CLP 2010: Day 3, Monday, May 31

Jun 3 2010 - 11:16am
College Leaders Program Class of 2010
Day 3—Monday, May 31
Reported by: Liz Young, Old Dominion University

This morning the CLP had its first day of class after a long, exciting day on the ropes course. We all gathered in the lobby to make the lengthy trek to Thornton Hall, and then promptly got lost in an attempt to locate Room D222. There were some issues with the room. We had been previously informed that we would not in fact be able to have coffee, etc. available to us during lecture. I braced myself for the lack of caffeine, but I did not anticipate that the air conditioning would be out of commission.

Marc Johnson kicked off the presentations in the classroom with a discussion on ethics. He had some practical tests for ethical questions and a good method to approach ethical dilemmas. It was interesting to see that the general concepts of morality were so consistent across not only our group, but the entire population. The exercises gave a good perspective on how difficult it is to nail down the difference between what is desirable in a leader and what is really a question of ethics. Ultimately, we all came down to five core concepts that were consistent with national surveys, which I think speaks volumes.
 
During our working lunch, I worked with the Hampton Roads group, consisting of Ramon, Heather, Chelsea and Brittany G. We had a lot of different perceptions of the government in our area, but we were able to narrow down our major concerns and compliments for the region. Since I am mostly associated with James City County and the Williamsburg area, it was interesting to get the perspective of Ramon and Heather who are from Virginia Beach. One difference we had was our perspective of tourism for the region. In my area, tourism is a main tax revenue generator, so tourism is fostered and facilitated to protect the interests of our constituents and alleviate tax pressures. In Virginia Beach, tourism seems to be a hassle that is crowding out the interests of the citizens. From my discussion with Heather and Ramon, political leaders are more concerned to catering to hoteliers than the people they represent. As a result, we listed tourism as good and bad in our final assessment.
 
One of the main concerns that ultimately made the list of topic categories was transportation. That was listed as our number one concern for Hampton Roads as well as for Virginia. Hampton Roads is an urban center with many more people than some other areas of Virginia, causing traffic congestion. There is also a physical barrier of water between the two major sections of the region with only three crossings, which creates tremendous backups and maintenance issues on the roadways. Several other groups also identified traffic as a major issue and concern for Virginia. 
 
After lunch and our group project discussion with April, Dr. Quentin Kidd spent some time with us discussing basic historical, geographical, economic, and political issues around the Commonwealth. This discussion built heavily upon my background with the Board of Supervisors and some of the basic issues local governments face, so I was very engaged in the lecture. Dr. Kidd managed to keep a room full of sleepy participants awake in a cozy 85-degree classroom for three hours with his analysis of Virginia's demographics and explanation of how we ended up with our current state of affairs.
 
Following our first classroom experience, we returned to a nice, air-conditioned dorm for dinner, and malice began to surface in our game of "Assassins."  There were duels, betrayals, denials and concessions in our free time this evening, along with our first reading assignment. I am looking forward to tomorrow for an interesting discussion, as well as a functioning air-conditioning unit, as we review Virginia's Constitution with Dr. Kidd.