Obama at Occidental A Self-Guided Tour
OBAMA AT OCCIDENTAL
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A Self-Guided Tour
The two years that President Barack Obama spent at Occidental College had a profound impact on his life. It was as a member of Occidental’s Class of 1983 that he first began to take the world of books and ideas seriously, and was awakened to the notion that he could make a difference in the world. The classes he took, the lasting relationships he formed with professors and friends, and his experiences outside of the classroom all helped shape the person he was to become. As he says, Oxy “started giving me a sense of what a purposeful life might look like.” His first two years of college at Occidental “really helped me grow up,” President Obama says. “Perhaps because of the example of wonderful teachers and lasting friends, I began to notice a world beyond myself. I became active in the movement to oppose the apartheid regime of South Africa. I began following the debates in this country about poverty and health care. So that by the time I graduated from college, I was possessed with this crazy idea that I was going to work at the grassroots level to bring about change.” In addition to his commitment to the public good, President Obama displays the best qualities of a liberal arts education. As Occidental President Jonathan Veitch says, “His are the habits of mind—curiosity, love of learning, eloquence, the ability to grasp the complex—that John Henry Newman identified as the hallmark of a liberal arts education.”
As an Oxy student, Obama poses in front of Gilman Fountain.
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HAINES HALL
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RUSH GYMNASIUM
JOHNSON STUDENT CENTER
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SWAN HALL
AGC ADMINISTRATIVE CENTER
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HAINES HALL During his freshman year at Occidental, Obama lived in Room A103 of Haines Hall—a triple he shared with Paul Carpenter ’83, a political science major from Claremont, and Imad Husain ’83, an economics major from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. “We had a really good hallway; there were a lot of interesting folks,” says Carpenter, whose family hosted Obama for Thanksgiving. “Barack was funny, smart, thoughtful, and well-liked,” say Phil Boerner ’83, who lived across the hall. “It was easy to sit down with him and have a fun conversation.”
Obama’s old room is in the rear of Haines, in what is known as the Annex.
Like many students, Obama arrived on campus without a clear idea of what his future might be. It was in the late Roger Boesche’s classroom that he found his inspiration. “Your classroom is where my interest in politics began,” he wrote to his mentor in 2016 when the Arthur G. Coons Professor in the History of Ideas announced his retirement. Boesche’s political theory classes and his knack for making the complex comprehensible made a deep impression. “You helped instill passion for ideas, not only in me, but in the generations of students who found in your courses inspiration that would guide them forward,” Obama wrote. “Posing questions that have challenged societies through the ages, your teaching and research remind us of the importance of constant inquiry and debate, lessons that are the core of our democracy, and that I’ve drawn on throughout my life, particularly in this Office.” During a 2009 visit to the Oval Office, Obama introduced his old professor to his staff by saying, “Professor Boesche taught me everything I know about politics,” adding with a laugh, “But he gave me a ‘B’ on a paper!”
Photo courtesy Roger Boesche
The rally at Coons Hall, February 18, 1981. Thomas Grauman, The New Yorker
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AGC ADMINISTRATIVE CENTER PLAZA
In his bestselling memoir Dreams From My Father, Obama writes about the circumstances surrounding his first political speech, made on Feb. 18, 1981, outside of the administration building as part of a movement to persuade the Occidental Board of Trustees to divest the College of its investments in South Africa. “I found myself drawn into a larger role [in the divestment movement] … I noticed that people had begun to listen to my opinions,” Obama recalled. “When we started planning the rally for the trustees’ meeting, and somebody suggested that I open the thing, I quickly agreed. I figured I was ready.” Obama’s speech was planned as a carefully rehearsed piece of street theater—two white students dressed in paramilitary uniforms dragged him off before he could finish to dramatize what often happened to South African activists. “They started yanking me off the stage, and I was supposed to act like I was trying to break free, except a part of me wasn’t acting, I really wanted to stay up there … I had so much left to say.”
