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\nOXFORD,
\nMiss. – While analysts deliberate over which candidate won last night’s
\ndebate between presidential hopefuls John McCain and Barack Obama,
\neveryone seems to agree that the University of Mississippi came out a
\nwinner.<\/p>\n
Among them was Oxford Mayor Richard Howorth, who
\nattended many of the pre-debate activities, talked to the press who
\ncame to cover the first televised face-off between the two senators and
\nexperienced the debate.<\/p>\n
“We congratulate Chancellor (Robert)
\nKhayat and his staff,” Howorth said. “They did a spectacular job
\ngetting all of us ready for this terrific event. I’d have to say they
\nhit it out of the ballpark.”\n<\/p>\n
“Last night was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for all of us at Ole Miss – our students, our faculty, our staff and our alumni and friends,” said Gloria Kellum, vice chancellor for University Relations. “They all played a role in this, and it was fabulous.”<\/p>\n
You’ll get no argument from Tyler Clemons, editor of The Daily Mississippian and one of 150 UM students to receive tickets to the debate.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n“We have had one unforgettable experience,” wrote Clemons in a letter appearing in a commemorative edition of the paper published Saturday. “From the festival in the Grove to the party in the Square, our community abounded in tremendous opportunities.”<\/p>\n
Lizzy Hyde, another student to receive a ticket, said the entire experience seemed surreal.<\/p>\n
A senior marketing communications major from Jackson, Hyde found out she had gotten a coveted ticket Thursday and spent much of the next 24 hours trying to wrap her mind around the idea of being in the Ford Center during the debate.<\/p>\n
“It was really unbelievable,” she said. “I could not believe I was going to be in the same building as the two presidential candidates. I was going to get to see them in person and hear their voices in person. I will never forget the experience. Never. I will tell my grandchildren about being there.”<\/p>\n
The experience also fostered a tremendous sense of pride, Hyde said.<\/p>\n
“I was very, very, very proud to be a part of this university, to be a part of a place that put so much effort and so much time into hosting the debate,” she said. “I heard a lot of the media at the debate talking about how the university had gone above and beyond, and about how this is one of the best debate (locations) they had ever been to.”<\/p>\n
It’s comments like those that have Khayat beaming.<\/p>\n
“We sought the debate with two goals in mind,” Khayat said. “First, we wanted to provide our students with an extraordinary experience, and second, we wanted to present Ole Miss and Oxford to the world, as we are today.”<\/p>\n
Many believe both goals were met.<\/p>\n
The numbers of visitors to the university’s Internet news server, which experienced record online traffic in recent weeks, soared Friday, briefly knocking the Web site offline.<\/p>\n
\nThe server, at http:\/\/web20.olemiss.edu\/news\/wordpress, logged 18,409 unique visitors from Thursday to Friday. By 5 p.m. Friday, more than 520 people were accessing the site at the same time, and the server was getting 126 requests per second for information before it shut down, according to Google analytics.<\/p>\n
“Due to our limited infrastructure there was no fail-safe in place to support serving this many hits,” said Peter Cleary, Web developer for the UM Office of Media and Public relations.<\/p>\n
Cleary, who worked for hours Friday night to restore normal operation to the server and load new content, said the crash is not necessarily all bad.<\/p>\n
“It makes me feel good that people like our site that much,” he said.<\/p>\n
Within a 24-hour period surrounding the debate, more than 17,000 news reports mentioning the University of Mississippi or Ole Miss were filed around the world. Whether they appeared online, in newspapers, or on radio or television, many of them contrasted the university today to the one of the 1960s.<\/p>\n
“You can’t buy this kind of coverage,” said Andrew Mullins, executive assistant to UM’s chancellor. “There is no way to measure the value of this press coverage and what it means to the university and to Mississippi. This is the greatest day in Ole Miss history.”<\/p>\n
Donald Cole, UM assistant to the chancellor for multicultural affairs, spent much of the past week being interviewed by dozens of journalists from across the country and around the world, telling them how Ole Miss today is far different from what it was in 1970, when he was expelled for protesting its treatment of blacks.<\/p>\n
Before the debate, Cole wanted people to see that his alma mater is a national leader in racial reconciliation. “I would like for people to walk away and say, >Wow, if Mississippi can, then we can.'”<\/p>\n
He wasn’t disappointed.<\/p>\n
“As we look back on this, we can say it was worth every effort, every cent that was spent on it,” Cole said. “We wrote a new page for the history books.”<\/p>\n
He’s not the only one who thinks so.<\/p>\n
“When the world looks at us, it will no longer see only the dark stain of 1962,” Clemons wrote in Saturday’s DM. “It will instead see a strong, tolerant and proud university leading the way into the future of higher education.”<\/p>\n
Mullins, who helped bring the debate to Ole Miss and Oxford, said, “Everybody associated with the university put forth a great effort to make this happen. The steering committee was outstanding. They took charge, they knew what needed to be done and they made it happen.”<\/p>\n
Their work, and that of many others, impressed representatives of the Commission on Presidential Debates.<\/p>\n
“It was a pleasure to work with them,” Mullins said. “On the other hand, the commission’s staff was impressed by the university, and they hinted that they would like us to apply again in four years.”<\/p>\n
For more information about academic programs at UM, visit www.olemiss.edu<\/a> <\/a> .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"