On Day Three of SPS, the SPS 2011 class fanned out to four different locations in Washington, D.C. for four quintessential D.C. experiences:
- At 8:00 am, a dozen students, accompanied by SPS faculty members Mr. Eagles and Ms. Basta, were off to Capitol Hill to attend a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the U.S. involvement in Libya in the context of the War Powers Act. (We weren't the only ones at the hearing--the The New York Times was there too. Click here for a link to the Times article about hearing.) The SPS group has checked in -- after lunch on the Hill, they are going back to hear the Committee's mark-up session.
- Also at 8:00 am, a group headed off to an event hosted by one of D.C.'s premier "think tanks," the Brookings Institution: "PhDs, Policies and Patents: Innovation and America's future." (Click here for a link to the Brookings Institutions description of the event.) Led by James, our Program Assistant who is a Princeton engineering major, and Shawn, our intern from Vanderbilt U., they are on their way back to St. Albans now for lunch.
- Our third departure of the day, at 8:30 am, sent approximately 8 SPS 2011 students to the Woodrow Wilson Center to attend a panel discussion entitled: "An Israeli-Palestinian Agreement? What's possible and What Isn't." (Click here for a link to the Wilson Center's description of the event.) As the above photo shows, our group followed the discussion intently!
- The last departure of the morning, at 8:45 am, sent some of the class to another Brookings Institution event: "How Social Networking Can Reinvigorate American Democracy and Civic Participation." (Click here for a link to the Brookings Institution's description of the event.) Proving that not ALL networking has to be electronic, our SPS trip leader, Helen, found out she knew one of the organizers who then spoke privately to our SPS group.
After a busy morning, there's more to come: this afternoon we will split into case study groups for "The Case of the Jailhouse Lawyer," a case study that uses the famous Gideon v. Wainwright Supreme Court case as a vehicle for exploring the mechanisms of the American justice system. (This will set up SPS 2011 nicely for tomorrow's big event: a mock Supreme Court argument of a case from the U.S. Supreme Court's current term.) And just to make sure everyone is REALLY tired and goes to sleep early in the dorm, after dinner the group will go on a twilight tour of the Monuments on the National Mall.
