Last week, AU welcomed former Congressman Pete Hoekstra to campus. Hoekstra, a member of the Republican party from Michigan, served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1993-2011. Hoekstra came to AU to speak with students, faculty and the community about foreign policy, the time he spent as a member of Congress, and his reflections on integrating faith into his life.
Hoekstra spent a great deal of his time here with political science students, university faculty and senior leadership. On Wednesday evening, he gave a lecture entitled "American Foreign Policy: Roaming into the Wilderness?" that all were welcome to attend.
He described waking up in the middle of the night in 1992, after a 15-year marketing career, and saying to his wife, "I think I'm going to run for Congress." He felt an indescribable nudging towards this idea, and decided to follow through after discussing it with Godly influences in his life.
Hoekstra's passion at the start of his career as a congressman was education. After visiting parochial schools in New York City, where kids from rough neighborhoods were flourishing because they were being fed the message of Christ, his goal became to make it easier for parents to send their children to religious schools.
Hoekstra ran to become Chairman of the Education Committee and lost, which seemed like a major setback at the time. Shortly after, however, he was placed on the Intelligence Committee. Nine months later, the 9/11 attacks happened, and Hoekstra spent the next nine years focusing on foreign policy and intelligence.