Coming from a background in dentistry, I was the first health professional to enter the LBJ School. I was drawn to public service because it is a profession where my input could become greater than one man’s efforts when compounded by members of a larger team. The LBJ School gave me the example of how […]
Category: Misc
I may be the sole student recruited to UT-Austin by Charles Whitman. The coverage of the 1966 mass murder spree put Austin on my mental map. I spent my undergraduate years in Madison, WI and conducted my search for graduate school at a time when “girl in graduate school” was an uncommon expectation. My MA […]
“We must address and master the future together. It can be done if we restore the belief that we share a sense of national community, that we share a common national endeavor.” Barbara Jordan, a former LBJ School professor here at UT, was the first woman to serve in the Texas Senate and the first […]
With a federal appeals court ruling California’s Prop 8 unconstitutional earlier this month, the showdown over gay marriage moves inexorably closer to the Supreme Court. As the LBJ community celebrates the 76th anniversary of Barbara Jordan’s birth, it’s an appropriate time to consider what Jordan might have thought about the subject of gay rights as […]
“My presence here is one additional bit of evidence that the American Dream need not forever be deferred.” Barbara Jordan spoke these words at the 1976 Democratic National Convention, referencing that her rise from Houston’s Fifth Ward to an esteemed young American politician (she was only 40 at the time) was unlikely and reaffirmed the […]
Halfway through my first semester at the LBJ School, I have been impressed with the diversity of interests and strengths of my fellow students. I have felt challenged by my classes and supported by faculty and staff. At the same time, I have been disappointed in the amount of racial and ethnic diversity within […]
Three years ago, while contemplating applying for graduate school, I asked an LBJ student about the activist climate at the school. His answer – that there weren’t any “bomb-throwing Marxists” – told me all I needed to know: LBJ was not going to be a hotbed for radical organizing. It turns out he was […]
Our national debt is $14.2 trillion, which is more than our gross domestic product. Currently we borrow 43 cents of every dollar that we spend. Both Republicans and Democrats are concerned about our growing debt, yet both parties have exacerbated the problem. President Bush Jr. more than doubled military spending during his presidency, from […]
Texas has seen its driest conditions in nearly a century. High winds, high temperatures and low humidity equate to a recipe for disaster. The fire in Southwest Austin on Sunday destroyed 11 houses, damaged 10 more badly, and scorched over 100 acres, according to the Travis County Fire Department. This was a rare occurrence […]