Obama's academia past

By: Janhavi Purohit

Posted: 4/4/08

Sen. Barack Obama's experiences in the classroom will help him greatly in his campaign and potentially in the White House, according to Chapin Cimino Cody, an associate professor at the College of Law and a former student of Obama.

Cody, who took a seminar on "Race and the Law" at the University of Chicago Law School with Obama, said the class allowed students to see a more personal side of Obama.

According to Cody, the class was relatively small, and provided plenty of opportunity for discussion between then-professor Obama and his students.

"A seminar in law school means it was about 12 people," Cody said. "Taking the class gave me a lot of insight into the way he thinks and interacts with people, as well as his judgment, and I got to see that up close. … Because of watching him work at that close proximity, I have always really believed in his judgment. He could talk about sensitive issues without pushing his view, he always questioned us to articulate why we held our views."

Cody said Obama's experience teaching small groups will be beneficial in terms of his presidency.

"You have to facilitate both the interaction of the people in the group and their interaction with the material, and that's not easy," Cody said. "Not to say that every good teacher would be a politician, but in respect to Obama and the way he works with people, I think he's gifted."

According to Cody, Obama was a good teacher not only in his ability to help his students connect with material, but also in his ability to engage students in debate, as well as his manner of handling the class in general.

"He never imposed his view of the world, and that's hard to do in a politically-charge class, which is why I have this sense, overall, of him as a teacher being very thoughtful and challenging us only in the sense of forcing us to articulate why it is we held the views we did," Cody said.

Cody gave one example of a class in which the topic was legislative intent, a "very difficult question."

"I'm sure he disagreed with me, but the way he handled it was to get me to explain why I thought what I thought," Cody said.
Cody said in her personal experience with politics, she realized there is more to electing a president than simply electing the individual Head of State.

"I did a month-long internship on Capitol Hill, in a U.S. senator's office. You realize you're not really electing a candidate; you're electing a staff, and working with [Obama] made me realize he has the judgment to surround himself with good people," Cody said.

Cody is currently involved in the Obama campaign as a volunteer.
"I'm a total Obama supporter, and I've believed in his candidacy from the beginning," Cody said. "He inspires a lot of confidence to work through difficult interactions with lots of different kinds of interest to bring them together."

Cody added that she looks for certain qualities in a presidential candidate, and Obama fulfilled them.

"He's so welcoming, thoughtful and open, but also willing to challenge, exactly the kind of things you'd want to see in someone sitting in the Oval Office, facing a challenge," Cody said.

Another former student, Philadelphia attorney Adam Bonin, is also involved in Obama's campaign. Bonin consults with the campaign and has provided assistance in a variety of areas, including internet politics and isolated legal issues.

According to Bonin, Obama has not changed since his years as a law school professor.
"What is remarkable for me, and maybe not so remarkable, is that the person I see now running for president is in many ways the same person who was my professor in law school," Bonin said." Someone who was not afraid of being smart and challenging his students, someone who was incredibly open to different points of view, and someone who gave his absolute commitment in the classroom. Even with everything that was going on with him, I guess at the time he was running for his first Senate race, he cared very much about his students and about being available to mentor students outside of class."

Bonin agreed that having experience as a professor was beneficial to Obama's campaign.

"It's a unique advantage for Barack Obama as former Professor Obama to have hundreds of former students around the country who are willing to, and eager to, speak about their personal experiences with him," Bonin said. "Especially those of us who took seminars with him got to know him very well and very personally."

According to Bonin, the "unique" experience of working at the University of Chicago Law School was also a beneficial factor for Obama for other reasons as well.

"It is by far the most conservative of America's major law schools," Bonin said. "[Obama] is somebody who is used to people who hold conservative viewpoints, of treating them with respect and of listening to them. That is an ability that will take him as far as President. There's a certain level of humility that comes from being in academia, from knowing there are other brilliant people out there who have all the answers."

Obama is facing off against Sen. Hilary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination. Pennsylvania voters will go to the polls April 22 to vote in the state's primary election.