Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) spoke at the university on Monday, serving as the opening speaker in the School of Urban Affairs and Public Policy’s spring seminar series, Contemporary Issues in Public Administration.
Students, faculty, staff and community members listened to Carper in the Center for Composite Materials as he discussed current issues surrounding the federal budget deficit including the tax gap, the future of America’s interest rates and entitlement programs such as Medicaid and Medicare, as well as ways to reduce costs in energy use, weapons and information technology.
Carper, a university alumnus, also discussed the importance of having a set of core values as a guide.
“I always tell my staff members, ‘If it’s not already perfect, make it better,’ ” he said. “And that’s a core value.”
Carper spoke of the importance of not giving up when one knows he or she is right.
“Regardless of what you decide to do as a career,” Carper said, “keep in mind that in adversity lies opportunity.”
Carper told of how he started his career in politics stuffing envelopes, a job, he said, not many would see much future in. Two years later, when no one wanted to run for state treasurer, he got the job.
“And the rest is history,” he said. “I saw some opportunities that nobody else wanted to take advantage of. I said, ‘I think I’ll do that,’ and it worked out pretty well.”
Edward Freel, a policy scientist at the Institute for Public Administration and instructor for the School of Urban Affairs, said this is the ninth year the school has offered the seminar series, a one-credit course listed as UAPP 658.
“The course is designed not only to allow students to hear presentations from a group of highly-respected individuals from a variety of different public policy and public administration fields, but also to learn about current issues in those fields and interact with them in relatively informal discussions,” Freel said.
Jennifer Price, a graduate student at the university working on her master’s degree in public administration, said she took the class as an elective to gain more understanding about the current issues in the field.
“I think it’s really interesting how there are so many unrelated topics and issues that senators and congressmen have their hands in at any given moment,” Price said. “It was great to hear [Carper] talk about all the different issues that he’s had some sort of impact on or that he’s involved with.”
There are seven other guests scheduled to speak in the series. State Bank Commissioner Robert Glen will speak on March 2.
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