Public Affairs Club

Movie Dates Conferences Television Commentating Field Trips International Students Dinner Sig Ep Water Slide 1998 Water Slide 2000	Guest Speakers World Affairs Council (AWAC) Meet the Gang What to Expect in Classes
Inspiration from young alumni: Cindy Barnes Hayden '99, Senate Judiciary subcommittee counsel (R), with Supreme Court Justice Scalia. (Photo thanks to Hayden.)	Cindy Barnes Hayden '99, counsel, with new Supreme Court Justice Alito, Feb.'06. (Photo thanks to Hayden.)
South Korean students light up the international dinner, October 2000. See below.	Amy Garrett '02 with speaker April Shaw at the Rosa Parks Museum in spring 2001. See below.

**Activities and Photos.**
Movie Dates. We have sometimes headed for the local cinema to examine films relevant to a class theme, for example Wag the Dog, about a presidential campaign. Photo: Self & Society 2000 members (Doug, Ryan and Cecil) at the movies. We opted to analyze U-571 as a submarine (dis)utopia! The trip was an end of term reward for excellent participation in student presentations during the class.
Sig Ep Water Slide 1998. now an annual tradition and largely run by political science students, Sig Ep's water slide on the green was an instant hit and photos have appeared in newspapers across the southeastern USA. _
	Water slide photos: Jared Lyles, Kim Keith, Grant Sexton and Dan Ogle (PSC & Public Affairs) survive the Sig Ep water slide, 1998.

Conferences We often send our better political science students -- at the college's expense -- to conferences across the country, to gain experiences beyond the college and be better prepared for graduate and law schools. It's a chance for you not only to learn but also to meet your peers and for us to assess how well our program compares to those of other colleges.	Harvard Yard, 2001.
Jared Lyles and Chad Hobbs participated in February 1999 as delegates in the US Air Force Academy (USAFA) Assembly, featuring negotiation over policy on US-Latin relations and led by several major figures from Washington DC. One of the guests of honour was ambassador and General Vernon Walters, a leading figure in several US administrations. Another keynote speaker was president Clinton's ambassador to the western hemisphere.
Carrie McDonough (republican) and Jared Lyles (democrat) participated in the conference of the American Association of Political Consultants in Baton Rouge, in November 1999. They attended panels and workshops on opinion polling, media handling, campaign managing and fund raising. They were offered mentoring and even internships in Washington DC by some of the nation's leading political consultants.
They met the "Ragin' Cajun" himself, James Carville, and were offered mentors and internships in political consulting. Carville if anything is more ebullient and blunt in person than on television. You might think Carville is the patron saint of political consultants -- but no, that's Machiavelli.
	Woo-Jung Lee (top photo, left end) participated as delegates in the US Air Force Academy's Assembly on Diversity policy in Colorado Springs, February 2000. Discussion topics ranged across affimative action and immigration. With her was ...
	Amy Garrett (green sweater, center, between two cadets). Each served on a roundtable discussing US policies and preparing a collective report.
Gina Hughes '01 joined Dr. Lewis for the Women in Politics conference at Huntsville, November 1996. They met many of the leading women in public life in Alabama, including judges, appointed officials and representatives.
Political Analysis, on Television Dr. Lewis has extensive experience in TV analysis on current politics, and has often used this to illustrate points in class. At right, he discusses with reporter Gwen Ifill on NBC nightly news, the Republican stealth strategy in the 1996 Iowa caucuses. (Shown over several evenings on the news with Brian Williams.)
In October 2000, we held presidential TV debate evenings in Blount dorm lounge, with TV reporters interviewing us each time. During the first debate, among three dozen students we swept all three local TV channels and the Montgomery newspaper! Melissa Nichols, Jared Lyles and freshman Joy Benefield (International Studies) were interviewed live on ABC-32.	Dr. Lewis has provided analysis locally for APTV (PBS), WSFA (NBC), WAKA (CBS), and WNCF (ABC). Elsewhere, for stations in New York and Iowa as well as NBC nightly news.
Three Huntingdon students were interviewed on WSFA-TV in January 1999 about the president's State of the Union Message. Damian Mayho, Cindy Barnes and Ryan Oakley all made their mark during a TV event in Blount dorm one evening. Damian Mayho has his moment of fame (right).
___	Ryan has a go. He later graduated from Cumberland Law School, participated in regionals of moot court, and became an Air Force JAG (attorney).
The public affairs club also was featured during a presidential debate evening, doing a "stand-up" with WSFA's Barry Davies in front of Flowers hall in the moonlight.
Field Trips We take classes to downtown Montgomery to interview political staff in the Governor's office and legislature, newspaper staff, and judicial officers. Sometimes we observe the federal or state district courts, and judges and attorneys discuss the cases with us in recesses. Fortunately we can "capitalize" on the college's location in Montgomery, within a few minutes of Goat Hill.
	Jared Lyles '01 (far left) -- the Governor's Capitol Intern in spring 2000 -- shows the public affairs club the Governor's legislative briefing room. He introduced guest speakers including chief of Staff Paul Hamrick. Dan Ogle (in red) passed the bar in 2004 with Jared.
Guest Speakers We have also enjoyed guest speakers from politics, public administration, the justice system and the mass media. For example, Mike Lowry of the Capitol Group consultants (R) and AL Supreme Court Justice Jean Brown (right) spoke to us in April 2000.
One of the more popular duties of the club leaders is to take out a guest speaker to lunch and learn about careers and graduate study. Here, Amy Garrett '02 (far right) does her dining duty for policy analyst April Shaw, our speaker on the status of women in spring 2001. April has a BA in political science and an MS in policy studies from the Eagleton Institute at Rutgers University. She has produced reports on the status of women in the States for the Institute of Women's Policy Research in Washington DC.

