Kathleen Kennedy Townsend encouraged students to get involved in national politics though her lecture “The College: Our Shining City on the Hill” on March 6 in Ice Auditorium.
Townsend, noting that “we become fully human in society,” argued that while individualism is one of America’s greatest achievements, it is in a community that we find true meaning.
While lieutenant governor of Maryland, Kennedy founded the Maryland Student Service Alliance, making Maryland the first and only state to require students to perform community service to graduate Townsend said, however, her views on volunteerism have since changed. While the intention of volunteering locally and through non profits is good, she noted that big changes come only through the political process.
Senior Josh Bott, who attended the lecture,
recognized the genuine intentions of Townsend but disagreed with her
disdain for local volunteering, noting frankly that he was “far more suspicious of big government than volunteer groups.”
Rather than volunteer, Townsend called on college students to get involved in national politics. She
challenged Linfield students to get involved in nationally organized groups, citing that volunteer organizations only enact change on a small scale.
She asserted that there is too much at stake for youth to focus on their local, enclosed community.
She criticized the indifference of corporations and the wealthy to education, claiming that “the one percent is making their money elsewhere and don’t care about education here.”
“It’s difficult to listen to someone in an expensive suit and pearls talk to you about the 99 percent,” senior Greg Larson said.
She also talked briefly of her book, “Failing America’s Faithful: How Today’s Churches are Mixing God with Politics and Losing Their Way.”
The book focuses on how churches have always been in the
forefront of influencing social progressions, however, now they are becoming so consumed with fighting political battles that they are beginning to lose sight of helping the neediness in society. The book conveys a message of hope, explaining that there is a growing opposition to this distortion of Christian traditions.
Alarmed by the loss of religion in America, Townsend said that “if you lose religion, you lose the sense of seeing god as our neighbors.”
Townsend, who came to Linfield through the Woodrow Wilson Fellows Program, was on campus from March 5-9, attending and speaking during several classes and meeting with students and professors for meals.
“I think Linfield is a fabulous college with smart students who care about the community,” Kennedy said. “[Now], how can [students] build a state and community that cares about America again?”
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Nick Hahn/Copy editor
Nick Hahn can be reached at [email protected]
