Running Start

After a fairly straightforward check-in day yesterday, we were off to a running start on the first official day of program activities here in Washington D.C.  It all started with an early morning alarm which led to the beginning of a busy and informative day.  The Washington Center orientation began around 8:30 and lead right into our first day of lectures, which, despite being four straight hours, were quite interesting.  The other main event of the day was a tour of the many monuments of our nation’s capitol. 

To be honest, I wasn’t quite sure exact;y what the main topics would be for this program other than the inauguration, but I now know that we will be focusing not just on the transition made necessary by the inauguration of a president radically different from the previous one, but also how the campaigns which were run last year shaped and were shaped by the media.  Among the main speakers were Steve Bell of Ball State University and who is serving as our Faculty Adviser, Dana Bash, Senior Congressional Correspondent for CNN and chief correspondent for CNN following John McCain on the campaign trail, and Michael Genovese of Loyola Marymount University who is our Scholar in Residence.

It is quickly becoming cliche to say that the inauguration of Barrack Obama is a historical event, but I was particularly struck with how it fits into and reflects our country’s history.  Walking through the Franklin Roosevelt Monument today, I was amazed at how relevant the quotations carved into its stone were to the new presidency and to the current state of our nation:

“We must scrupulously guard the civil rights and civil liberties of all citizens, whatever their background. We must remember than any oppression, any injustice, and hatred, is a wedge designed to attack our civilization” -FDR

“No country, however rich, can afford the waste of its human resources.  Demorilization caused by vast unemployment is our greatest extravagance.  Morally, it is the greatest menace to our social order” -FDR