As a high-ranking White House official, Eric Motley '96 is a loyal Republican who gets valuable “face time” with President George W. Bush every week.
A couple of miles across town, on Capitol Hill, Carol Guthrie '93 works as a to aide to Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon.
And in-between — both physically and ideologically — Susan Corts '99 steers clear of partisan politics but embraces political advocacy by working to bring quality housing to poor families through Habitat for Humanity International's Washington Office.
The three are only some of the 200-plus Samford graduates living and working in the nation's capital and its suburbs. The values they learned at Samford, they and other local alumni say, inspire and inform their careers in public service.
“I had a very Enlightenment education at Samford,” Motley said during a recent interview. The breadth of knowledge he received in the liberal arts and sciences through such an education — not to mention his subsequent master's and doctoral degrees from St. Andrew's University in Scotland — come in handy in his present job.
As special assistant to the president and associate director of the White House's Office of Presidential Personnel, Motley is charged with advising Bush on hundreds of nominees to slots on many of the approximately 250 advisory and governing boards to which the president makes appointments. That makes being something of a generalist in various fields of knowledge a huge asset.
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