Professor vs. professor — Randolph-Macon catches election fever

A small liberal arts college in a typically placid Virginia town is buzzing with talk about the ballot box as two professors there vie for the House seat most recently held by former Rep. Eric Cantor (R).

Dave Brat, an economics professor at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, about 90 miles south of Washington, stunned political pundits when he beat the House majority leader in the Republican primary back in June. Brat faces off against Democrat Jack Trammell, a colleague who teaches sociology and directs the disability support services department at the 1,400-student school.

{mosads}“I don’t believe this has ever happened before,” says Dr. Lauren Bell, Randolph-Macon’s dean of academic affairs, of the school hosting not one, but two, House hopefuls. “It is certainly unusual for college faculty to run to begin with,” the political science professor, who knows both candidates, says. “For a university system or a [school] like the size of our own, it’s most certainly unprecedented.”
 
Now, according to students and faculty, instead of competing for entry into football games or the hottest party, freshmen and seniors alike are competing for a highly coveted ticket to … a political debate. A lottery system was devised to dole out tickets to Tuesday’s debate between the 7th Congressional District candidates.
 
“The students seemed pretty excited and actually bummed out if they didn’t get a ticket to see the debate live,” political science major Elliot Meyer says. “We have had student tables, banners, [and] flyers” decorate the campus.
 
Randolph-Macon has had a long history of political engagement staffers say — Rep. Randy Forbes (R-Va.) is among its alumni.

But, “This feels different to me,” Bell says about the atmosphere around campus. “The students are talking about the election, and every time I go into the student center, one student group or another is holding a voter registration drive, which is something I haven’t seen before.”
 
There’s been an added bonus for 21-year-old Meyer. “For the past three years, when [people] ask me where I go to school, and I say, ‘I go to Randolph-Macon College,’ I have to add this small disclaimer: ‘It’s this small liberal arts school just north of Richmond in Virginia,’ kind of thing,” he says. “But, now I can say I go to Randolph-Macon and now people go, ‘Oh, that’s where David Brat came from!’ Or, ‘Yeah, I saw your school on ‘The Colbert Report.’ ”
 
While Bell, who describes both candidates as her friends, says “everyone has written this race off” as being a surefire win for Brat, she expects “this race is going to be closer than people seem to think.” She and several of her colleagues are doing their best not to pick sides in the congressional showdown.

“Knowing both 15 or 16 years, they are good people,” she says. “It’s hard to say I want one or the other.”
 
Randolph-Macon President Robert Lindgren, echoes the sentiment, saying, “We have tried to be as neutral and right down the line as possibly as we can be.”
 
And how does Lindgren feel knowing he’s nearly guaranteed to lose one of his professors to a job at the Capitol come next week?
 
He quickly replies, “To be thinking about losing them is not really as important as what this country, and what Virginia, and this district is going to gain to have one of either of them for a representative.”