Andy Mullins. UM photo by Robert Jordan.
A University of Mississippi senior administrator has become a respected and trusted consultant to the four institutions selected as host sites for the 2012 presidential debates.
Andrew Mullins, chief of staff to the chancellor and assistant professor of education, was recently invited by the Commission on Presidential Debates to meet in Washington with representatives from Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla., Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., the University of Denver in Colorado and Centre College in Danville, Ky. Representatives from Washington University in St. Louis, an alternate institution, were also present.
“The commission asked me to share the University of Mississippi’s experience in hosting the 2008 presidential debate,” Mullins said. “I spent half a day with them going over the dos and don’ts of hosting the debate. I also showed them our debate documentary film and gave a copy of it to each institution as well as the debate commission.”
“Dr. Mullins was asked to address the group because of his experience in leading the effort behind a first-class debate at Ole Miss in 2008,” said Janet Brown, executive director of the Commission on Presidential Debates. “His presentation was informative, insightful and very entertaining. Everybody loved him and it.”
Recalling the tremendous effort UM faculty, staff, alumni and students made in preparing to host the first of the 2008 debates between then-U.S. Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.), Mullins advised the institutions to make a full commitment to the entire process.
“Such an event can change the history of your campus, as it did ours,” Mullins said, noting that the two-hour event yielded 45,000 individual hits on the Web the week of the debate, more than $30 million in media and public relations exposure and substantial increases in enrollment in the years following.
“Because the cost of hosting a debate is enormous, you should count heavily on your alumni and friends of the university to help pay for the expenses. That’s where the bulk of your financial gifts will come from.”
Including students and faculty in the process is also very important, said Mullins, noting that more than 70 events and 13 courses at UM focused upon the debate during the 2008 fall semester.
“Our goal was to make it as positively memorable and educationally rewarding for our students as possible. That should be one of your goals as well,” Mullins told the representatives.
Other actions Mullins suggested the host sites follow include acknowledging and rewarding volunteers at all levels, accepting opportunities to speak about the behind-the-scenes preparations in public venues and being sure that any physical campus changes required by the commission are somehow useful to its operation long after the event is past.
“Make sure the university president is knowledgeable and involved in every aspect of the debate from the very beginning,” Mullins said. “Trust the expertise of the Presidential Debate Commission staff. They are the ultimate professionals, so follow their directions. And don’t question the Secret Service because ultimately you will have to do whatever they instruct you to do anyway.”
After all preparations are complete, host sites should still expect the unexpected, Mullins said.
“You have to be flexible because you never know what might occur right up until the day of the debate itself,” he said, recalling how McCain at one point indicated he would not debate Obama at Ole Miss as scheduled due to a congressional stalemate over budgetary matters.
Noting how well received the UM debate documentary was, Mullins suggested each site consider documenting their own experience for both archives and future reference.
“Several members of the debate commission told me they had not seen such a documentary since the 1988 debate,” he said. “They were very impressed with our film, which was produced by UM Media and Documentary Projects staffers Andy Harper, Micah Ginn, Matthew Graves and Joe York.”
Before the commission’s invitation, Mullins had been contacted by several institutions applying to host the 2012 series of debates. He even consulted with administrators at Lynn University and was glad to learn of their selection, he said.
Of the other three institutions selected, Hofstra is the only repeat host institution from 2008. Center College and Washington University have also hosted debates in previous years.
The first 2012 presidential debate between President Obama and the eventual GOP nominee is scheduled for Oct. 3 at the University of Denver. The second is Oct. 16 at Hoftsra University, and the last is Oct. 22 at Lynn University.
The debate between Vice President Joe Biden and the GOP nominee is slated for Oct. 11 at Centre College.
Times for all events will be announced later. Ticketing is controlled by the Commission on Presidential Debates and will be extremely limited. The majority of tickets are distributed to university students and faculty through a lottery system with the remaining tickets going to friends and families of the campaigns and the media.
For the latest information about the 2012 presidential debates, go to http://www.2012presidentialelectionnews.com/.