From the desk of Ren LaForme

http://www.ubspectrum.com/article/118

When I contacted the Office of Special Events to get Kofi Annan tickets for The Spectrum, Director Bill Regan presented me with an opportunity I couldn’t pass up — I could interview Kofi Annan.

I’ve spoken to a handful of other famous people before, including Ralph Nader and Ishmael Beah, but never someone as worldly or influential as Annan.

I immediately began pondering what sorts of questions to ask him. Should I take the role of a serious reporter and ask him hard questions about his failure to protect Rwanda from the genocide that occurred there in the mid-’90s? Should I ask him the stupid questions that the other on-campus publication would probably ask?

I even probed Facebook to see what other people would ask him.

Finally, I decided to ask almost totally serious questions, though they weren’t too probing, with one fun one at the end.

When I walked into the room I was a little bit starstruck. There was Kofi Annan, former secretary general of the United Nations — a man that has met countless world leaders —  justing sitting there at a table signing books. However, the feeling wore off completely once I began asking him questions.

I thought it would be nice to print a raw interview with Annan and I’m satisfied with the way it turned out. I hope to print more raw interviews for the next distinguished speakers in the series.

http://www.ubspectrum.com/article/113

At the last minute we realized that we neglected to run a preview of Kofi Annan’s lecture. We generally always preview distinguished speakers, so I decided to write a quick bio.

Since it was so late in production, it ended up being Web only. There was a small box on the front page of the print issue advertising this fact.