A Blog on McConnell Center Life

Jason Jewell Class of 2017 I am bi-racial, black and white, raised by my white mother and family. My mom has a Ph.D in Social Work creating a deeper understanding for systematic issues such as racism education economics and the intersection of them all. I can remember my mom getting into contentious arguments with family about politics and each holiday or get-together, I would pray she would not bring anything up or go on some rant. The older I became the more I began to understand the racial undertones of even the most broad political arguments. I myself would sit there as a bi-racial kid hoping and praying that no one brought up a conversation of race because I simply wanted to enjoy company and food that I love. Love doesn’t recognize race, which is why conversations about race are so difficult. The people in the room are my family and I enjoy their company but I struggle with the idea that despite their individual love for me, they are a product of a systematically racist soc...

Jeremy Ball Class of 2017 The 2016 presidential election brought a lot of attention to the role of the Supreme Court in American politics. With the unexpected death of Justice Scalia earlier this year, both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton campaigned on how our nation’s highest court could influence public policy for years to come. After political scientists accurately  predicted  how the Senate could delay a nominee advanced forward by President Obama, it is now apparent that President-elect Trump will nominate a Justice early in his term. With a GOP controlled Senate, it is likely his nominee will be confirmed. But what impact does the average American play in this process? It may be larger than you think. The Supreme Court and The Constitution     Article III of the Constitution lays out the explicit powers of the American judiciary, and notably, it lacks a lot of details. In fact, Article III only calls for the establishment of a Supreme Court, with limi...

Alicia Humphrey Class of 2017 The prospect of college presented what was, to me, an opportunity to expand my horizons beyond my small, western Kentucky hometown. After four years of intense dedication to my high school coursework in order   to earn a scholarship that would allow me to continue my studies, I was lucky enough to be chosen as one of ten McConnell Scholars which afforded me a full-tuition grant to the University of Louisville. The benefits the program offered   —a visit to China for five weeks, the chance to intern in Washington, D.C., major political speakers including several U.S. Senators, and the availability of funding for study abroad programs, just to name a few—made the University of Louisville a clear pathway for me to begin to explore the world around me. Although the transition from my hometown to the largest city in Kentucky was difficult at first, I embraced the countless opportunities afforded by this new stage of my life. Most exciting to m...

Eric Bush Class of 2020 It was a warm evening in Washington, D.C. Over the chants of a thousand protestors, a man with a warm smile and finely tailored suit opened the massive, gold-plated door, inviting me into the victor’s palace. I was at President-elect Trump’s new Washington, D.C. hotel, completed just in time for him to move in down the street. For the protestors outside, the hotel was a symbol of a president they would not accept. But for us, it was symbolic to our submission to the reality that Donald Trump is president. My visit to the Trump hotel was for the closing banquet of the Young Americans for Freedom fall conference. YAF is a conservative student organization that preaches Reaganism and rejects the purely economic conservatism many young people hold today. I think it’s safe to assume that Trump was few of the conference attendees’ first choice, but a source of optimism and hope for the future. The timing of this conference was remarkable, the weekend...

Diana Lalata Class of 2017 “Our school needs metal detectors,” one of my students said to another in a side conversation in the 11th grade English Language Arts class that I began shadowing earlier this semester. I probed the student further on her idea, asking why she thought such measures were necessary at her high school, to which she hesitated, then responded, “Because I just don’t feel safe here, even with all these cops around.” This conversation would be one of many that I would overhear in the classroom and the hallways, where “School Resource Officers” (SROs) lurked on every corner, looking for students on their worst behavior. The school culture stressed the idea of “security” as defined as guarding against violence, drugs, and other potential dangers. There was little room for the more positive and personal interpretation of the word, which instead might define “security” as feeling secure with one’s own unique identity and mental/physical/emotional health. In ...

