Outside Speaker Reflection 2

As my second outside speaker lecture, I attended a lecture that was presented as part of the Darrell M. West Lecture in American Politics and the Congress to Campus Program. The two speakers were former Congressmen Steven T. Kuykendall and Lincoln Davis. Kuykendall was a Republican representative from California from 1999-2001 and Davis was a Democratic representative from Tennessee from 2003-2011.

I had mixed feelings about the event. It was nice in that it was in a small room and not many people were there, so it felt very informal, but I also didn’t particularly care for it for the same reasons. I felt that it should have been more formal since they are former Congressmen, so I felt that it was somewhat odd that it wasn’t.

As for the effectiveness of the speakers, I felt that Congressman Davis was more effective than Congressman Kuykendall. Now, part of this could be because I am not a political science major and Kuykendall catered his speech more towards the political science majors. Davis, on the other hand, did not cater his speech to the political science majors and it was easier for me to focus and pay attention to his speech. So while I understand why Kuykendall did this, as the room was full of political science majors and professors, I personally did not feel he was as effective since I kept zoning out during his presentation since I didn’t understand some of the terms he was using.

I learned that establishing common ground really is important. Congressman Davis did a fantastic job of establishing common ground and he was personable, but I felt that Congressman Kuykendall didn’t even attempt to establish any form of common ground. Now again, this could be just because of the fact that I’m not a political science major, but I still feel that he could have done a better job.