Professor receives ‘seal of approval’

By: Natalie Pistole
Contributing Writer

Not everyone can say they have received a compliment from a President of the United States. Even fewer people can jokingly say they have received the “Presidential seal of approval.” But one of Monmouth College’s own can honestly proclaim that he has experienced that compliment. Tobias Gibson, assistant professor of political science here at Monmouth College, was told, “I like your beard,” by former President Jimmy Carter, while Gibson was at a conference celebrating the 30th anniversary of Carter’s inauguration as President.

At this conference titled “The Carter Presidency: Lessons for the 21st Century,” Gibson was given the opportunity to present a paper he wrote on President Jimmy Carter. He originally saw the opportunity on the American Political Science Association website and decided to apply for it. Gibson claims that about 80 percent of the paper he presented at the conference came from his dissertation, saying that he copied and pasted a lot of it to fit Carter’s presidency.

In Gibson’s paper, titled, “The Office of Legal Counsel in the Carter Administration: Executive Orders During the Iran Hostage Crisis,” Gibson studied “instances where they [the office of legal counsel] stopped him [the President] from issuing an executive order in the Iran Hostage Crisis.” He was especially happy with his presentation and noted that the other presenters and attendees of the conference made it very exciting.

“I have presented at other conferences, and they were mostly formal. But with this one, the public and undergraduate students of the University of Georgia were invited, and it was just a lot different than any past experiences I have had,” Gibson claimed. Not only did the audience seem a little different than normal, but Gibson also noticed that his discussant, Terrence Adamson, was one-of-a-kind as well. Gibson said Adamson happened to have first-hand knowledge on his topic and some of the people involved making great conversation between the two.

Along with Adamson, Gibson also had the opportunity to meet a lot of other really impressive people. His highlights were, of course, when he shook Stephen Breyer’s hand and Carter’s compliment on his beard, but Gibson also was fortunate enough to be able to watch people, such as NBC’s Brian Williams and Chris Matthews, speak.

But the one thing which impressed Gibson the most about the conference was the group of honors students from the University of Georgia who presented topics from Carter’s presidency, including human rights and the energy policy. He jokingly stated, “I have a Ph.D. and those kids performed better than I could of!” which shows that he was truly impressed by the research and evaluation which those students put forth.

Although Gibson was only at the conference for the first and second days, he seemed to get a full-on experience. While meeting lots of famous people, watching some rising stars in the honors students present their research and being able to present his paper at such a conference made his trip worthwhile, the privilege of having Carter himself take notice of his beard and compliment it gave him the “Presidential seal of approval”—a memory which will last a lifetime.