Posted on 12/12/2023 6:31:05 PM PST by simpson96
From my aisle seat, I was well positioned to access the lecture microphone. Just beyond it stood Hillary Clinton. It’s too bad I was only able to ask her one question the entire semester I spent in her course.
Last fall I learned that Clinton would be teaching a class at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. I did not hesitate to apply — and neither did 1,200 other students.
My application essays were impassioned. I was certain Clinton’s five decades of public service would enrich my own leadership ambitions. I had imagined that spending two hours each week with a former senator, secretary of state, first lady and presidential nominee would embolden me in new ways. Unfortunately, my idealistic hopes got the best of me.(snip)
“But what is her class really like?” my peers often asked me.
Well, the thing is, it wasn’t really a class — it was a production.
On my first day, I expected to enter a classroom with 30 other students, which would be typical of classes in my program. Instead, I approached a swarm of several hundred. Next to them was a sea of cameras belonging to journalists from various major outlets. Just to their right, I spotted Secret Service personnel whispering into their radios. It was only 11:30 a.m. — our lecture didn’t begin until 2:10 p.m.(snip)
Every Wednesday for 12 consecutive weeks, I sacrificed my lunch break to queue alongside 350 equally eager students for the chance at scoring a front-row seat. The third week of class, I overheard one classmate say he felt as if he was “waiting for a celebrity concert ticket.” He mused: “I wonder if I can sleep here tonight so I can get up front and ask my question tomorrow.”
On our first day of class, after making it past the Secret Service agents, we settled in for a much-anticipated two hours with the onetime presidential nominee. But the class abruptly ended half an hour early — and continued to do so every week. Only a handful of students were given time to ask their prepared questions.
Why did we lose a quarter of our scheduled class time? The crew filming each session needed time to disassemble their equipment. I’m not surprised; it’s an elaborate setup. Rumor has it that next year the same class will be offered, but instead of in-person lectures with Clinton each week, students will be offered the videos of our class via a platform called Columbia+, which sounds to me more like a streaming service than a scholarly site.
Together in class and on tape, we acted much like an audience at a late-night talk show, distracted by the cameras and yet immersed in the vanity of the production. We followed an unspoken script where we were both active and passive at once — expected to laugh at certain anecdotes, but not encouraged to raise our hands.
It’s no secret that celebrity professors are thought to be great for universities. A recognizable name and an impressive pedigree like Clinton’s attract valuable attention, bringing in students, donors, funding and opportunities for new institutions, like Clinton’s recently launched Institute of Global Politics at SIPA.
But these benefits come with a cost.
Week after week, hour-long lines wrapped around the lobby of the lecture hall, as students employed aggressive strategies to secure near-microphone seats for what became known as “the Hunger Games Q&A.” Subjecting ourselves to this wait was unavoidable if we had any hope of asking even one question during the semester. (Rachel Szala, associate dean for communications and external relations at SIPA, told HuffPost in an email: “Secretary Clinton and Dean Yarhi-Milo held open Q&A for at least 20 minutes at the end of each class. Student questions were not pre-screened and students were allowed to ask more than one question over the course of the semester, even if they had previously asked a question ... During the first class after Oct. 7, they offered twice as long as normal (40 minutes) for questions on the conflict or any other topic students wanted to discuss. And in the last class, Q&A was over an hour.” Despite what Szala says, I will note we were told at almost every lecture that “if you have already asked a question, you are not allowed to ask another one.”)
Twice, Clinton didn’t appear in class. “The secretary couldn’t make it this week,” Yarhi-Milo told us, as if we should expect to pay for a Broadway show only to watch the understudy.
When Clinton was present on stage, students were eager to delve into current events and voice their opinions. However, when sensitive topics arose, the discourse was often neutralized and students were referred to panels and events outside the lecture hall for answers.
Bitterness inside the classroom grew as the war in the Middle East evolved. Clinton faced walkouts, sit-ins and, on several occasions, fierce vocal backlash in response to her often bland answers to conflict-related questions.
When several dozen students planned a mid-lecture walkout in protest of Columbia’s response to doxxing incidents on campus, Yarhi-Milo responded by expressing her shared frustrations. One student yelled back: “Then do better!”
There are no doubt considerable challenges that come with attempting to educate hundreds of students about global conflicts unfolding in real time — especially in a classroom where every word is being recorded. The efforts to ease tensions made by the university and those overseeing the class should be commended. But relying on future roundtables to address students’ grievances, while reducing class time so the course can be digitally documented, comes as a disappointment.
She misspelled "self service".
Neither would I. That goes for her husband and daughter as well.
Monica missing from class?
The kids are absolute idiots. Did they expect to read Clinton droppings to understand what’s going on and to divine the future?
Clinton is every bit the airhead that Biden, Kerry, Harris, et al are. The worst possible intellectual lightweights imaginable.
HRC spoke at a Salesforce.com event I attended in San Francisco some years back. The Groupies were everywhere and bubbly excited as little kids on Christmas Eve. I was thoroughly nauseated at the spectacle. The Down Escalator was PACKED to capacity, full of people headed to her talk in the lower level. I was the only person on the Up Escalator fleeing the madness.
And at the back of the class, several students held a discussion on how far they could toss the old heifer into a van.
I would at least want to sit far enough back so that when she started throwing glass objects, I would have time to duck. Not to mention get burned when she spontaneously combusts.
To quote Johnny Rotten, “Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?”
One might think this earnest young commie might come away a little wiser, but I doubt it.
I don’t even understand why I continued to read this after learning that the author idolized HFC. That’s all I really needed to know.
Actually the whole thing is rather hillaryous.
I can’t imagine a bigger waste of time than listening to this decrepit ancient hag criminal spewing its poison.
Quote
Well, the thing is, it wasn’t really a class — it was a production.
....
Hillary’s last few days on earth should be filmed 24/7 from her Gitmo cell..
And the camera goes to her execution live streamed for the whole world to witness the overdue death of a menace to the civilized and uncivilized world
I would need to be paid to hear speak.
Can you imagine the stench in that classroom? The smell of stale urine, soiled Depends, coupled with her cheap box wine tainted breath.
Not to mention the nasty, unbathed, hairy, lesbians that made up the student body.
They probably had to get Terminix to fumigate the room every day after class.
Lots of things could happen at a Clinton lecture.
She could say f’ing Jew bastard.
She could reveal who killed Vince Foster.
Maybe students would be allowed to look at her.
Maybe she’d talk about the Rose firm billing records.
Or thank Juanita Broaddrick for all she did for the Clintons
Or give pointers about how to play cattle futures.
Or maybe she’d elaborate on what difference Benghazi made.
Why in the world would anyone with an IQ over 25 possibly think that????? Astounding.
Apparently Columbia students are really naive. Or maybe just stupid. Did you really think the great Herself was going to waste two hours of her precious time, every week, on the likes of you? To her, you ain’t worth missing lunch over, much less pretending to care about your idiot questions. Sheesh.
Cate- stay away from FtMarcy Park, Georgetown, the tombs NYC ...
it may not yet be too late....
Yeesh! I think I’ll skip my meals tomorrow.
This poor little confused liberal probably doesn’t even realize that the University very likely had to pay Clinton huge sums of money for her ‘learning experience.’
Can you imagine volunteering eagerly to listen to this consummate sh!tbird.
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