-: My name is Tom Walls, I am the Executive Director
of the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership
here at UVA.
We have five programs that take people
from all around Virginia who are somehow engaged
in political life or government
and we try to help them learn about public policy issues
in Virginia, about the needs of different parts of Virginia
but also about how to engage in politics and policy debate
in a constructive and civil way.
We have five staff and there's fundraising,
there's recruiting, there's just all the logistical
arrangements for all these hotels and meals and so forth.
And then it's just being a kind of a spokesperson
who talks about what we do, who handles the relationships
with the political figures, with the university,
with the media, all of that.
I'll just talk about a typical part of what we do,
our political leaders program, to set up a weekend.
We will have to decide where it's going to be
and we'll sit down and look at
the various options around Virginia.
Then when we pick a location
now we have to recruit speakers to come from that area,
maybe also from other areas,
and that's, involves a lot of relationship building
that just goes on constantly for our organization.
And we have to book the hotels,
we have to arrange the restaurants and all of that
and then we put together the substantive curriculum
for the weekend.
In a typical week I might be going on
one of these weekends that we do.
So if I'm at the candidate training program,
that's our other program that I hadn't mentioned,
I'll be there for three days with them
in a conference center and sort of overseeing things
but also participating
and I will be maybe one of the instructors
for some of the sessions they have
which range from get out the vote, to fundraising
to all the practical aspects of running a campaign
but also something we emphasize is ethical campaigning.
I'm very much involved in that discussion.
In our high school program,
that's a two week intensive program here at UVA
for which the high school students actually get UVA credit.
I'm one of the teachers in that one
so in that week I'll be in the classroom nearly every day
teaching about government and politics and how it all works.