Traveling in Virginia this week

My colleague Kenneth and I have been traveling through the Commonwealth of Virginia this week. We started out by driving down to Fredericksburg, where we met up with Andrew Lamar, the state chairman of the Virginia Federation of College Republicans. Andrew is a great guy, very personable and very well-connected around the state. He traveled with us down to the University of Richmond, where we met with some of the leadership of the College Republicans there and also set up a table on campus for about 2 hours, doing outreach to students for ISI.

Later that evening, we traveled back to Fredericksburg to Andrew's campus, the University of Mary Washington, where we did a "Get to Know ISI" soiree with about 25 conservative students. It was a blast and it functioned as a happy hour-style event at a local pub.

On Tuesday, we traveled down to Charlottesville and met with a variety of students and professors involved with ISI, including the ISI Group, the Network for Enlightened Women (N.E.W.) and the Collegiate Network paper, The Virginia Advocate. We met up with these students to discuss ideas of what they and ISI have planned for the UVA campus in the upcoming year. They are all very motivated students. We also met with some of the leadership of the College Republicans at UVA to help get them more involved with ISI as well.

Later that evening, Kenneth and I drove out to Harrisonburg, VA (just west of the Shenandoah Mountains) and met with a great group of students at James Madison University. First of all, what better name for an American university is there than James Madison University? The dinner included 2 ISI student campus representatives, a few College Republicans, 2 students from the "Dukes for Life" as well as the editor of the Collegiate Network paper, The Madison Review. They all have really enjoyed most of their experience at JMU.

All of these students are now more excited about ISI and after meeting them, Kenneth and I are more excited to work with them in the future. We leave these meetings more energized to do the work of ISI, especially when we go around to campuses like UVA and see all the politically correct sensitivity signs everywhere... but the remnants of Western Civilization are alive and well. They may only be remnants, but they are keeping the traditions of America alive in the Old Dominion.