Thursday, March 6, 2008
Today, a correspondent for the New York Post will speak to students about what it’s like ride in Hillary Clinton’s personal jet and report her campaign’s every move. He, along with a man elected to the Kansas legislature at 22 years-old and the woman responsible for overseeing more than 1,700 insurance companies in Kansas, are part of the revamped Pizza and Politics program.
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Dole Institute speakers
Geoff Earle, New York Post reporter who covers Clinton campaign Thursday, March 6 at 12:20 pm at the Alumni Association
Sandy Praeger, Kansas Insurance Commissioner Tuesday, March 25 at 12:20 pm at the Alumni Association
Other speakers will be confirmed later
The Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics, which plays co-host to the events with the University of Kansas Alumni Association, said that attendance had doubled this year compared to 2004, the year the program started.
Tom Cox, Shawnee senior and organizer of the event, said the program, which is held during lunchtime and offers free pizza and a political discussion, averaged 60 students per event. Cox works for the Dole Institute.
Cox said this year, he wanted to find speakers who would appeal to more students. Cox said that he chose speakers and then organized a discussion based on the speaker’s area of expertise.
“My goal was to get students who’d never heard about Pizza and Politics to hear about it,” Cox said. “If nothing else, they’re interested in a free lunch.”
Cox coordinated a lunch last fall that brought in Josh Svaty (D—Ellsworth) and Kevin Yoder (R—Overland Park), two Kansas legislators who were less than 30 years old. Svaty was 22 when he was elected to the State House of Representatives, which made him the second-youngest elected representative ever in Kansas. Yoder was a former KU student body president, so Cox said many students came to the event because it related to them.
Svaty said he liked talking to the students because they were so interested and engaged in politics already and because it was a fun atmosphere.
“We stayed quite a while afterward to talk,” Svaty said.
Cox, who said he researched for this event and others, said he walked out more informed each time.
“It’s difficult to walk out knowing the same amount as when you went in,” Cox said.
Amanda Applegate, Wichita junior, said she had been going to Pizza and Politics for about a year. She is now the chairwoman of the subcommittee for Pizza and Politics, and even as a pharmacy major, she said politics were important.
“Politics affect everybody whether they like it or not,” Applegate said.
Applegate said she pushed to bring in Sandy Praeger, Kansas Insurance Commissioner, as a guest. Praeger will talk about health care reform and the presidential candidates’ health insurance plans, which Applegate said should appeal to pharmacy and pre-med majors as well as political science majors.
“Politics affect how we will practice,” Applegate said.
Jonathan Earle, interim director of the Dole Institute, started Pizza and Politics in fall 2004 as an idea borrowed from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He said it was a way to attract people who wouldn’t normally go to West Campus to Dole Institute events. In summer 2006, a student took over the program and now a student-run board monitors it.
Earle said the guests often spoke at other Dole Institute events but he asked them to come early for Pizza and Politics. He said he paid speakers for their travel costs but nothing else, and the students in charge organized the all lunches and helped choose the speakers.
“I tell them to put me into bankruptcy with how many pizzas we have to buy,” Earle said.
Earle said the event was even advertised by Marc Langston, Wichita senior and three-year Pizza and Politics veteran, who put on costume of a pizza slice and walked around.
“I’ll never forget introducing myself to Senator Dole in his law office in Washington, D.C. as he remarked ‘I think I saw a picture of you as a pizza,’” Langston said.
Today’s speaker, Geoff Earle, is the Washington, D.C. correspondent for the New York Post and is covering Clinton’s presidential campaign. Earle travels with Clinton on her personal jet and stays in the same hotels, so he is close to the politics and can tell students what it is really like on the campaign trail. The event will be from 12:15 to 1:45 p.m. at the Adams Alumni Center.
—Edited by Samuel Lamb
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