So another international political leader will be speaking in Syracuse tonight.

In the last 13 months, the president of Ireland and the chief justice of the United States took the podium at Hendricks Chapel, while a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and a former American vice president have also addressed Syracuse University students.

And now Vicente Fox, Mexico’s former president who stepped down in 2006, will address the crowd at 8 p.m. in Landmark Theatre downtown.

Fox will also engage in a question and answer session with students following his talk on globalization, the role of the United Nations in international politics and the relationship between the United States and Latin America.

SU’s recent wave of prominent speakers represents an increased interest in the messages of world leaders, those involved in recruiting speakers said.

‘Since 2001, all of the sudden, things have propelled and everyone seems to have recognized the impact an incredible speaker can have,’ said Esther Gray, coordinator of the University Lecture series and special assistant to the provost.

Think Al Gore and global warming.

‘The sentiment behind (the Fox speech) was to do an event that was really similar to the Al Gore thing because that turned out to be such a success, and students were really excited about that last year,’ said Jessie Fish, Student Association’s senior associate to the president who was involved in organizing the speech.

SA responded to last year’s Gore speech by planning to bring another ‘big-name political speaker’ this fall – a trend it is intent on continuing. This semester, it is co-sponsoring the Fox event with University Union and New York Public Interest Research Group.

Even though Fox is building a buzz within SA and UU, the appeal for the greater student body is in question. Tickets became two for the price of one weeks before the event in response to student complaints about the cost: $8.

‘People said ‘Wow, I’d love to come, but I’m not sure it’s worth $8,” Fish said. She added that the purpose of the event is not to generate profits and that the price cut was driven by a desire to attract more students.

‘I would love to think he’d be a big draw by nothing more than his name,’ Gray said. ‘People will say, ‘Well, he was the president of Mexico, but what does he have to say?”

The groups involved recognize some students may not be immediately drawn to Fox, but they contend that his experiences touch upon so many different fields that he should be worth hearing.

‘At first people might not know the name Vicente Fox, but if you look into him more, he’s done a lot of stuff in a lot of different venues,’ said Nathan Muller, co-director of UU Speakers. ‘If you’re interested in advertising or marketing or business – he was the president of Coca-Cola in Latin America.

‘If you’re into politics, Latin American politics, any sort of global politics, you’d be interested in him,’ he said.

And, after all, Fox did hold the title of president.

‘Any sort of former president is going to bring a large amount of people – regardless if you know him,’ Muller said.

Mary Jane Nathan, executive director of special events who has brought speakers to the SU campus for 14 commencements, said she doesn’t think it is possible to find a lecturer that everyone will be happy with.

‘What one person might think is prominent, another person might not have even heard of,’ she said. ‘It depends on your field of study and what you’re exposed to and who you might know would be an important person to bring to the university.’

The hosts say Fox meets the interests of a variety of fields including politics, business, international relations, Spanish and Latin American studies.

As the event is open to the entire Central New York region, the UU co-directors said they hope local Latin Americans will be inspired to hear him speak.

‘They have a more personal identification with him,’ said Don Desawade, the other UU Speakers co-director.

Certain populations really identify with speakers that reflect their experiences, said Gray, from the University Lecture series. Identifying with the speaker is key, she said, and people don’t care about the topic. They will show up if they identify with him or her.

‘There is a huge population in this city that’d love to hear him,’ Gray said of the city’s Hispanic school children and their parents.

The groups are depending of Fox’s success after spending $75,000 on his honorarium, or speaking fee, alone. The total cost – including the Landmark, usher fees and busing students downtown – was $98,510.86, said SA comptroller Mike Rizzolo.

All was paid for by the student fee.

‘Every group, every population of the people defined however you want to define has their idea of what is a prominent speaker,’ Gray said. ‘But I think there are some people that just about anyone would have to admit is prominent: Al Gore, Bill Clinton, Hillary and Vicente Fox – he is prominent no matter what.’

Students are becoming accustomed to having names of Fox’s caliber speak on campus, Fish said.

‘I think the students are beginning to expect vice presidents and Supreme Court justices and former presidents and current presidents to come,’ she said. ‘That has been the past precedent, and you have to keep on trying to make it better.’

