CLP 2010: Day 4, Tuesday, June 1

College Leaders Program Class of 2010
Day 4—Tuesday, June 1
Reported by: Brittany Anderson, Virginia Tech

Today started out like any other except a little earlier. It was Picture Day, so we all needed to be in our finest attire. I know that before coming to Sorensen I must have looked at all the former CLP class photos a dozen times to see what people looked like, what they wore, and if I knew anyone, so I needed to make sure my picture was good.

The first half of the day was spent with Dr. Kidd in the Informed Citizen class. We finished our class lecture that was started the day before on familiarizing ourselves with Virginia and its different regions. Dr. Kidd discussed recent developments in the Virginia economy and key indicators of the economy in the Commonwealth. We learned that the state of the national economy largely determines what Virginia’s economy is like, unlike a larger state like California that can affect the national economy. Dr. Kidd indicated that he thought the public policy problem in Virginia lies in the tax structure and how it is dependent on a manufacturing economy. Since we are moving away from a manufacturing economy, our tax base doesn’t reflect it.

After lunch we had our first speaker, Barbara Kessler, from Career Services at the University of Virginia. Ms. Kessler reviewed resume tips with us and answered important questions about how to formulate our resumes to reflect our skills and qualities. Since a lot of the CLP participants are recent college graduates going out into the workforce after Sorensen, the workshop to work on our resumes was extremely helpful.

Our next speaker was Connie Jorgensen from UVa. Connie used to be a legislative aide in the Virginia General Assembly and came to share her experiences working in politics and talk to us about how a bill is passed. She went through the bill-making process from sponsorship to how to get it through committee. This speaker was very enlightening and inspiring because she shared personal stories about being a legislative aide and the bill-making process, and because she allowed us to see how complex the process is, yet broke it down into a step-by-step process.

Our last speaker of the day was Mary Loose Deviney. Mary Loose is a Sorensen alum who presented to us her culminating project from the Political Leaders Program. She demonstrated how to implement our ideas to enact real legislation and talked about how she was able to use real life experience with a curse and abuse case to make real change in policy. This showed our class how to research and execute change for an issue that is relevant in the Commonwealth.

Our speakers for the day provided us with very relevant information and advice for our future here at Sorensen and in the careers we hope to embark on. It was a great start to the program, and we finished the day out with a class photo and some delicious Moroccan food.