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JOHNSON STUDENT CENTER The Cooler—a coffee shop and student hangout—was on the ground floor of the Johnson Student Center when Obama was a student. It was there that Lisa Jack ’81, then an aspiring photographer, first met him in the spring of 1980 and asked the “cute” freshman to pose for her as part of her photography class with English and comparative literary studies professor Dan Fineman. The negatives then sat unnoticed in her basement for years until the 2008, presidential campaign, when she went down and dug them out. Jack’s images first appeared in Time in December 2008 when the newsmagazine proclaimed Obama its “Person of the Year.”
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Originally a men’s dormitory before its conversion to offices in 1960, Swan Hall was home to Jack Kemp ’57.
SWAN HALL
During his sophomore year, Obama took a creative writing course with English assistant professor David James that met twice a week in Room 200 of Swan Hall. James “was good at prompting us to drop our pretentions and write about something authentic,” remembers Margot Mifflin ’82. Obama published his poetry in in the spring 1981 issue of Feast, the student literary magazine, including “Pop,” seemingly about his relationship with his grandfather. Sitting in his seat, a seat broad and broken In, sprinkled with ashes, Pop switches channels, takes another Shot of Seagrams, neat, and asks What to do with me, a green young man Who fails to consider the Flim and flam of the world, since Things have been easy for me “The class liked it for its honest ambivalence and because it was so unabashedly personal,” says Mifflin. “It was also our first window into his unconventional family life.”
5 RUSH GYMNASIUM As a high school senior at Punahou School in Honolulu, Obama was a member of the basketball team that won the Hawai’i state championship. Although he did not play on the intercollegiate level at Occidental, he was a regular at the lunchtime pick-up games played by students and faculty in Rush Gym. Obama was always conscious of what was going on around him, remembers Kent Goss ’83, who played on the JV team his freshman year. “He saw the court well. He shared the ball. And he wasn’t afraid to go to the hoop.” Eric Newhall ’67, professor of English and comparative literary studies, also played with the future president in those “noonball” games. “I think Occidental’s greatest contribution to American politics lies in persuading Barack Obama that his future did not lie in basketball,” Newhall says.
Rush Gymnasium is named after 1909 graduate Frank “Speedy” Rush, Oxy track star and longtime trustee.
THE OBAMA EFFECT
The Oxy campus exploded with excitement in November 2008 when the presidential elections were announced. President Obama’s leadership and public service ethos have had a lasting effect at Occidental, which is justifiably proud of the fact that it is one of just three colleges west of the Rockies to produce a U.S. president. Inspired by his example, Occidental alumni, parents and friends of the College have raised millions of dollars to create the Barack Obama Scholars Program to empower exceptional students committed to the public good. “My years at Occidental sparked my interest in social and political causes, and filled me with the idea that my voice could make a difference,” says President Obama. “And throughout my time in public service, I’ve tried to use my voice to bring people together, in common effort, around the idea that we could give every young person in America the chance that America gave me.” “That’s why I’m so humbled by the Barack Obama Scholars Program at Oxy, and proud of its mission to identify promising young people from all backgrounds—with an emphasis on firstgeneration students, our veterans, and community college transfers—not only to give them access to higher education, but to train the next generation of leaders and active citizens, and fill them with the conviction that they too can change the world.” Obama Scholars receive a loan-free financial package covering tuition, room, board, books and other expenses, including travel. This fully funded program provides students with the opportunity to pursue a path in any field of study Occidental offers as well as programs outside the classroom that support their ambition to make a difference. For more information, go to obamascholars.oxy.edu.
FOR MORE READING: “Occidental recalls ‘Barry’ Obama,” Los Angeles Times, Jan. 29, 2007 Commencement speech, Wesleyan University, May 25, 2008 wesleyan.edu/newsrel/announcements/rc_2008/obama_speech.html “When ‘Barry’ Became Barack,” Newsweek, March 31, 2008 “The Long-Lost Negatives,” Time, Jan. 5, 2009 Barack Obama, Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. New York: Times Books, 1995 David Remnick, The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010 David Maraniss, Barack Obama: The Story. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2012
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