Students anticipate Obama's Richmond visit

Wednesday's announcement that President Barack Obama would be making a speech at the Robins Center Friday morning sent campus into a frenzy and released a wave of opinions. But through the multitude of varying opinions, one thing left a number stunned:

Why did Obama choose the University of Richmond to hold an address?

"When I first heard it, I couldn't believe it," senior Will Gordon said. "I was wondering why the president would come here."

Although his decision was surprising to some students, many students were excited to be able to see the president in person. His speech, which begins around 11:35 a.m. Friday, is expected to be about his job creation plan.

"It's interesting to hear him talk about our generation," Alice Chang, a junior business administration major, said. She said she planned to take the day off from her job as a recruiter for the U.S. Army to attend the speech.

Brian Eckert, the University of Richmond's director of media and communication, said that every student that wanted to attend the event would be able to get tickets. Tickets, which are free, are available for pickup by students at the Events-Conferences Office in the Physical Plant Building from 8:30 a.m. until 6 p.m. Thursday.

One student who said he planned to attend the speech was Yigit Aytan, a senior from Turkey. Even though he is not from the United States, he said that he still expected the speech to have an impact on his life.

"I hope that his speech will also mention some of the current international issues as well as national issues," Aytan said. "But other than that, I think him coming is just as important to international students as American students. I think that everything that he is going to mention will tie into our lives as well."

Although a public announcement was not made until Wednesday, news of Obama's appearance started circulating to some students early this week.

One such student who heard about the speech before the official announcement was junior Casey Glick. He said that hearing about it unofficially had lessened the impact that Wednesday's announcement had.

"I heard about if fairly early, on Tuesday, and at that point, I heard if from multiple sources and they seemed to be fairly credible," Glick said. "So I just assumed it would happen."

Besides getting the official email from University of Richmond President Ed Ayers, some students were tipped via an email sent from Richmond College Dean Joe Boehman. Boehman sent an email Wednesday morning to attendees of the "It ends now" T-shirt campaign- a campus initiative to increase awareness of sexual and relationship violence -- which was scheduled to launch on Friday.

But Boehman cancelled that initiative when news of Obama's visit was circulated.

"We want the message of the "It ends now" T-shirts to have the greatest impact possible," Boehman's email read. "We don't want it to be the second story of the day on campus. So, we decided that we will postpone the project one week."

The news of Obama's visit quickly spread to Richmond students studying abroad in part due to Facebook posts. Shelby Longland, a junior studying in Lille, France, heard about it this way.

When she told her host family in France about the president's visit, they were also amazed at his selection to visit Richmond. Not being able to attend the event left Longland with some sadness.

"The one time you go abroad, he comes," Longland said. She said she talked to some of her friends who were studying abroad in Sweden and Belgium, who also said that they were disappointed to miss this opportunity.

Friday classes have not been canceled for students, but some teachers have decided to cancel their classes. Unfortunately for sophomore Jonathan Perez, his Friday morning class was not canceled.

That did not deter him from missing the opportunity to see Obama. He said that he planned to skip his class because it was "a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."

Although Eckert said that the message of Obama's speech would be directed to the American public as a whole, senior Laura Berry said that she hoped that he would address students in some way.

"It should be interesting to hear what he's going to address regarding the college student demographic and the state of economic recovery and jobs," Berry said. "Since we will be graduating very soon, it's very relevant."

Contact staff writers Andrew Prezioso at andrew.prezioso@richmond.edu and Keon Monroe at keon.monroe@richmond.edu