Some former students (such as Mel Koniar, Governor Fob James's assistant press secretary, R; and Amy Formby Hinton, who performed a similar task for Governor Siegelman, D) have returned to explain their work in politics.
Montgomery County District Attorney Ellen Brooks proved a popular speaker in April 2000 for both LAS Justice and the public affairs students. She spoke on prosecuting justice under the constitution.
Special Agents Rich Spinelli (pilot, right) and Margaret Faulkner (SWAT team negotiator) spoke about the multiple roles of the FBI agent in April 2000. They illustrated the talk with evidence from the indictment of a gang of bank robbers, and highlighted the constitutional restraints behind their investigations.
International Students' Dinner Each year the International Students' Association joins with other groups such as SALSA to provide a sumptuous dinner with dishes and entertainment from many cultures. We tend to be well represented with students from political science, public affairs, and international studies.	Hannah Kim shows her costume.
Our South Korean contingent in October 2000, including (in gold sash) Hannah Kim and (in green sash) Woo Jung Lee from political science.	Woo Jung resplendent. She later became a PhD student at UC San Diego.
World Affairs Council (AWAC). Students frequently attend (at College expense) the meetings of the Alabama World Affairs Council, featuring leading speakers from both military and civilian life -- not to mention fine food. (Meetings are held at the elegant Museum of Fine Arts, where the elite meet to eat -- or at the Air University at Maxwell AFB.) We mingle with much of the Montgomery international elite, including officers from the Air University and many successful business executives with international interests. Talks may cover international relations theory (e.g. Joseph Nye of Harvard, 1999) or practice. For a practical example, consider an illustrated case in 1999-2000 of a US General employing a multi-national SWAT team to snatch a war criminal from Serbia to put him on trial in the Hague. In February 2001, AWAC hosted Princeton University's sinologist (China Scholar) Gil Rozman. General Cleveland (the retired fighter ace who runs the programs) was so surprised at the numbers of young people in the usually older audience, that he asked them all to rise. They were all from Huntingdon's public affairs club -- including two who asked questions of the speaker, having recently returned from Hong Kong.	Amanda and Katie with Dr. L. at AWAC reception. Huntingdon students are noted frequently for asking intelligent questions of the speakers.