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The McKelvy House Scholars invite the campus to join the last dinner discussion of the school year Sunday evening, which will focus on the issue of private money in American politics.
Dinner begins at 6 p.m. at McKelvy House, 200 High Street; no reservations are required. Erich Struble ’05 (Mountain Top, Pa.), a government and law major, will lead the discussion at 6:30 p.m.
He became interested in the topic while studying it as part of his yearlong internship with Democracy Matters. He is campus coordinator for the organization, which informs and engages students and communities in efforts to strengthen democracy in the United States.
“What I would like to talk about on Sunday is how private money negatively affects American democracy and how we as future lawyers, professors, activists, scientists, etc. can confront this problem and possibly fix it,” says Struble, who won a Best Research Paper award from the Washington Semester Program at American University after studying there last spring.
He offers several web sites as resources for more information:
This is Struble’s second year as a McKelvy House Scholar.
“I enjoy the types of students who choose to participate in the program,” he says. “I very much like the idea of a student residence that places a premium on intellect and learning — a program that takes the formal learning that goes on in Lafayette’s classrooms and transforms it into an informal, comfortable experience.”
He gave a presentation on “Transnational Justice in a Post-Westphalian World” at this year’s 19th annual National Conference on Undergraduate Research. Struble worked with Ilan Peleg, Dana Professor of Government and Law.
Struble is editor-in-chief and one of the founding members of Kirby Journal of Law and Politics and a member of the crew club.
Since 1962, the McKelvy House Scholars program has brought together Lafayette students with a wide range of majors and interests to reside in a historic off-campus house and share in intellectual and social activities. Sunday dinner discussions that engage the students in debate and exchange of ideas are the hallmark of the program; several Wednesday discussions have been added this school year. Most members also contribute to the annual McKelvy Papers, written on a topic of each person’s choice. McKelvy Scholars participate in activities together such as field trips to plays, concerts, and exhibits, and sponsor events for the campus as well.
In addition, three McKelvy Scholars host a weekly radio program, Two Blocks Past Wawa, on campus radio station WJRH (104.9 FM), that features discussion and debate with guests and listeners who call in.
Previous discussions:
April 24 – Blogs
April 17 – The Right to Life
April 10 – Second Amendment
April 3 – Torture
March 23 – Drug War, Poverty, and Drug Trade
March 6 – Nationalism and Patriotism
Feb. 27 – Human emotion
Feb. 13 – Rationale Behind Military Duty
Feb. 9 – Ghosts
Feb. 2 – Death
Dec. 4 – Mind and brain
Nov. 21 – State of music industry
Nov. 14 – Consistent moral arguments
Nov. 7 – Privilege
Oct. 24 – Modern religion
Oct. 17 – Capital punishment
Oct. 3 – Revenge
Sept. 26 – Suicide
Sept. 22 – Sexual lust
Sept. 15 – Envy
Sept. 12 – Themes from A Clockwork Orange
Sept. 8 – Materialism, satisfaction, and poverty
Sept. 5 – Obesity in America
2003-04:
April 25 — Anti-foundationalist critique of philosophy
April 18 — Dark humor
April 11 — Cults
April 4 — Link between ethical behavior and intelligence
March 28 — Five Images of Man
March 7 — Idealized body forms
Feb. 22 — Countercultures
Feb. 15 — Eternity
Feb. 8 — Bisexuality
Dec. 7 — Anger toward computers and technology
Nov. 9 — “Unnecessary” crimes
Nov. 2 — Nov. 2 — Genetic alteration
Oct. 26 — Social construction of gender
Oct. 19 — Greed as an economic force
Sept. 28 — Value