On the Saturday afternoon of Reunion weekend, a multi-class panel discussion will be held with the theme of "Social Activism and the Legacy of Paul Wellstone," which will be coordinated by our very own classmate, Nicky Gonzalez Yuen.  Plan on attending and contributing your thoughts and experiences.

Paul's Bio  - A full biography of Paul from the from Wellstone Action! website.

Wellstone Symposium: Carry It Forward! - On Friday, February 28 and Saturday, March 1, 2003, Carleton hosted a weekend symposium to honor the lives and work of Paul and Sheila Wellstone - passionate and deeply committed individuals who touched so many of us personally.

Carleton Remembers Paul - The college website hosted a forum for alumni, faculty and friends to share their remembrances of Paul and Sheila that remains online for us to still read.

This will be a forum for the Carleton College Class of '81 to share personal remembrances of our professor and mentor, Paul Wellstone, and the influence that he had on our lives.  To contribute your thoughts, please e-mail Jeff Stewart at jstewart@carleton81.com  (Same as with the college forum for Paul, please try not to make it a place to express personal political views.  Submissions may have to be edited for length or content.)

From Kari Shaw:  One year at Carleton I took Paul's Urban Politics class.  One of the books on the rather lengthy reading list was by a conservative author whose argument was, basically, that poor people in the underclass are there because they are "present-oriented" instead of "future-oriented", that they are unable to get ahead because they are unable to study and plan and save for future success.

On the appointed day the class started discussing this book.  All of us young liberals started criticizing the book using arguments about the author's reasoning.  As we had been taught, we attacked his premises and logic.  But after each argument Paul's response was "Yes, that's fine, but isn't there something else?"  We realized we were not coming up with What The Teacher Wanted.  We had thought we were doing pretty well, picking apart his argument, and Paul was totally unimpressed.  He was looking for something else.

Finally we ran out of seemingly inadequate objections and looked to Paul for his take on the book.  He didn't want logical arguments.  He wanted us to reject this book because it offended our sense of humanity, because it is wrong to blame the victim, because people in trouble deserve compassion and help and not a cold-blooded analysis of how their problems are their own fault.  He wanted us to reject it with our heart and gut, and not our intellect.

I think that is the thing I remember most from that whole class:  It is right to reject an argument that offends my sense of humanity, despite any logic it may have.