On the fifth try, students get a presidential shot

Yes, the president is coming to the university. But it's not the first time.

The university has hosted four visits by a sitting president — Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1960, Lyndon B. Johnson in 1966 and Bill Clinton in both 1993 and 1999, but none have caused as much anticipation as President Barack Obama's trip to the Comcast Center today, nor have students ever had so much access to such an event.

Other presidential visits were at significantly smaller venues and only for one — Clinton's second visit —did more than a few hundred students attend. But Obama's rock-star status is expected to draw thousands of students to the campus' cavernous basketball arena.

The other visits were also largely ignored by political opponents of the president, while Obama's recent appearances have been met by crowds of protesters.

The first trip to the university from a sitting president was on March 27, 1960: Eisenhower spoke to about 12,000 people in Cole Field House. The majority of those in attendance were delegates to the White House Conference on Children and Youth, a conference discussing child welfare that convened once per decade from 1909through 1970. The (Baltimore) Sun reported Eisenhower himself spoke for 13 minutes and the event "went largely unheeded" by students.

Johnson came on Oct. 15,1966, in a surprise visit to a conference of state police officials.

According to reports in The Diamondback from the time, Johnson gave organizers a mere two hours' notice before arriving to speak to the crowd of about 140 people about issues relating to crime and poverty. The only students in attendance were waiters and waitresses working at the event.

Clinton hosted a forum on the "Summer of Service" in the Stamp Student Union's Colony Ballroom on Aug. 31, 1993 — before school was in session that year.

He returned to more fanfare, and much more media attention, on Feb. 10, 1999 — two days before the U.S. Senate acquitted him of perjury and obstruction of justice charges after he was impeached by the House of Representatives. Even then,  only 300 student tickets to the event in Ritchie Coliseum were available for pickup, and they took less than 20 minutes to run out.

Clinton's second visit was also host to a number of protesters: A group assembled outside of the building, holding signs about Clinton's impeachment and the bombing of Iraq.

However, the picketing crowds today are expected to vastly outnumber the Clinton naysayers. Obama and his Democratic allies have drawn ire at events across the country on issues ranging from the health care debate to more extreme accusations regarding Obama's alleged plans to turn the country to socialism or fascism.

Obama's first trip to the campus was in September 2006, where the then-senator from Illinois stumped with other prominent Democrats for U.S. Senate candidate Ben Cardin (D-Md.), who went on to win the seat.

When Obama returned in February 2008, bitterly entrenched in the Democratic primary race against then-Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), he drew a larger crowd than the 1,000 students that surrounded the Nyumburu Ampitheater for his first trip — originally set in Cole Field House, the speech had to be moved to the Comcast Center just days before the event because the expected turnout had ballooned so dramatically. About 18,000 people ended up making the pilgrimage to North Campus, despite the temperature dipping below 25 degrees.

On both occasions, administrators met with Obama while he was on the campus. He held a relaxed meeting with administrators when he came in 2006 where they talked about the university, and a more exclusive meeting with top university officials in 2008.

Vice President for Administrative Affairs Ann Wylie was at both meetings. At the first, she said administrators spent time telling Obama about the university's values.

"He knows a lot about what we stand for — a commitment to public education, a commitment to access, diversity," Wylie said. "These are things I know he knows about here."

However, she's a little fuzzier about the details of the second meeting.

"To tell you the truth," Wylie said, "I was so overwhelmed by the whole thing I don't remember what we all said."

rabdill at umdbk dot com