Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Gavin Daugherty at Gavin.Daugherty@colorado.edu.
On the eve of the Republican presidential debate hosted at CU-Boulder, AEI (The American Enterprise Institute) presented a panel of four highly touted economists, including CU’s own Jeffrey Zax, to discuss the candidates’ fiscal policies, and the American economy at large.
This event was open to students, unlike the actual debate. Following an engaging and informative hour-long panel, Dr. Zax was made available to members of the media.
While he is not teaching courses this semester, and did not have any comments in regards to student response to ticket allotment for the debate, he did offer, “At some level, I don’t know if you’re missing very much.”
Unrelated to the debate, Zax made an appeal for more events like the AEI panel to be held on campus, stating,
“I think we should do this all the time. I am continually disappointed, frankly, in the absence of a vigorous student… interest… in the intellectual resources available at the university. I don’t know if the faculty are unresponsive or what, but I’ve been here for twenty-five years. And the number of times I’ve been asked to participate in something like this? Fewer than five”.
After speaking with the enthusiastic and welcoming Dr. Zax, I spoke with a University of Colorado student, and asked whether or not events like the AEI panel represented a good way for students to get involved with politics on campus.
“I think so,” the student responded. “We still get exposure to different issues that come up… and even though we don’t have that direct impact of attending the events, I think we are all aware of the issues. Especially as students who aren’t as involved in voting, I think that [the AEI event] is really helpful and beneficial”.
The AEI event brought room 235 in the University Memorial Center to capacity, and the audience as a whole appeared engaged and expressed a range of responses to comments from the panel.
