• Former President Barack Obama answered questions from Hamilton College President Stephen Tepper Thursday evening as part of the college’s Sacerdote Great Speakers series.
• The campus community of students, faculty, staff, alumni and parents snapped up the 5,400 free tickets and waited in long lines to pass through tight security to enter the college’s field house.

Former President Barack Obama gave his audience the words that many longed to hear at the end of his talk on Thursday evening at Hamilton College in Clinton: “It’s going to be OK.”

Obama sat on stage in the Margaret Bundy Scott Field House and answered questions from college President Steven Tepper for an hour and 12 minutes, 12 minutes longer than he had promised given the plane he needed to catch.

Obama did not mention President Donald Trump by name, only once referring to “my most immediate successor” in the White House.

Obama was at times funny, profound, personal, insightful and even lost for words for a moment or two as he tried to gather his thoughts. There were no short answers to questions, but explanations that began on track, seemed to wander and then came back to tie everything together.

He reflected on his years in office, talked about global issues, warned of the changes artificial intelligence is bringing and shared his perspective on the polarization of American citizens.

And he talked about values and the importance of standing up for them. He talked about the need to keep striving even when things don’t work out right away.

He also reassured his audience that hard work and standing up for their values will have an impact.

“So yeah, don’t get discouraged,” he said before his closing line. “I know it’s a little crazy right now. But it’s going to be OK.”

Beacon of hope

His audience of about 5,150 college students, faculty, staff, alumni, parents, a few area residents who know people on campus and a few VIPs invited by the college greeted those words with deafening applause and a standing ovation. Tepper said he thought, given the number of tickets handed out, that just about every student was in attendance.

While waiting in long lines stretching across the campus to enter the event, person after person said they wanted Obama to inspire them; they wanted him to give him hope.

“We need some hope in these times,” said student Kazma Bright, of Columbia Heights, Minnesota. “So inspiring hope would be nice.”

“Hope. I hope he gives us some hope, tells us how we’re going to rally,” agreed Oskar Saville, the mother of a Hamilton College who came up from New York City with another daughter.

“I think if there’s anybody in this country who might be able to give me a little spark of hope, it’s President Obama,” said Tobi Hay, of Plattsburgh, the mother of a student and wife of an alumnus.

After the talk, Tepper said he thinks Obama definitely delivered.

Obama “traversed the valley and the mountaintops,” bringing authenticity to his message by acknowledging the real troubles that exist, something that’s necessary for genuine hope, he said.

“I don’t think that anyone could leave the room without believing that humans have the capacity to overcome,” Tepper said.

Humorous beginning

The job of introducing Obama fell to Student Government Alliance President Anna Gnapp who climbed up on the dais with a little stumble and delivered a poised speech without notes on Obama’s accomplishments as president and on the Sacerdote Great Speakers lecture series that had brought him to campus.

Once she introduced Obama, the crowd erupted into applause and cheers, and its first standing ovation. Obama and Tepper walked out; Obama shook Gnapp’s hand and thanked the crowd.

The noise got louder.

“I’m fired up,” he declared once the thunderous applause finally died out.

Tepper then acknowledged that there were some nerves on the stage. “I just want to say, ‘You don’t have to be nervous,’” he joked to Obama, who responded in kind.

“Thank you,” he said. “Hard act to follow after Anna.”

The crowd applauded again.

Tepper then mentioned a photo bombing incident that had landed Obama back in the news earlier in the week. On Monday, as a professional photographer did a 7 a.m. photo shoot with a family by the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C., under the cherry blossoms at peak bloom, two men wandered into a photo of the couple’s four-year-old daughter and 20-month-old son and kept walking so that they were directly behind the kids in the next photo.

One of the men was Obama, wearing a baseball cap and glasses with his hands shoved deep in his pockets.

“I felt terrible,” Obama said. “I’m not used to walking around. So I screwed that one up.”

In answer to another question, Obama then talked about how he’s spending his time these days: working with the Obama Foundation to train the next generation of world leaders; finishing the second half of his presidential memoirs; and doing fun things to dig himself out of a “deep deficit” with his wife Michelle.

And Obama, as he did throughout the evening, remembered the audience and brought in a higher education perspective. “In case any of you feel sorry for yourselves,” he said to the students sitting up front in the fieldhouse, “this is like 50 term papers … People ask me if I enjoy writing and I say, ‘Absolutely not.’ But I do enjoy having written when it’s done.”

Long lines

The campus community had responded overwhelmingly to the invitation to hear Obama, snapping up all the available tickets and leaving none for the college to offer to the general public, as originally promised.

