By: Rebecca Nasca
Posted In: News
Photo credit: nytimes.com
Senator Pell
Rarely can you find a politician who embodies a truly personable and giving nature. Rarely do students of Salve realize the effect one such politician had on their campus. Sen. Claiborne Pell was both a politician and benefactor of Salve Regina University. While his recent death at the age of 90 made the news on CNN and in the New York Times, the students of Salve should also recognize him for the special opportunities he gave to the university.
Quiet reminders of his work will remain on the campus for years to come. The Pell Center and honors program which bear his name were inspired by him, “to encourage international dialogue to achieve a more peaceful world and preparing citizens for an informed and active role in local, national and world affairs,” according to a SalveToday release. The center carries out this mission by inviting lecturers from across the political spectrum to share their expertise with both the Salve and the local community. In addition to these opportunities open to the wider community, the Pell Honors program gives a select group of students the chance to broaden their social and political views through several classes designed to explorer the role of the citizen in the greater world. For example, a class entitled “Genocide and the Responsibility to Act,” offered in the fall of 2008, challenged students to study the origins of genocide and question the reasons why the world’s most powerful nations fail to intervene. Though these institutions will most likely serve as a reminder to many future generations of students at Salve, the past opportunities which the university has had thanks to Sen. Pell are probably innumerable. Most notable, however, would be a visit by his holiness the Dalai Lama on November 17, 2005. A friend to Sen. Pell, the Dalai Lama came to the university to give a lecture, an event orchestrated through the efforts of the senator himself. According to SalveToday, Sen. Pell, driven by this close friendship, established many programs during his post as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to assist the Tibetan people such as the Fulbright scholarships, VOA Tibetan language service and other assistance to refugees of Tibet.
