Very interesting night on campus
The Hillary Clinton-Maya Angelou event was lastnight (and as an aside, I am tired to my very bones. I think for sure I must have walked several miles yesterday between the Quad and climbing the chapel steps to the balcony umpteen times to help the student organizers of the 400 seats for the College Democrats, faculty and staff).
There were a couple of snags beyond our control - since WFU was not the sponsor of the event or providing the staffing, we could not dictate operational procedures - the lines were long and to a degree confusing, and it was a lengthy process to get through Secret Service. Not that they were doing anything wrong, but nearly everyone had a cellphone or keys or a handbag that needed to be searched, and while I was watching probably 1/2 the people set off the metal detectors and had to be waived over with a hand metal detector to make sure they were OK before the next person could go through.
Much to the dismay of many of the “400″ (as we called the WFU-allotment of tix held for those on campus who registered through the College Democrats) - they were all asked to fill out a form with their personal information, etc. and it was *required* they turn that in before being admitted. We tried to work with the campaign staff to let people fill them in inside and be collected by the College Democrat volunteers, as they handed these forms out quite late in the process and did not come armed with pens, at least not in the line I was in. There was a very terse campaign staffer who in my humble opinion was downright rude to a few people who questioned the wisdom of slowing the line down requiring people to have forms. But he would not hear of it. I checked “The Quad” - the offshoot of the unofficial WF sports message board that is non-sports related - and some were upset about the forms.
The event itself began later than expected, and my hunch is that they wanted to get everyone in and that required time for security. Maya Angelou came out and sort of sang/spoke a poem, then she and Hillary Clinton sat down and they had sort of a question and answer period, where MA would ask HC about a given topic and HC would respond. It was not a typical stump speech, where it’s just the speaker and all rhetoric. It was more give and take, which made it conversational.
After the event got started and we watched for awhile, my intrepid colleagues and I went outside to listen to it and have some dinner on the balcony of Reynolda. Interestingly enough, a prom was being held in the Mag Room that night. We asked some people who were bringing their kids to the prom which school it was for, and they said it was a prom for homeschooled kids in W-S, which I thought interesting.
Once the event was over, my colleagues and I went back to the chapel to do the remaining housekeeping things we needed to do. It was an absolutely glorious night - warm and breezy, and my aching feet felt so good on the cool soft grass as we hoofed it to and fro.
All in all, a good night. But darn I am tired today!