For one day last week, Long Island was the political center of the universe as the Presidential Debate came to Hofstra University for the second straight election. And in the middle of it all was Sachem alum and Hofstra freshman Danielle Gresalfi.
Just hours before Hofstra was center stage for a verbal battle between President Barack Obama and Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, the 18-year-old Gresalfi was pleasantly surprised when she opened an email saying she was one of the lucky 300 students out of a pool of 6,500 applicants from Hofstra to be allowed entry to the debate that night at the David S. Mack Sports Complex on campus.
“The best part was finding out that I actually got in,” said Gresalfi, a 2012 Sachem North alum and resident of Lake Grove, N.Y. “We heard that people were still being picked to be part of the debate. I’m not a big politics person, but I really wanted to learn about it and get a better idea of what [the candidates] can bring to our country.”
From the cavalcade of media coverage following the debate, you know Obama and Romney were anything but congenial during the debate. Hofstra and the debate were featured on the opening segment of Saturday Night Live this past weekend, placing a heavy stereotype on Long Island accents, but also shedding more of a comedic light on the dialogue between Obama and Romney.
“Their arguments during the debate raised the crowd,” Gresalfi said. “It was a pretty harsh debate. It was like they were attacking each other and the moderator couldn’t do anything about it.”
A member of the cheerleading squad at Hofstra, and a physical education and health education major, Gresalfi admits she was not into the political scene prior to the debate. It was almost mandatory this semester to jump full force into the life of a campus drenched in American political discourse and character from a two-month long speaker series to various news organizations broadcasting live on campus and constant mentions for the university in some of the world’s premier publications.
And while the debate was not the reason Gresalfi chose Hofstra for her undergraduate experience, it was an outstanding compliment to her first semester as a college student.
“It defines pride,” she said. “You have pride for your school and since Pride is our mascot it adds so much excitement to the reason you’re here and what your school stands for. Getting to experience it, I feel very honored to be here.”
-Words by Chris R. Vaccaro
-Photos courtesy Danielle Gresalfi
-Debate photo by Hofstra University communications staff