A Blog on McConnell Center Life

Jeremy Ball Class of 2017 This semester I’ve had the amazing opportunity to intern with the Kentucky General Assembly. My time in Frankfort has had me sitting in committee and caucus meetings, to assisting my Senator, Denise Harper-Angel, in preparation for a number of meetings and tasks. As such, with my time in Frankfort, I’ve been in the midst of all the discussion about the budget. Without getting into all the details of the budget, there’s one aspect of budget cuts that has been quite the talk: cuts to higher education. I am very fortunate to have received a scholarship to the University of Louisville, and remind myself how lucky I am every time I’m studying for a test; but for countless individuals across the state, I understand the troubling feelings associated with these cuts. Higher tuition means a number of prospective college students will not be able to attend college. Accordingly, a higher number of students not obtaining a college degree directly correlates to the pr...

Phillip Lentsch Class of 2018 College is a funny thing.  In a span of four short and tumultuous years, we are taught how to live on our own in order to smoothen the transition into the real world and our respective careers.  Some thrive in an environment that builds off of ideas and shared knowledge; others struggle.  I have teetered between the former and the latter for quite some time. This is not to say that my college experience hasn’t been rewarding---it completely has.  I have made lasting friendships and developed relationships with faculty that have made me a better and stronger individual.  I have learned how to come out of my shell and appreciate the fact that there are always people I can learn from.   However, with these recent discoveries have also come new conflicts.  Coming into my first year of college, I was chock-full of pride and laziness, so much so that I took my scholarship and the potential I had for granted.  ...

X'Zashea Lawson-Mayes (right) Class of 2018 In the first week of November I attended the Net Impact conference in Seattle, WA and my randomly assigned roommate was a student at Yale. When you meet someone who attends or attended an Ivy League university like Yale, what reaction do you have? As a student at the University of Louisville, I was immediately star struck by my Ivy League roommate nicknamed JZ. However, she was extremely humble about attending this top 10 institution and simply told me, “It’s not different from any other school.” That statement changed my perspective of U of L. I have always appreciated this university, but I had not noticed until then that when I was overly amazed by ivy league students, I downplayed my own educational institution. This can be compared to a mother having two children, one a doctor and one a teacher. This particular mother constantly brags about her doctor child and rarely mentions the occupation of the other. The University of...

Christian Bush Class of 2018 Recently, I had the opportunity debate with my friend and fellow scholar Frank Bencomo on the evolving role of the federal government in educational policy as part of the McConnell Center Debate Society. While familiarizing myself with the topic at hand (I was arguing against federal involvement), one particularly jarring fact stood out to me. As our education policies have evolved over the last seventy-five years, an increased emphasis on STEM has minimized teaching of liberal arts which ultimately bodes ill for our nation. Though Senator Marco Rubio has declared that we need more welders and less philosophers, I must beg to differ. Our disagreement is not one of the necessity of education, but rather a question of its role as a mean or and end. While few would contest the necessity of education, the form and subject matter have been debated and experimented with for thousands of years. And though the earliest formal education placed great emphas...

Kyle Hilbrecht Class of 2018 Directly, the Patriot Act should mean nothing to me. I am not an immigrant, nor am I involved in money laundering or organized crime (three things that the Patriot Act deals with), so why should I care? I care because this month, I will be fortunate enough to go to Boston to visit the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the U.S. Senate. The Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate is “dedicated to educating the public about the important role of the Senate in our government, encouraging participatory democracy, invigorating civil discourse, and inspiring the next generation of citizens and leaders to engage in the civic life of their communities.” Basically, it is a center for explaining why exactly the Senate matters in the United States government and how exactly they go about their business, and I was lucky enough to be part of the process of making that happen.  This month I will see the culmination of my work with the Ed...

Frank Bencomo Class of 2018 " How much a dollar really cost? The question is detrimental, paralyzin' my thoughts. " -Kendrick Lamar The above quote comes from a song in the 2015 album To Pimp a Butterfly and was President Barack Obama’s favorite song of the year. It deals with the tale of a wealthy man who refuses to give a single dollar on to a homeless man on the street. The man later reveals himself to be god and announces that the price of that dollar is the wealthy man’s own soul.  I too have recently become trapped by the question of we’d give up for money.  What’s the biggest thing you’d give up for wealth? Who would you trade? Would you turn your life over for profits? What if I told you already had? What would be your response then?  We live in a world where money is king. Recently, my cat Jack broke his leg in a fall. A vet came to us and told my family we’d have to pay into the thousands of dollars to help him or they wouldn’t do it. That is...

Robert Gassman Class of 2018 One of the twenty-first century’s harshest debates among political scientists is about the concept of American Exceptionalism. The American exceptional viewpoint sees America as a nation uniquely qualified to lead the world. Opponents of this concept view it as a Neo-European superiority complex writ large, while proponents see it as a merely a distinguishing academic conceptualization for this nation: America’s unique history, founding, and international success both economically and militarily, forces it to stand out from traditional understandings of state formation and behavior. In 2009 President Barack Obama was asked if he subscribed to the belief in American exceptionalism, and he responded, “ I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism. I’m enormously proud of my country and its role and history in the world. If you think about the s...