The Chronicle of Higher Education Convention Weblog, SEPTEMBER 2, 1:05 P.M. -- Just imagine the look of surprise on the face of Joe Piscopo, the former Saturday Night Live star who is considering running for governor of New Jersey, when his chauffeur on Sunday appeared in the form of a college student.
In fact, a college student in a rented Chevy Impala sporting a silvery-goldish exterior.
Jason Taormina, Mr. Piscopo's driver and a fifth-year student majoring in electrical engineering at the Stevens Institute of Technology, could envision the celebrity's reaction. "It's like, 'Yes, I've arrived,'" Taormina joked.
He said the chauffeuring experience was a highlight of his two weeks here working for the Republican National Convention as part of a program run by the Washington Center for Internships and Academic Seminars. And he won't hold it against Piscopo that he went to bed around 9 p.m. on Sunday, calling it a night earlier than Taormina had hoped.
"He ditched you," chimed in Ester Lopez, another participant in the Washington Center program and a junior majoring in social work at Utah State University. "We heard about it all night."
The students are among 185 in the program who are working the convention and staying in dormitories at Pace University. The center also ran a program at the Democratic National Convention, in Boston in July.
Beyond rubbing shoulders with celebrities, the participants actually receive college credit -- typically two to four semester hours' worth, depending on their institution -- for keeping journals, conducting interviews, and completing other assignments while they are performing volunteer work at the convention.
The students end up doing such things as helping news-media organizations that are covering the convention or giving directions to visitors to the convention on behalf of the New York City host committee.
Such work proved a natural fit for Lopez, who was stationed outside of C-SPAN's center of operations in the Farley Building, adjacent to Madison Square Garden and temporary home for much of the news media here.
"I was talking with the media, the Secret Service, the cops, everybody who walked by," she said, adding excitedly that one security guard gave her a gold coin from the Navy. "I made a point to talk to all of them."
"I can see that, I can see that," laughed Robin Lee, director of the Career Development Center at California State University at Long Beach. She is serving as a faculty leader for Taormina, Lopez, and other students here.
Being a Democrat -- a fact she somewhat sheepishly admits to her Republican-minded students ("she plays along well, though," Taormina concedes) -- has made this a "really, really interesting" experience for Lee, she said. "It's been interesting to probe their minds," she said of the students. "We've had some really good conversations."
In a program designed to give students lessons best learned outside of the classroom, Crystal Banning got even more than she bargained for.
Banning, another of Lee's charges and a senior political-science major at the University of Tampa, said she quickly learned to keep a low profile, and her convention credentials hidden, when walking the streets.
She said she was taunted and booed getting off a train in New Jersey and passing through Times Square. And then, when she was shopping in the official store for Republican paraphernalia at the New York Hilton Hotel, her credentials were stolen.
But not all was lost. Banning said she has had a good time, highlighted by hearing the first lady, Laura Bush, and her twin daughters speak at a lunch. "I thought Laura Bush was really great," she said.
And the twins?
"They actually did well," she said. "I was surprised." Click Here for Article Source
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