last two years of my stud...

Samantha Roney Class of 2015 As a senior finance major graduating the May it seems only natural that I start to reflect on my time at U of L. However, as I rapidly approach graduation there are several things I wish I had learned earlier in my college career. Here are my top ten things I wish I’d learned earlier in undergrad. 1. Taxes for Dummies  There are two things that are certain in life. One: you are going to die. Two: you are going to pay taxes. It would seem that since every person who makes money in the US has to file taxes, colleges would try to teach their students some basics. However, in my experience that is not the case. Heck, I’ve taken three accounting classes in college and I still don’t know what I can deduct, what I can’t deduct and what counts as income. It would have saved me a lot of money if I had learned all these things early on. 2. Finances 101 As a finance major it is probably no surprise that lack of basic business knowledge is my BIG...

Mary Elizabeth Young By Mary Elizabeth Young , Class of 2016 Buzzfeed told me I was a PB&J. After answering a series of seemingly unrelated questions, the quiz result read, “You got PB&J: You know what goes together even better than peanut butter and jelly?  You and LIFE, you handsome devil.” Natalie and I could not help but laugh out loud. Not only at the coincidence that PB&J happens to be my lunch of choice most days (I have yet to find any sandwich as satisfying as this classic mixture of salty and sweet), but at the absurdity of the quiz. Why was there a quiz called “ Which Sandwich are you? ” and, more importantly, why did I take the time to find out? Well, this quiz filled a brief study break (at least that’s what I told myself). Beyond that, however, I began to wonder why Buzzfeed quizzes are so popular.  Why do we take the time to find out what dog breed, drink, or former U.S. president we are?  But it is not just Buzzfeed.  There ar...

Sam Whittaker Class of 2015 For my last blog as a McConnell Scholar, I thought it would be fun to share my favorite books that the McConnell Center introduced me to during my time as a scholar.  All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren: This novel, chronicling the political life of fictional Governor Willie Stark and the private life and thoughts of his assistant Jack Burden, is a must read not only for those interested in politics but philosophy and culture as well. As the reader sees the rise and fall of Governor Stark, they are also privileged to the thoughts and feelings of Jack Burden as he examines personal responsibility, the Great Web of Being, and the Great Twitch. The Ballad of the White Horse by G.K. Chesterton: This epic poem of Chesterton has a special place in my heart as the first book I read within the McConnell Program. It pays tribute to King Alfred the Great, the man responsible for saving England from total Viking domination in the early medieval...

Benjamin Whitlock Class of 2015 Around the beginning of each year, most Americans make a New Years Resolution. January seems to be the perfect time to start a life-changing regiment, a life-changing habit, a life-changing diet...etc. etc. Usually, I make life-changing decisions as needed. For example, I realized last April that I should read for myself. I should read something fun. So I went to my friendly neighborhood Barnes and Noble and came out with a stack of great reads!! And I read them!! I was thrilled at myself.... Repeat... Repeat... Then in August I realized that I needed to manage my budget better, so I get books from the library now.... But this year, I took up the gauntlet of the New Year spirit and I ran with it. I suppose it started in China. I was amazed at the range of flavors that I had never tried before. In China, I tried foods that I loved instantly- it was like a few flavors unlocked a euphoric part of myself. I now crave for those flavors... I dre...

Kevin Donte Guice and Samantha Stewart The young man on the left is Kevin Donte Guice. Kevin is 26 years old from Dickson, TN, and works as a Certified Public Accountant in North Carolina. He earned his Master’s Degree from Wake Forest University, and his Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. He is a proud Alum of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, and is a dedicated Christian.  The BEAUTIFUL girl on the right is Samantha Stewart. She is 24 years old from Radcliff, KY, and works at the Vanderbilt University hospital. She earned her Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, and is currently working on her Master’s Degree at Lipscomb University in Nashville. She is a proud Alum of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, and is also a dedicated Christian. She also happens to be my oldest sister. Kevin and Sam’s lives recently intertwined for what is the most inspirational story that I have had the opportunity to experience in my life. It doe...

