Washington University announced several weeks ago that Janet Napolitano, the current U.S. secretary of Homeland Security, would be speaking on campus. And even though her visit was cancelled, the announcement of her intended arrival came as a pleasant surprise in light of the lackluster lineup of speakers who have come throughout the year. Nevertheless, we are concerned about the lack of publicity around Napolitano’s speech. Even though Napolitano didn’t actually speak (she went, instead, to inspect the tornado damage at Lambert Airport) and the assistant secretary spoke instead, the event could have been better publicized.

We believe that this is just another example of the poor decisions made regarding speakers over the past year. Every group involved in bringing speakers to campus can and should do much better next year.

The only e-mail inviting people to the Napolitano event was not sent to all University students, but solely to those on the Department of Political Science’s mailing list. Even though political science majors are the students most likely to attend the event, it should have been more open to those who were interested in going, even if their majors don’t reflect an interest in her.

We do recognize that the lack of publicity may have been the result of a security decision, but even so, we believe that should not prevent the University from notifying the entire student body.

While bringing higher-profile candidates to campus is inherently a good thing, and while the Napolitano event was open to all students, few students were actually aware of the talk, and fewer still knew where and when the event took place. As another example of poor decisions made by groups on campus, Bristol Palin was invited to speak during Sex Week. Earlier in the year, Student Union Treasury rejected a bid to bring Bill Maher to campus because of his high price. Not all the speakers invited to take his place arrived on campus, and instead cancelled a week before the event.

The Napolitano event would have been a fantastic opportunity not only for the student body’s enrichment, but also for the image and reputation of the school, as having relevant and important speakers adds character and intellectual breadth to the institution. Looking forward to next year, we think that the University on the whole (both administrators and student groups) could do better in deciding who they bring to campus and how to advertise those events. And while we hope that the new “big speaker” fund in the Student Union Budget will result in Treasury voting for a big speaker, we all need to be more involved in those decisions as well. It is up to all of us, as students, to campaign for speakers who will bring interesting opinions and a wealth of experience to campus.