Hofstra: a world-class neighbor

Nassau County residents should feel proud that Hofstra University was selected by the Commission on Presidential Debates, for the second consecutive national election, to host last week’s Obama-Romney faceoff.

It was an enormous undertaking, and one that thousands of school employees and volunteers — from Hofstra’s president, Stuart Rabinowitz, to hundreds of eager students — pulled off with great success. From the standpoint of security alone, the coordination of Secret Service, state, county and campus police agencies must have been an amazingly complicated task. With elected VIPs to be catered to; a demanding international, national and local media corps to be provided for; and with the stringent rules for the debate venue itself, it was a political, logistical, communications and operational challenge of major dimensions, and all of it undertaken at the height of a presidential campaign that is being watched around the world.

Hofstra hosted the event with professionalism, style and complete competence.

Indeed, beyond Debate ’08 and Debate 2012, Hofstra has developed into an academic powerhouse of national renown. Its undergraduate and postgraduate curriculums, its law and medical schools, its Center for Suburban Studies and its other wide-ranging facilities have enlarged the university’s reputation from that of a solid local private institution to a prominent national center of learning and a hub of civic engagement.