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 just miles away. On my drive through Pennsylvania, to Bucknell, State College, and to Grove City (where I’m at now), it has been an ABSOLUTELY scenic drive.
While at Penn State today, I met with two students from the College Republicans and two students from the Penn State chapter of the Young Americans for Freedom. The CR’s are more “partisan” and most of the events are consistent with getting candidates elected, but this group told me they also did more “activist” type activities and bring in conservative speakers. The YAF group on campus (not to be confused with the Young America’s Foundation), are exclusively activist. Next week, they are doing an “illegal immigration awareness” day by educating students on the differences between legal and illegal immigration. The group seems to be interested in starting a conservative student newspaper on campus, perhaps by the fall, and bringing in more conservative speakers.
It was great to see the CR’s and YAF group working together and hopefully I was able to better introduce them to all of ISI’s programs so they could take advantage of the many intellectually conservative resources we offer them. The good part is, most of them are pretty young. Of the four, one was a freshman and I believe the others were all sophomores. Hopefully one day, most Penn State fans will yell: “We are… conservatives!”