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George Will addressed a standing-room-only crowd at R-MC. |
On Thursday, March 4, 2010, Randolph-Macon College hosted “An Evening with George Will” at 7:30 p.m. in Blackwell Auditorium, in the R-MC Center for Performing Arts, as part of the Arthur McKinley Reynolds Lecture Series. Will spoke to a standing-room-only crowd as he presented “The Political Argument Today,” which focused on the Washington political scene and offered a glimpse into what the future holds for public affairs, public policy and American society.
To view a photo gallery of the event, click here.
R-MC President Robert R. Lindgren welcomed Will to the college, and Jessee Perry ’11 introduced him to the audience. Perry is a politics editor for the R-MC
Yellow Jacket newspaper and debater for the college’s Washington Franklin Debate Society.
Will’s lecture, laced with humor, touched on current issues, trends and forecasts regarding politics, the economy, education and the environment. He also talked about his passion for baseball and, in particular, for the Chicago Cubs. After the lecture, R-MC Political Science Professor Brian Turner addressed Will with questions that had been collected from the audience.
Will’s visit to the college also included an informal session earlier in the day with a group of R-MC students; the group discussed economics, the political process, the current political climate and challenges in Washington, and baseball. In addition, a reception/book-signing attended by alumni, parents and friends was held prior to Will’s evening presentation.
Will is a columnist for
The Washington Post and
Newsweek magazine. His syndicated news column, which has run since 1974, appears in about 400 newspapers throughout the United States and Europe. In addition, eight collections of his
Washington Post and
Newsweek columns have been published. Will has also published four books on political theory,
Statecraft as Soulcraft: What Government Does (1983),
The New Season: A Spectator's Guide to the 1988 Election (1987),
Restoration: Congress, Term Limits and The Recovery of Deliberative Democracy (1992) and
One Man’s America: The Pleasures and Provocations of our Singular Nation (2008). In 1990, Will published
Men At Work: The Craft of Baseball, which topped
The New York Times best-seller list for two months. In 1998, Scribner published
Bunts: Curt Flood, Camden Yards, Pete Rose and Other Reflections on Baseball, a best-selling collection of new and previously published writings by Will on baseball. On television, Will can be seen every Sunday on the ABC Network television program This Week. He became a founding panel member of the program in 1981.
Will was educated at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, Oxford University and earned his Ph.D. at Princeton University. He has taught political philosophy at Michigan State University, the University of Toronto and Harvard University. Will served as a staff member in the United States Senate from 1970 to 1972. From 1973 through 1976, he was the Washington editor of
National Review magazine.
“An Evening with George Will” was the second event sponsored by R-MC’s Arthur McKinley Reynolds Lecture Series. The first guest speaker was former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who spoke to a standing-room-only audience.
Arthur McKinley Reynolds is a retired ophthalmologist who earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from R-MC in 1947 and a degree in medicine from VCU School of Medicine. He is a member of the Randolph-Macon Presidents and Heritage Societies, serves on the Boydton Society Executive Committee and previously served on the Society of Alumni Board of Directors.