Syracuse’s recent reputation for bringing prominent speakers can help to attract the quality lecturers that students are expecting, Gray said. For University Lectures, she includes a paragraph in her letter to prospective speakers highlighting previous dignitaries who have been to the Hill.

‘One of the things that now contributes to getting people here is we have a track record of the ones we have had here,’ she said.

Yet it is the message, not the titles, chiefly concerning the student groups bringing Fox.

‘It doesn’t have to be a household name for us to bring him,’ Desawade said. ‘Vicente Fox may not be a household name, but if you research him a little bit, he is a really interesting person.’

‘We both wanted to bring people who had things to say; we wanted to bring big-name speakers,’ Muller, Desawade’s co-director, said. ‘I feel like it is important to bring people who really have something to say, who can open students’ minds. I feel like that’s what college is about.’

Fox’s book tour – for his autobiography ‘Revolution of Hope: The Life, Faith and Dreams of a Mexican President’- was a central factor in securing him.

‘The main reason we were able to get him was that he was on book tour in the U.S.,’ Muller said.

The SU bookstore has stocked up on Fox’s book, yet it was not part of the deal to bring him here. The groups said they thought students might want to read up on his views before hearing him speak.

Fox likes to go out and spread his message, Desawade said. ‘He’s not just out to have people buy his book.’

Gray, who has brought more than 60 speakers to campus since inaugurating the University Lecture series in 2001, said that it is always easier to bring a speaker who is on tour.

‘As long as you got the money they are asking for, then you got a good shot at getting them here, but they are pushing their book,’ Gray said.

Fox’s book pushes his vision for American-Mexican relations with more jobs south of the border to prevent the immigration battles in which the nations are currently entrenched, according to the review in ‘Publisher’s Weekly.’ He wrote the autobiography with an American audience in mind and was assisted in the effort by co-writer Rob Allyn, a political consultant.

Fox became president of Mexico in 2000, hailing from the National Action Party. His victory was considered a historical landmark for Mexican democracy as it ended 71 years of single party rule. Prior to his six-year presidential tenure, Fox served as the governor of Guanajuato and a congressman from that region starting in 1988.

Beyond his political accolades, Fox’s resume includes an American dream tale of his rise through the ranks of the Coca-Cola Corporation. In 1964, Fox was a route supervisor driving a truck for the company, and within 15 years, he rose to the position of president of Coca-Cola for Latin America. Fox led Coke past rival Pepsi to become Mexico’s top soft drink, while increasing sales by 50 percent.

The cost, in both time and money, of bringing speakers to campus is continually on the rise. And it becomes greater with the prominence of the lecturer.

‘There’s a lot, a lot, a lot of details. People don’t realize sometimes what goes into the details of an event, whether it’s a prominent speaker or not,’ Nathan, the graduation director, said. She added that it is not rare for the itinerary for a speaker to be 14 pages long.

One of the biggest organizational tasks for the Fox speech is the buses that will transport SU students from the Hill to the Landmark Theatre and back. Yet Fish, from SA, said she has been guaranteed the process is ‘down to a science’ – one of the advantages from following the template of last fall’s Gore speech.

‘Its kind of nice the second time around. We knew what we were getting into,’ she said.

The Landmark Theatre was selected because of its size, organizers said. On campus, there is no speaker-friendly venue in between the size of Goldstein Auditorium and the Carrier Dome. And UU co-director Muller said ticket sales have already passed Goldstein’s capacity.

Muller added that the downtown location reinforces that the event is open to the general public. ‘Landmark is more welcoming for non-students,’ he said.

But Landmark is also more expensive. On top of Fox’s $75,000 honorarium, the groups paid $23,510.86 to rent the theater and bus students to the location. The funding was very close to that for Gore’s speech, Rizzolo said.

The cost may leave the future of the fall political speaker in question.

‘Who knows what the next (SA) president and comptroller will bring?’ Fish said. She added that SA doesn’t know if it will have the funding to bring a speaker at that cost next year.

Both she and Gray said the co-sponsorships across the university will need to continue to match rising speaker costs.

‘I think collaboration will be something that all SA people will look for in the future, Fish said. ‘But it’s hard to say exactly if it will take this shape. In terms of funding, you never know.’

Published on October 28, 2007 at 12:00 pm