' , | Tuesday, February 4, 2014

 

Student leaders meet with Presidential Lecture Series Speaker

Utsav Ghandi
CAMPUS EDITOR

Braving some frigid temperatures
and strong winds, a few student leaders made
a trek on the afternoon of Monday, January 27,
to the Idea Shop for an exclusive opportunity to
meet with Presidential Lecture Series speaker,
Dr. Charles Herschel. The series intended to
bring leading experts in energy, sustainability,
health, innovation, and other areas of societal
challenges to Chicago to lend us their views and
engage in discussion.

Chairman John Rowe and
President John Anderson host the series,
with three lecturers each year devoted to a
particular theme. With this year’s theme
being immigration reform, Dr. Hirschman,
Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at the
University of Washington delivered the second
installment of the lecture for this academic
year. He teaches undergraduate and graduate
courses on demography, immigration, ethnicity,
and comparative social change. He spoke of the

    

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Photo by Utsav Ghandi

contributions of immigrants and their children
to American society, and in particular, to the
development of the American performing arts,
science, and other cultural pursuits.

Before his lecture, he took some
time to meet with few student leaders in the
Idea Shop for an extremely enlightening and
enriching conversation about our stories and
backgrounds. The group was a varied mix,
typically representative of IIT—culturally
diverse, pursuing careers ranging from
computer science to ITM to architecture—with
incredibly different life stories about how they

came to UT, but united in their shared spirit of
visionary student leadership. First generation
Indian and Chinese immigrants, a student of
Polish descent, students from Nigeria, India
and Syria, as well as a student who has lived in
many different countries around the world. In
hindsight, it was quite humbling to even realize
how far we had all made it and just how much
we owe to our parents and educators.

After brief introductions, Dr.
Hirschman asked us all a pertinent question,
“What do you think it means to be American?”
We spoke about poverty, about opportunity,
about taking chances, about following your
dreams and the platforms this country has
traditionally provided millions of individuals.
Dr. Hirschman told us about his own humble
beginnings in small-town Ohio and how
education afforded him plenty of opportunities
to pursue his passions and leave his mark. We
spoke at length about intercultural exchange
of ideas, and how it is important to embrace
opportunities to step out of our comfort zone,
whether it is tackling fear of the physical

unknown, or taking the time to learn about what
is happening in the world around us.

There is some incredible diversity in
this world and it is only by asking questions that
we can expand our horizons. He mentioned
how official authority governs US society less
and there is greater emphasis on the strength of
the individual to bring about change; there are
benefits and costs to this.

Soon enough it was time for the actual
lecture, but we realized we had hardly heard
from Dr. Hirschman at all—a testament to the
incredible stories that our classmates and friends
here at IIT have brought with them. He left us
with an important message that will probably
resonate with most students reading this right
now; no matter where we come from, and where
we end up going in our lives, we must continue
to work hard towards achieving our professional
goals. That is the only way the country that has
given so much to us will be able to provide the
same opportunities for generations to come, and
the only way we can march towards progress as
a whole.