SNC proud to host politicians Diverse perspectives sought despite complaints over Clark, Bush daughter visits By Anna Krejci News-Chronicle National and state political figures converged upon St. Norbert College campus in De Pere last week, provoking biting and laudatory comments from the public. On Tuesday former NATO Commander Gen. Wesley Clark spoke about foreign policy and criticized the president's handling of it. Wednesday, President Bush's daughters appeared at a Bush-Cheney campaign phone bank on campus to garner more votes for their father on Nov. 2. And Saturday, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Tim Michels spoke on the campus he had attended in the 1980s. In the same week, an anti-abortion activist attending a Priests for Life speech publicly urged fellow activists to tell St. Norbert College they are unhappy the college hosts speakers, namely Clark, whose pro-choice beliefs on abortion are inconsistent with the school's Catholic tradition. By the following day the school had received seven phone calls launching complaints against the school for hosting Clark, who ran for president on a pro-choice platform. Clark, as an early contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, opposed a ban on late-term abortions passed by Congress in 2003 because it contained vague language on protecting the life of the mother, and Clark said he would work to discontinue a ban prohibiting federal funding for abortions. Bridget Krage O'Connor, associate vice president of communications at SNC, said the comments against Clark have been accompanied by calls from people criticizing the visit of Bush's daughters because of Bush's capital punishment background. "The Tidings," a weekly publication of the Los Angeles Archdiocese, quoted Frank McNeirney, director of Catholics Against Capital Punishment, identifying Bush as more pro-death penalty than his Democratic opponent. The article cites that Bush was governor of Texas during 152 executions and has sat as president during three federal level executions, the first since 1963. Given the complaints, Krage O'Connor emphasized that the positive response outnumbers the negative comments. Both the Clark and Bush daughters' visits were initiated by the political parties' representatives, and both College Republicans and College Democrats have been requesting speakers' visits, she said. "It starts with our students," she said. The school's mission is to expose students to various perspectives, encouraging them to form their own opinions. The college does not endorse any of the speakers, Krage O'Connor said. Callers are praising the college for the attention it is attracting through visits from national political figures. Some people are pleased that there is political discussion on campus and hope the visits will translate into high voter turnout, Krage O'Connor said. "The exciting thing is that dialogue is occurring," she added. St. Norbert College president, William J. Hynes, said complaints extend to the by-invitation-only nature of many of the political visits. Republican and Democratic parties are operating in the same way, he said. In regard to banning certain speakers based on the content of their messages, Hynes said, "We try to assure that our students hear a wide range of opinions; so, at this point we respect people who like us to not have certain speakers, but quite frankly, if we listen to them, we would have no speakers." People learn substantially when ideas are challenged, and now it seems that people from different political parties are not listening to each other, Hynes said. "They want to sort of pre-reject people," he said. Krage O'Conner said part of the school's mission is to encourage students to be politically active and make a difference in their communities.