<p>From the book, I got the impression that his 2 years at Oxy played a large role in Obama’s path to figuring out his role as a black/white man during a very interesting point in our nation’s history. Having heard earlier that he abandoned Oxy, I was surprised when I read the book to learn that the move to Columbia was merely a very normal progression in a formal program available to all Oxy students. His description of his time at Columbia was far less detailed but essentially far less complimentary than the way he portrayed his time at Oxy. </p>
<p>If Occidental plays up his presence there, that seems pretty legitimate. Bowdoin talks about Nathaniel Hawthorne having attended, and that kind of thrilled me when I visited there. Is there really a big difference just because it’s recent history at Oxy instead of something that happened long ago?</p>