Adrian College Student Represented Michigan at Henry Clay Student Congress posted 8/26/09
JaLisha Belle served at the Henry Clay Center for Statesmanship in Lexington, Ky.

ADRIAN, Mich. – Adrian College student JaLisha Belle was chosen as the Michigan representative for the Henry Clay Student Congress at the Henry Clay Center for Statesmanship this past summer. The central location was in Lexington, Kentucky at Transylvania University which is the heart of where Henry Clay did most of his diplomacy.

The Senior Senators from each of the 50 states are asked to nominate one junior from their state to join the Student Congress and Belle was chosen for this prestigious opportunity.

“On Saturday, June 20th, 2009, I began my journey of learning what it was to be a statesman in the world of politics,” said Belle. “The program consisted of 51 students representing each state and the District of Columbia for a week long chain of events learning and implementing the concepts that the late and great statesman Henry Clay had.”

Henry Clay was a statesman who grew up in Virginia but moved to Kentucky. He was originally a lawyer dealing with tariffs and property/land negotiation back in the early 1800s. He later began his political rally as well.

Belle said that besides being a congressional icon, the most interesting factor that they learned was that he was one of the only individuals to ever run for presidency more than a couple times.

“An astounding four times he ran for presidency; twice against his arch rival Andrew Jackson,” said Belle. “Henry Clay was known for his great oratorical skills as well as his persuasive articulation when presenting a problem or fighting a cause. He also was one of the participants behind the delay of the Civil War and negotiated his way to help with the fight between individuals fighting against and for the slave trade in the north and south.”

The students had many different requirements during their time at the center, but the core of the experience was a student/group exercise where they had to develop arguments for “Annual Index of Global Threats Facing the Next Generation.”

“We were placed in several groups and we all were assigned a specific type of global threat,” said Belle. “The group that I was a part of focused on global education and the negative and positive affects behind it. We had to find ways to compromise with the other groups to gain our purpose for the global debate. I thought that was the most educational activity we had throughout the entire process because it gave us insight on how negotiation works to come to a common agreement.”

Belle recently started her senior year at Adrian College and is a business major with a political science minor.