The campus community had responded overwhelmingly to the invitation to hear Obama. By 3:30 p.m. on Thursday, half an hour before the field house doors opened, the two lines to get in had already started to get long and they continued to grow until about 5:30 p.m. One of the lines ran across the campus and the other started where shuttle buses dropped off people who had parked in Clinton.

Sophomore Olivia Piersall, of Oneida, said her parents had told her they’re stuck on one of the shuttle buses, which was driving in loops while it waited for the line to get shorter before dropping passengers off.

Piersall was waiting near the back of one of the lines, close to when it was at peak length, with two friends, sophomore Mia Piscitani, of Holden, Massachusetts, and senior Gabby Johnson, of Bellingham, Washington.

The length of the line did not faze them.

“As long as we can get into the event, we really don’t care … I would wait in any line to see Obama,” Johnson said.

“You’ll still feel his presence,” Piscitani predicted, “wherever you’re sitting.”

Even farther back in the line, Gary Carrock, the college’s assistant controller, who attended with his wife Christine, took the wait in stride, too.

“We didn’t know how long the line was,” he said when asked why they decided to brave it.

But they would have come even if they’d known, he added.

“It’s hard,” Carrock said, “to pass up a chance to see a past president.:

As the lines got longer, gray clouds covered the sky, but only a few drops splashed down on the umbrella-less crowd. Guidelines for the event has warned attendees that umbrellas, metal water bottles and bags larger than about 8.5” x 5.5” would not be allowed in.

And photography, audio recording and videography were forbidden once Obama entered the field house. The college released two photos of the event taken by an official photographer to the media along with a pre-approved cutline to run under them.

Left out by security

Passing through security was a slow process that took longer than officials had expected. The college had given out 5,400 tickets for the talk, but about 250 people were still standing in line when the program began and government officials, acting according to a required protocol, closed the doors, college officials explained in a statement.

“We understand how frustrating this was for those who had waited so long and were unable to get into the main venue,” the statement continued. “A second overflow viewing area was quickly set up by Hamilton staff and about 200 guests were able to watch the livestream there. 

“We truly regret that this impacted members of our community who were not able to participate in this special event.”

America’s values

Early on, Obama made it clear that he wasn’t there to argue about specific policies enacted by the Trump administration, which he did not name. He acknowledged that he has deep differences of opinion with the current president and he could talk about many policies on which he has strong opinions.

But he wanted to talk about something bigger — the consensus between politicians of all parties for most of Obama’s life that there are rules for how differences get settled and there are bonds that are more important than party, region or ideology, he said.

“And that basic notion of American democracy as embodied in our Constitution and our Bill of Rights said all of us count, all of us have dignity, all of us have worth,” Obama said. “That we’re going to set up a system in which there’s rule of law and separation of power and an independent judiciary. And there are these freedoms — freedom of worship and freedom of the press and an assurance if we go before the law that there will be an impartial process to make decisions.

“And we all stuck to that, more or less.”

But, now the country’s commitment to those principles is eroding, in part due to a big government that feels unresponsive, frustrating rules that aren’t smart, growing diversity, growing economic inequality and attacks on a cornerstone of democracy, the free press, he said.

Obama outlined what he thinks the country needs: “These values of cooperation and rule of law and adherence to facts and hopefulness, optimism about the ability of humans to work together and solve their problems and the belief that we are all God’s children. I know that these days the idea of inclusion has somehow been deemed illegal, but you know, I believe in it.”

The audience applauded.

Obama then mentioned the many kinds of diversity in America — such as people with different skin colors, gender orientations and ways of worshiping God. “(I believe) that they all have worth and that I can communicate with them and cooperate with them,” he added. “We think those are the values worth fighting for.”

International perspective

Senior Deanna Durbien, from Taiwan but an American citizen, and student Chinkhuslen Batbayar, from Mongolia, snagged seats in the seventh row of the field house’s center section. They joined the line at 3:30 p.m., hoping to get good seats, they said.

They would have joined the line even earlier, Durbien said, but they both had class. She heard, though, that some people were in line by noon, she said. 

Even though she grew up outside the United States, Obama is still a familiar figure because she grew up seeing him on the news, Durbien said.

“He feels like almost a fictional character to me … I think it’s going to be crazy to see him on the stage,” she said.

For Batbayar, Obama has been a bit of role model during his time on the debate team, he said. He used to study presidents and how they spoke and debated, he said.

Batbayar said he hoped Obama would address an issue that’s affected him.

Since the Trump administration has begun talking about revoking visas for students who have supported Palestine, Batbayar has, in general, become more cautious about what he says on social media. He’d like to work in the United States after graduation, but the whole process of trying to get a visa and job seems harder now, Batbayar said.

