Exon. - Exeter College - University of Oxford

COLLEGE NEWS
Monuments and Politics in America
Six weeks to discover North America and only a page to describe it in: our Travel Scholar takes us through
her hectic itinerary.
By Ursula Hackett (2006, PPE)
Last summer I travelled through or
visited 21 American states and
four Canadian provinces over 46 days.
I visited 10 cities, met 16 alumni (and
was introduced to 11 children and 14
pets). I was taken out to dinner 16 times;
went on four hikes and rode three
different bikes, each in a different
time zone.
How did I manage to do this
Through Exeter’s North American Travel
Scholarship, which allows one student
per year to travel across the United
States and Canada, hosted by Exeter’s
alumni. I have had a trip of a lifetime.
Exeter’s alumni were very generous:
after I had submitted my plans I
was overwhelmed with offers of
hospitality from locations right across
North America.
Such an exciting and ambitious trip
resists précis, but I’ll give it a go. On my
first ever foray outside Europe I have
seen the Statue of Liberty, Niagara Falls,
the White House, the United Nations,
Mt St Helens, Harvard, Alcatraz, the
Golden Gate Bridge, the Empire State
Building, Little Bighorn Battlefield, and
many more monuments of national
importance. The trip was a series of
exciting and memorable experiences,
many facilitated by generous alumni,
that do not appear in guidebooks for the
casual tourist: I took a three-day train
ride through the Canadian wilderness,
went wine-tasting in Oregon, tried bison
tongue in Colorado, had a guided tour
around New York’s old tenements and
watched hawks over Devil’s Lake.
I paddled in the Pacific, took lunch at
a Torontoan yacht club, hiked in the
Beartooth Mountains and by Montnoma
Waterfall, watched a Sky Sox baseball
game and cycled along Vancouver’s
sea wall.
“I was taken out to
dinner 16 times; went
on four hikes and rode
three different bikes,
each in a different
time zone.”
There were moments of humour, such
as watching the Democratic Convention
with Republican hosts, and listening to
the Republican Convention with
Democrat hosts. The many, very
stimulating, discussions with alumni of
all political affiliations provided me with
plenty to consider on the long plane
journeys. I spent time with canvassers at
the Democrat headquarters in Colorado
and I interned at the San Francisco Bike
Coalition. In Montana, I gave a talk
on Exeter College to potential Rhodes
scholarship students at Rocky Mountain
College, and then went in the following
day to talk about Philosophy at Oxford.
Last year was a particularly important
one for American politics. As a politics
student it was fantastic to be travelling
around the US in the final weeks before
the National Conventions, during the
Conventions themselves, and just as the
Presidential, Senatorial and House
candidates turned towards the swing
states to step up their campaigns before
the autumn. It was fascinating to see the
Democratic field campaign, which
became so important to the election.
I loved walking through the streets of
Denver as it buzzed with National
Convention fever, encountering the
media and security personnel, enjoying
fringe events and spotting delegates,
including famous legislators.
I found it quite a challenge to write
this article because there is just too
much to include. It is difficult to make it
more than a list but, as anyone who is
unguarded enough to ask me how I got
on in the summer learns, each item, and
every single one of the 2,000 photos I
snapped, carries a story.
With thanks to Jim and Karen Prust; Dr
Herb Werlin and Myrna Seidman; Prof
David Hicks and Maxine Hicks; Hannah
Gray; Diane Reis; Derek and Norma
Jenkin; John and Elaine Perry; Rachel and
John Launchbury; Bill Rivers and Rita
Rodriguez; Scott and Jody Nycum; Lee and
Sue Mickus; Henry Burton; Victoria and
John Cech.
8 EXON Autumn 2009 www.exeter.ox.ac.uk/alumni