Posted by DEAN SKIP RUTHERFORD – Reflections from the Dean
*Kudos to Clinton School students Emily Fischer, Ali Turro and Dimas Espinola who spent part of their Halloween night trick or treating with children from Our House. Our House works with homeless individuals and families assisting with job training, job placement and permanent housing. It was great to see many children and the Cllinton School students when our door bell rang Friday night.
*We continue our “Clinton School Election Preview” Sunday afternoon at 3:00 p.m. with the Arknasas premiere of the acclaimed documentary: “I.O.U.S.A.” sbout the federal debt. This past week we welcomed Dr. Sunny Anand, a physician at Arkansas Chldren’s Hospital who spoke about health care and Little Rock banker and former President George H.W. Bush Treasury official French Hill who spoke about the economy. Both were outstanding.
*Monday (election eve) five Clinton School students: Sarah Clark, Ashley Davis, Nicholas Hall, Sanford Johnson and Russ Swearingen will serve on a panel about the youth vote and its impact on the election. Ashley will moderate; Sarah will discuss young women voters; Nique will talk about technology; Sanford will discuss the young African American vote and Russ will address young indepenent voters. A question-and-answer session will follow.
*Many thanks to Nikolai DiPippa, deputy director of public programs, for his long hours of work in making our October public programs successful. October was the busiest program month ever in the history of the Clinton school and Nikolai successfully coordinated most of the details.
*While Arkansas continues to out-perform the nation economically, there are growing indications that state budget challenges are on the immediate horizon. Governor Mike Beebe just called for the establishment of “rainy day fund” setting aside part of the state’s current $300 million surplus for emergencies. It’s a good idea.
*While we are cerrtainly not immune to finanical shortfalls, our Clinton School strategy of low overhead and maximizing existing community facilities and resources will help us during difficult economic times. Because we are a graduate school of public service and a great deal of our academic work is in the field, we don’t have or need the infrastructure required of traditional campuses. Still, we are monitoring the economic situation very closely.