McConnell alumni across the globe

By Gary Gregg

Director, McConnell Center

Mitch McConnell Chair in Leadership

Ten McConnell Scholars and I just returned from 10 days of traveling in the United Kingdom. The trek was the culmination of a nine-month study of the ways Great Britain has influenced American history and culture. We studied Scottish Enlightenment figures like David Hume and Adam Smith. We explored Scottish writers like Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott. We studied the influence of Scots-Irish immigration on the United States. We read more contemporary writers like J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. And, we studied English history, especially the history of the Magna Carta. The "Great Charter" itself turns 800 years old this year and the McConnell Scholars were able to study its legacy not only here in America, but in a classroom in Oxford and in the British Library where we were able to look upon four original versions that had never before been assembled in one location.

It was all an extraordinary trip but what made it most impactful to me was how much it showed the McConnell Scholars Program has grown and prospered in the last decade. On this trip I accompanied 10 smart, engaged, talented, and dedicated young scholars who always showed their curiosity and strength. And, what is more, we also crossed paths with four McConnell Scholar alumni while we were there.

Scholars and Adam Dahmer ('13)

Adam Dahmer (‘13) is currently studying the Gaelic language at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Adam said he hopes for a career helping to save that endangered language and was recently recognized with an award for this efforts. Adam took part in a literary tour with us through the pubs of the ancient city and the next day led us on a 10-mile hike up the Salisbury Crags to Arthur's Seat, down the other side to the oldest pub in Scotland, and to Craigmiller Castle before returning us home exhausted, but better, for the experience. Never losing energy, Adam then bounded off to help set up for a traditional Scottish music performance. 

Charley Helms ('11)

When we got to Oxford, that most revered and ancient of college towns, we met up with Charley Helms (‘11) who is studying at Pembroke College, Oxford University. He is studying international relations at one of the most prestigious colleges in the world but still found time to show us around and spent time talking with our current students about his experiences as a Fulbright in Kosovo and how the McConnell Scholars Program prepared him to be admitted to and now to thrive at Oxford.

Susan Gaines ('05)

While we were in Oxford, another McConnell Scholar alumna (‘05), Susan Gaines, PhD, was teaching her students at the University of Leeds about the Federalist Papers, a topic she said she first came to love as a freshmen McConnell Scholar in my course on political leadership. We then met up with Susan in London where she took us on a whirlwind tour of the city. After hugs and parting ways, we went to Shakespeare's Globe Theater to see “The Merchant of Venice” and she went to help her husband during the last few hours of his campaign for a seat in the British Parliament.

We also discovered that while we were walking from Trafalgar Square down to Westminster, another McConnell Scholar alumnus, Scott Jennings (‘01), was visiting Downing Street, the home of the Prime Minister. Scott, a political operative who has worked in the Bush White House and now runs his own consulting firm, had been invited to be part of the British elections. 

For a small program of no more than forty students at any one time, the McConnell Scholars Program is producing outstanding alumni that are going on to study at the most prestigious institutions in the world and engaging public life at the highest level. I venture to say our record would be tough to beat.  It is more confirmation of why the McConnell Center was named as "an oasis of excellence" in higher education and what we can do for Kentucky's best and brightest students who have an ambition to learn and to lead.

Dr. Gary L. Gregg, II, holds the Mitch McConnell Chair in Leadership at the University of Louisville and is director of the McConnell Center. He is the author or editor of six books including The Presidential Republic, Patriot Sage: George Washington and the American Political Tradition and Securing Democracy—Why We Have an Electoral College. He is an award winning teacher and has been the national director of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. He has a bachelor's degree from Davis and Elkins College and a master's degree and doctorate from Miami University (Ohio).