Bring Bubba back again

For God's sake-head to the Chapel! Now! Bill Clinton is speaking! If it's not after 1 p.m., you have no excuse to be anywhere but beneath those towering stone spires and gigantic arching buttresses, listening to the ex-POTUS pontificate about John Hope Franklin, who passed away last March after a lifetime of scholarship and dedication to his duty as an historian of African-Americans in America. Today, stuck right in the middle of the summer session doldrums that sweep through campus every June, a speaker with some serious mega-wattage is paying the Gothic Wonderland a visit. And judging by Duke's recent track record, the chance to see a former or current Leader of the Free World on campus may not come around again anytime soon.

Given the impressive array of distinguished guests who take the time to stop by Duke, it may come as a surprise that no U.S. president has graced campus in more than 11 years. Since Jimmy Carter delivered the school's commencement speech to the Class of 1997 (his grandson was a member) and George H.W. Bush delivered it to the Class of 1998 (Vice President Dan Quayle's son was a member), Duke has sat on the sidelines as other schools have managed to lure a president to speak to students. Sure, the past decade has witnessed some superstar visitors-we've seen Oprah give grads their final send-off, heard The Rolling Stones rock Wallace Wade, and brought Robert Redford in to pick up an award. But it's been move than a decade since Duke has nabbed one of our 44 presidents.

There has always been great demand for commanders-in-chief to speak at college campuses, and despite their busy schedules-whether they be in or out of the Oval Office-they often find time to stop by. Even as he courted controversy with his appearance at Notre Dame, Barack Obama's commencement address was generally seen as a prize for the university. "In recent years politicians have been given a run for their money at commencement time by anchorpersons and Hollywood celebrities, but loftily placed public officials, especially those who can be credibly deemed statesmen, are still the most sought after speakers-and the biggest 'get' of all, of course, is the President of the United States," Hendrik Hertzberg wrote in a May 18 column for The New Yorker, where he is a political commentator. "The President is a statesman ex officio, a guaranteed publicity magnet and a person whose fame and entourage can bathe even the roomiest campus in a glowing aura of importance." Duke can bring someone recognizable, powerful and brilliant to campus-but the president trumps anyone.

The University boasts a respectable, if infrequent, history of witnessing U.S. presidents on campus. In 1905, president Theodore Roosevelt made a visit to the then-Trinity College to recognize the school's dedication to academic freedom during the Bassett Affair. In 1903, Professor John Spencer Bassett caught flack from Southern Democrats when he praised Booker T. Washington in an article published in a scholarly journal, but the Board of Trustees kept Bassett on the faculty, and two years later Roosevelt showed up to commend the school's decision.

In 1959, John F. Kennedy campaigned at Duke en route to a tight win over Richard Nixon, Law '37; not to be outdone, Nixon stopped by his alma mater in 1966, two years before he finally made it to the White House. In 1988, Ronald Reagan gave a 15 minute anti-drug speech in Cameron, which drew about 200 protesters. In his commencement address to the class of 1997, Carter told graduates, "We have been given a treasure in our life of all those things-some greatly magnified, particularly for the graduates of Duke-and we rarely share." A year later, George H.W. Bush warned against "international terrorism," "Islamic fundamentalism," "the spread of chemical and biological weapons," and "narco-traffickers."

I e-mailed Associate University Archivist Thomas Harkins to see if other presidents have made visits, official or otherwise, but he could only add Kennedy and Nixon to my list. It is possible, however, that memories of some presidential sightings have been lost in the past: the University does not have a "comprehensive list of famous visitors," Harkins wrote.

And at 11 a.m. today, Clinton's arrival at the Chapel's mobbed stone steps will become the most recent of these visits, officially ending the 11 year drought. Duke students will clamor around the swung-open wooden doors, squeeze through the throngs of onlookers and clamor for a view of the man who led the nation during their impressionable childhoods-the Duke students on campus for the summer, that is. It seems almost a waste that, after more than a decade without an appearance by our nation's number one, a large majority of the student body is elsewhere in the world, on break for the summer. Duke has the leverage to bring speakers as prominent as Clinton, and it should use this leverage to bring them more often-hopefully at a time when students can actually see them.

Nathan Freeman is a Trinity senior. This is his final column of the summer session.