Sean Southard Class of 2015 Under the guidance of university professors, undergraduate students of history discover monographs that weave together intellectual history with historical actors of a given time.  Rather than attributing social change to the energies of vast cultural forces, the authors of these books allow the people of the past to speak to the present about the issues they confronted and the crises they faced.  In Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party Before the Civil War , Eric Foner examined the internal and external factors that shaped the initial ideas of the early Republican Party.  In a 1995 introductory essay to his 1970 work, Foner described the book’s two-tiered argument: that the northern United States and early Republican Party espoused a “free labor ideology” and that this ideology allowed for easier social and economic mobility than what was available in the South.  This ideology became what Foner calle...

Danielle Robinette Class of 2015 So, what’s next? Sometimes I think adults (and no, I don’t include myself in that group just yet) are all ingrained with the same questions when it comes to kids on the verge of something new.  When I graduated high school, every person I came across asked some version of the same few questions: Where are you going to school? What are you going to study? What are you going to do with that? At 18, it seemed really important that I gave the right answers to those questions. Now, in this weird pseudo-adulthood in which I live, I realize that they were all just space-fillers.  These were the questions they were supposed to ask. The succession never changes regardless of how you answer the previous question.  It seems that adults are always skeptical of the plans that young people concoct.   Maybe that’s a valid position to take.  However, it seems to me that there’s no real use in asking the question...

Cathrine Mountain Class of 2015 A good friend recently gave me a book to read. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho is the story of a shepherd boy from Spain who goes on a journey to find his Personal Legend – his purpose in life. The boy’s journey begins when he encounters a king with mystical powers. The boy tells the king about a recurring dream in which the boy is sent to the pyramids in Egypt to find a great treasure. In a dialogue that is rich with allusions to listening to one’s intuition or following one’s nose – as a great ambassador once told us – the king tells the boy that he must go on a journey to the pyramids and find his treasure. Even though the boy thinks that he is in search of a great physical treasure, it is obvious that he will find something much more intangible at the end of his journey.  I am at a point in the story in which the boy has departed on his adventure, run into a number of roadblocks, and spent a year working in a crystal shop to make enough m...

Arsh Haque Class of 2015 “The Nephilim were on the earth in those days-- and also afterward--when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.” -Gensis 6:4, New International Version Bible We are the Nephilim of the law. None of that trial-law, fists-pounding-the-podium, Ferguson-was-or-was-not-fucked-by-the-police shit. We transcend facts; we are the Constitution. Or, we will be. On a normal day, we are your average beer-ponging, SCOTUS-reading, pre-law political science bums roaming your local free-speech watering hole. But once a year we suit-up, pocket-square flowering like its April and you just got laid, and strut our quasi-confident actually-quaking asses into a courtroom. There is a tradition in the 51st state of Olympus. On May 1st of every year the police arrest one Mr. Chester Comerford. The case is heard by a Republican-appointed district judge, reversed by the 14th Circuit Co...

Paige Brewer Class of 2015 If the McConnell Center were ancient Greece, the Weber Lounge would be the agora. It’s the place where we gather to socialize, get work done, eat lunch together, and exchange ideas (and check Facebook).  For the first two years of college, about two-thirds through each semester, I would burst into the Weber Lounge in a frenzy. It was time for class registration, and I had no idea what to take. Russian or French? Political Science or Philosophy? Math next semester? This honors seminar or that one? It always felt like the classes I decided on would determine my entire academic career and certainly the rest of my life. I’d run around the lounge frantically, asking all the older scholars for advice. Was it worth it to get a minor? Is this professor too hard or easy? Is 18 hours too much?  I’m happy to say that this anxiety decreased with each passing semester, and eventually I learned to trust my own judgment. Earlier this month, the McCon...