President Barack Obama intends to visit Texas A&M this afternoon, but he's expected to confront protesters despite a personal invitation from former President George H.W. Bush. This will be Obama's first trip to Txas A&M. He's attending a function intended to honor people like Ramon Fernandez.

According to the Houston Chronicle, "Fernandez, who teaches accounting at the University of St. Thomas, was named a Point of Light in 2007 for organizing students to offer free income tax preparation to low-income Houston residents."

Yet today's forum on community service will not likely be anonpartisan event that Obama and Bush envisioned.

Justin Pulliam,a sophomore at Texas A&M and a member of Young Conservatives of Texas, one of several groups planning protests in conjunction with Obama's visit, is quoted as saying that, "President Obama is protested everywhere he goes, so I think it would be odd if he came to one of the most conservative campuses and there wasn't a protest."

As reported by the Chronicle, "inside the campus's Rudder Auditorium, however, Obama and Bush will be focused on the work done by countless volunteers. More than 4,000 people have been recognized by the Point of Light award since Bush created it in 1989."

Since Fernandez will be teaching class, he can't attend the function. Yet, many others anxiously await to greet the president.

Fernandez said, "now, we have a high-falutin term in higher ed for what I've been doing for 25 years. They call it 'service learning.' It's a hot topic. When I started, we just said, "This is something you have to do to get a grade in my course."

Yet he said that it's really easy to get students to volunteer. He added, "I think they find it very rewarding."

Nevertheless, it was probably unavoidable that politics would follow Obama, who was selected last week to win the Nobel Peace Prize, which prompted a storm of controversy. Obama is sparking adversaries from his health care overhaul and his upcoming decsion about whether to increase troop strength in Afghanistan.

To read the entire article from the Houston Chronicle, link here:

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