Washington Monthly - September/October 2016 - 70

Students come to SUNY-ESF not only because they want to get a good education and a good job. They also want to make a difference. ESF graduates find professionally rewarding and personally satisfying careers developing a cleaner, greener future. Take a close look at one of America's best colleges for the science, engineering, design and management of our environment and natural resources. You'll find world-class value in our small classes, unique relationship with Syracuse University, and affordable SUNY tuition. Visit our Web site at www.esf.edu or contact our Admissions Office at 315-470-6600 esfinfo@esf.edu State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry Syracuse, New York */5&3/"5*0/"-'6--4&37*$&4"-0/"/%41" )BJSt/BJMTt4LJO .BLFVQt8JHT )BJS3FQMBDFNFOU 4QB4FSWJDFT #PVUJRVF 'FBUVSJOHQSJWBUFSPPNTGPSEJTDSFFU DBSJOHIBJSSFQMBDFNFOUBOEXJH TFSWJDFTGPSDBODFSQBUJFOUT "TTFFOJO5IF8BTIJOHUPOJBO i%FBMJOH8JUI$BODFSw 0'' GPSOFX DMJFOUT 8JTDPOTJO"WFOVF/8t8BTIJOHUPO%$ 1MFBTFDBMMGPSZPVSBQQPJOUNFOU XXX&JWJOE"OE)BOTDPN 70 September/October 2016 to leave to a teenager and forged his signature on the Oberlin commitment. He was livid. That's illegal, he told her. He could sue! "You're gonna sue your mother for sending you to one of the best schools in the country?" she replied. "We'll see how that goes." The dispute never made it to court. Sorrell went oﬀ to Oberlin and, as expected, felt like a fish out of water, a Chicago jock among the hippies. But he found his place-thirty years later he's on the cover of the latest alumni magazine and is still the basketball team's fifth all-time leading scorer. One moment in particular from his undergrad days sticks out as a sign of things to come. A friend pulled him into a dinner with Johnnetta Cole, then president of Spelman College. He agreed because, hey, free food. But then he started talking to Cole. "She was the coolest president I've ever met," he says. "I told myself, This is what college presidents can be like? Sign me up." That job wouldn't come until much later, though. After Oberlin, Sorrell got his master's degree in public policy from Duke. He liked it so much he stuck around for law school. But while he had always figured he would end up as a civil rights attorney, the notion seemed less and less appealing as time went on. "I began to realize the struggle was no longer in the courts," he says. He got his JD, but set his sights on business school. Once again, Mom stepped in. "She gave me the Peter Pan speech," he says. It was time to leave academic Neverland to grow up and get a real job. (Little did she know.) So in 1994 Sorrell moved to Dallas to work for a law firm. He then spent two years in the Clinton White House working as a special assistant on the president's race initiative. (He told the Dallas Morning News that he was "way down the food chain" in the White House, but he evidently made enough of an impression that, this past summer, he was able to lure the former president to speak at Paul Quinn.) After his sojourn in Washington, he returned to Dallas, where he spent the next decade practicing law http://www.esf.edu http://www.esf.edu http://www.eivindandhans.com http://www.eivindandhans.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Washington Monthly - September/October 2016