Landon Lauder Class of 2017 Recent events in both my public and private life have increased the amount of attention to the concept of monoliths. Monoliths are single structures, large and uniform. From rocks to race, we have a tendency to portray our lives in a series of monoliths. We saw this phenomenon with the election where just about every identity was put into single categories with their voting behavior predicted—supposedly. This is also occurring in my research, where I am examining gentrification and the monolithic portrayal of its effects. Monoliths, while striking in their natural rock form, are quite ugly when we adopt it as a philosophy.  Once we establish identities, we seem to make a habit of portraying them as singular, without any flexibility. When an individual or a group of individuals do not behave in the boxes in which we have put them, we cry out. This has become quite evident with the recent election. Certain groups did not particularly vote in the ...

Jacob Abrahamson Class of 2017 Since the 2016 elections, I have found myself reflecting more on the meaning of political leadership than ever before.  As I get older, I have looked back more on the lessons given to me in McConnell Center seminars and have made time for myself to apply these lessons to political realities.  In many ways, the beginning of this election cycle feels like a lifetime ago.  In the absolute barrage of misinformation and pointless rhetoric found on social media, I have seen a few reasons to be hopeful, but I have mostly been given reasons to be pessimistic about the political process.  However, deep down my experiences have shown me that people are inherently good, and I firmly believe that the United States can recover from this societal rut we seem to be stuck in.  While I do not think that politicians can or should solve every problem, I do think that if we set high expectations for our leaders, we can start electing individuals ...

Frank Bencomo-Suarez Class of 2018 This year I had the honor of representing the University of Louisville as a student delegate to the 68th Student Council on United States Affairs or as it is more commonly known, SCUSA. SCUSA is held each year in the fall at the United States Military Academy at West Point in New York state. As a student delegates we spend 4 days and 3 nights at West Point where we slept in the barracks alongside cadets. We shared meals with them and exchanged questions about differing experiences between civilian and military colleges.  The main activity of SCUSA is to draft a policy proposal. This policy proposal is supposed to address a theme. For this year the theme was democratization. For this activity we were split into different groups. I was placed in the Technology and Democratization group . With the guidance of two leading professors in the field, a mixed team of cadets and students from colleges all over the nation took off writing a paper. ...

Aaron Vance Class of 2017 I told someone not too recently that this year has kind of been like a Greatest Hits Album for a student body president. If you could name it, it has come up. There has been the bad: administrative changes, budgetary cuts, community tensions, legislative and political woes, and plenty of uncertainty. And there has been plenty of good: a new academic building and Student Activities Center, a solidified commitment to develop a new cultural and identity center, a revitalized campus feel, and not to forget, a pretty good football program! Needless to say, this has been quite the experience and it has been an honor so far to represent all 22,000 students here at the University of Louisville.  It has always been my desire to serve this University and my prerogative to capture and amplify the student voice. The commitment that this University has for shared governance is unparalleled and the ability that students have to direct and make change is st...

Garrett Kasey Class of 2020 Tuesday night, I went to bed before Wisconsin had been called by the Associated Press, but I did so with an uneasy certainty of what was to come.  Wednesday morning, I woke up to the line, “President Trump,” headlining almost every news article I could come across. It was my worst political nightmare, but the electoral college had done what it was intended to do. America spoke. After reading more election information from the night before and collecting some of my thoughts, I braced myself to walk out into the world before me.   Contrary to what many may have expected (including myself), the world I walked into remained largely unchanged. The free market as we know it hadn’t collapsed. The majority of Americans still respected women and minorities. The American democratic experiment had not failed. I pondered why the world hadn’t become the tumultuous place I had expected (minus the protests), and a few answers came to mind. Maybe it w...

Celia Cusick Class of 2020 Sweat is a great equalizer. There is something about a shared sense of misery and the notion that for a moment two people working out are both at the exact same place, enduring hard work together that bonds individuals. A sense of camaraderie is fostered from the shared sweat and exhaustion. In a moment two people who probably think differently, vote differently, and behave differently, come together as equals. No matter the athletic level of the two individuals when both endure the same type of physical exertion, they understand exactly how big a high-five the other person deserves. The two are able to leave their differences, expectations, and pressures at the door and for a moment focus only on what they each want to achieve and how to support one another in order to reach that achievement. Sweat is a great equalizer … at least it is supposed to be. Sweat is not able to overcome gender bias. Traditional beauty standards force women to choose wheth...