A tale of two cities

Ralph Reed 91PhD makes a point during a panel discussion on the 2008 election held October 16 in Atlanta. Reed shared the stage with Andra Gillespie, assistant professor of political science, and former U.S. Sen. Wyche Fowler 69L (D-GA). Click here for a slide show of the event.

Emory faculty members Robert Shapiro, J.B. Kurish, Art Kellermann 80M, and Merle Black (left to right) provided the New York Chapter of Emory Alumni with expert viewpoints on the The 2008 Elections as part of the EAA's Faculty Destinations speaker series. Click here for a slide show from the event and click here to access the podcast on Emory's iTunes U site. The iTunes program is required and the podcast can be found in the Emory Election Experts album.

October 16 was a pretty big day for Emory alumni in two of the University’s largest markets. In New York, more than 150 alumni came out to listen to four Emory professors dissect the 2008 election. While in Atlanta, an alumni panel featuring a former U.S. senator (Wyche Fowler 69L) and the former executive director of the Christian Coalition (Ralph Reed 91PhD) tackled that same subject for 100 more guests.
           
The Atlanta panel, which also featured Andra Gillespie, assistant professor of political science, included not just conversation on issues of the election, but the alumni panelists also discussed how Emory played an integral role in their lives.
           
Reed talked about how the broadness and depth of his Emory education (he earned his doctorate during his eight-year stint at executive director of the Christian Coalition) helped prepare him for his successes that would come later, such as his ascension to the chair of the Georgia Republican Party.
           
Fowler, too, said his Emory experience contributed his professional journey, which included not just a seat in the U.S. Senate but an ambassadorship to Saudi Arabia.
           
The event took place one day after the final presidential debate, which made the pairing of a prominent Democrat (Fowler) and Republican (Reed) even more compelling. Several of the audience’s questions concerned the panelists’ opinions on the election, and the answers were refreshingly non-partisan.
           
While the alumni in Atlanta discussed their first-hand political experience, the Emory faculty in New York, approached the current political landscape from multiple research angles: political science, medicine, business, and law.
           
Faculty Destinations: New York, The 2008 Elections featured Merle Black, Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Politics and Government; Art Kellermann 80M, associate dean for health policy and professor of emergency medicine in the School of Medicine; J.B. Kurish, associate dean of the full-time MBA Program and associate professor of finance in Goizueta Business School; and Robert Schapiro, professor of law and associate faculty director of Emory’s Claus M. Halle Institute for Global Learning.
           
With a quartet of panelists, the New York event was the largest in the history of the EAA’s Destinations speaker series, but it was far from cluttered. The four panelists deftly played off each other's comments, frequently taking a single issue—like the importance of the youth vote—and analyzing it through the lens of their expertise.
           
Kellermann’s points on fixing the country’s health care system struck a particular chord with the audience, who applauded him several times. He said that attention must be paid not just to care and insurance coverage, but also to cost and efficiency, adding that there are models to emulate.
           
“If everybody in the country practiced medicine as efficiently as they do in Rochester, Minnesota [home of the Mayo Clinic, one of the most effective and inexpensive health care systems in the country, Kellermann said later], we could cut payments to doctors, like me, and hospitals by 30 percent and people would get better care.”—Eric Rangus