Reflections

On Tuesday morning I drove about 2 hours south to Jacksonville, IL to meet with several members of the ISI Group at Illinois College. This school is virtually in the middle of nowhere, but only 30 minutes or so southwest of Springfield, IL. I had literally drove through the Land of Lincoln. I have been […]

On Monday, I drove from South Bend to Urbana-Champaign, Illinois to make my first ever visit to the University of Illinois. The city is very nice, but somewhat urban surrounded by a mostly rural area. I came here to meet with our new ISI Group at the University of Illinois, started by John Bambenek. John […]

On Sunday, I drove from Indy up to the University of Notre Dame in South Bend. I met once again with the staff of The Irish Rover a publication on ISI’s Collegiate Network. They are one of the best papers around, and always have a large and energetic staff. I had seen Tommy Forr, their […]

For decades it seems, ISI has been holding conferences in Indianapolis. This year’s ISI National Leadership Conference theme was: “Capitalism and Freedom: Milton Friedman and the Economics of Liberty.” About 300 people attended the conference, including about 50 students who said this was “their first ISI experience” and one of them continued on and said, […]

On Thursday, I ventured from the very east part of Ohio to the rural interior. After passing some Amish farms (yes, the Amish are in Ohio too), I stopped at Kenyon College to have lunch with some ISI students there, including two students who edit the Collegiate Network paper, The Kenyon Observer. The paper has […]

I got to Franciscan University late Wednesday and had a dinner pizza party with our new ISI Group there. Led by a freshman standout, Billy Valentine, this group has decided to go with the name, “Ronald Reagan Conservatives Club” to attract people to the group. About 10 students from the group showed up for the […]

Wednesday morning, I drove out to Hiram College, which is somewhere in eastern Ohio about an hour south of Cleveland. Other than that – it’s in the middle of nowwhere. I had to take some back roads to get there… and then when I arrived I could almost pass the school, although there were several […]

I finally made it to Grove City College. I just got back from a dinner with about five students and a history professor. All good conservatives. Amy Martin, the leader of the ISI Group here, gave me a tour of the campus (a very beautiful campus with neo-gothic architecture). Just about everyone here is conservative […]

Actually, we (meaning, I) was at Penn State today. My first visit ever, and my first glimpse ever of the second largest football stadium in the country. I wasn’t in “Happy Valley” very long, but it looked beautiful, an ideal (and large) college town in the middle of a valley, a very happy valley. Mountains […]

My first stop on this trip was really the first stop along the road of campus conservatism… Bucknell University. This is one of the best conservative groups in the country over the past 5 years. They also have a great Collegiate Network paper, The Counterweight, which always has great flashy covers and well-written articles. The […]