Free speech and colleges

In the end, Obama only addressed this issue of free speech on college campuses, but from an institutional perspective.

“When I watch some of what’s going on now, I don’t think that what we just witnessed in terms of economic policy and tariffs is going to be good for America. But that’s a specific policy,” Obama said.

“I’m more deeply concerned with a federal government that threatens universities if they don’t give up students who are exercising their right to free speech.”

The college audience immediately burst into vigorous applause.

What, Obama asked, if he had done the same sorts of things, threatening economic punishments for anyone who didn’t agree with his policies or deporting foreign students for protesting those policies?

“It’s unimaginable,” he said. “But the same parties that are silent now would not have tolerated behavior like that from me or a whole bunch of my predecessors. And I say this not on a partisan basis. This has to do with something more precious, which is: who are we as a country and what values do we stand for?”

And after the event, Tepper said talked about the relevance of this point to his campus and promised that Hamilton College will not be cowed.

“We’re not doing anything illegal at Hamilton College,” he said. “So we’re going to keep doing tomorrow what we did today.”

Listening to stories

Throughout his talk, Obama kept coming back to the idea that stories are important in the fight for American values.

He was, he said, a terrible speaker at the start of his career, relying on dry facts and information on policies. But then he listened to the people he met and started using their stories to tell a broader story to illustrate his speeches and improved them, Obama said.

Listening is an essential skill for good communicators and for anyone hoping to cooperate and find solutions with people with different perspectives, he said. In forging the Paris Climate Accord, Obama had to understand the perspectives of the leaders of China and India in order to gain their cooperation and find a solution that climate change that would work, he said.

“That’s true of every interaction we have with people,” Obama said.

But in today’s world, everyone lives in siloed communities online “and all they’re doing is reinforcing over and over again the ideas that everybody agrees with,” Obama said. And online, it’s easy to attack anyone who strays from the site’s orthodoxy because the person can’t punch you and you can’t see that you’ve hurt someone, he said.

Even things like Doordash increase the isolation by taking away chance encounters with workers who might end up giving us some perspective, he said.

People need to talk to each other, to work together in the real world and to hear each others’ stories to break down the polarization and rebuilt trust, he said.

‘Up to all of us to fix this’

“It is up to all of us to fix this,” Obama added to applause. “It’s not going to be because somebody comes and saves ya. The most important office in this democracy is the citizen, the ordinary person who says, ‘No, that’s not right.’

“And I do think one of the reasons that our commitment to democratic ideals has eroded isthat we got pretty comfortable and complacent. It has been easy during most of our lifetimes. To say you are progressive or say you are for social justice or say you are for free speech and not have to pay a price for it.

“And now we’re at one of those moments where, you know, it’s not enough to just say you’re for something; you may have to do something and possibly sacrifice a little for it.”

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Trying is worthwhile, he added, even though you’ll fail sometimes and be disappointed sometimes. Yes, there is still racism, women still get treated badly sometimes and the planet isn’t meeting its climate change goals, for example, he said.

But things have gotten better and improvements for something like climate change might still save a billion lives in coastal regions, he said.

“If you try, not only do you usually end up getting better outcomes, but you’re going to live a better life,” Obama said. “You’re going to feel better about yourself and you’re going to find fellow travelers who share those values.”

Legacy

Throughout the evening, Tepper and Obama both talked about Hamilton students as future leaders and about the advice a former president could offer them.

But the students might not be the only legacy of the evening. Several children attended the event.

Alden Groat, 10, son of college employee Mariah Pfeiffer, said he wanted to be there about 75%. He was also, he admitted, about 25% made to be there.

“I’m looking forward to being here and hearing the former president speak,” he said, though.

Alden was only three when Obama left office, but he’s heard about him. He and his mom were listening to the audio version of “Becoming,” Michelle Obama’s autobiography on the way over.

“I know he was a very good president,” Alden said.

Harper Lacey, 7, came with his mother Catherine Beck, a geosciences professor, beating out his little sister, father and Grandmother in a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors for the coveted second ticket.

Harper already knows from his friend Harrison that Obama was “the best president,” he said.

Obama saved Harrison’s mother life, Harper said, by passing the Affordable Care Act and making health care affordable for her.

Aviva Dunkley, 2, does not yet have an opinion on Obama’s presidency. But she does recognize the name, her parents, Nigel Dunkley and Rivkah McDaniels, said.

Bringing her was about creating a legacy for her, something she can look back on her whole life, her father, an athletic trainer at the college, said.

“To be able to say, as a two-year-old,” Dunkley said, “she heard him will be a real experience to have.”

Obama has posted a video clip of his conversation with Tepper and a complete transcript of it on the platform Medium.