Connaissance's rebound

Madeleine Albright has tangled with world leaders, built the confidence of a president and carved a name for herself in the history books. Now, she can tell us all about it. Albright's upcoming appearance on campus should prove to be an insightful and entertaining experience for all in attendance. The former secretary of state is, after all, an accomplished speaker with an extensive resume of history-making achievements. Her April 3 visit is also a tremendous coup for the Social Planning and Events Committee's Connaissance program, which strives to bring one notable speaker to campus each semester. Albright's dynamic presence and wealth of discussion possibilities should stand in stark contrast to last semester's Connaissance speaker, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. The former basketball star did little more than read passages from his latest book, and failed to captivate even the 200 students who bothered to show up for his presentation. Connaissance organizers can now look forward to an all-star rebound when Albright comes to Penn. Recent politically-oriented speakers -- like former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and White House insider George Stephanopoulos -- drew large audiences to Irvine Auditorium last year, proving that Penn students' interest and knowledge of global political events goes far beyond the classroom. With her breadth of experiences, Albright should fit that role nicely. As this nation's first female secretary of state, she should be able to hit on topics of interest to a sizeable cross-section of Penn's student body -- including students not traditionally interested in matters of foreign policy. With that said, we hope that Connaissance is able to make special provisions so that all interested students can watch Albright's presentation. Opening a closed-circuit TV feed is just one possible tool at the disposal of officials should they want to expand the reach of Albright's talk.

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