In this year’s extremely close election between Governor Romney and President Obama, every vote really counted. Although many voters already made up their minds about who they would cast their ballot for, many undecided voters still had their vote up for grabs. The two presidential candidates had their last major opportunity to face-off against each other and try to gain some support and momentum at the third and final presidential debate which was hosted by Lynn University in Boca Raton on October 22.

What many people don’t know about hosting a presidential debate is the amount of effort that it takes to host such an event like this. Major preparations had been going on for over 12 months, since Lynn announced its hosting of the debate last year. Over $5 million was spent by the city of Boca Raton and Lynn to welcome over 4,000 media people (double the size of their student population), hundreds of secret service agents, law enforcement officials, and 400 volunteers (like me) who were positioned throughout the relatively small campus to make sure everything went smoothly before, during, and after the debate. Due to lack of space on campus, shuttle buses were hired to pick up the majority of the media people, volunteers, and Lynn students, who had to park off-campus either at Spanish River Library or at the Boca Town center mall. In addition, every living soul had to be credentialed and approved months in advance in order to be on campus on debate night. The gym, which had to be closed for a full semester, was transformed into “Spin Alley”, the media center and home of all the major political media stations such as CNN, FOX, ABC, and MSNBC; it was also the home of both the Obama and Romney campaigns.

The presidential debate was undoubtedly the biggest night in the history of Boca Raton and Lynn University as well. The small liberal arts school, which was celebrating its 50^th anniversary of existence, was hardly known to people outside of South Florida and gained much publicity nationwide. One of its official debate t-shirts appropriately read, “We haven’t heard of you either”.

Lynn has had a busy history. It was initially founded as Marymount College in 1962 as a woman’s junior college, then changed to College of Boca Raton in 1974, and then renamed to Lynn University in 1991 to honor benefactors Eugene and Christine Lynn. Nurtured by many philanthropic donations, Lynn has grown tremendously within the past 15 years, opening its Conservatory of Music in 1999, whose students now perform in the new Wold Performing Arts Center, where the debate was hosted. The beautiful theater is designed to look like the inside of a violin and regularly features the Lynn Philharmonic. Today Lynn additionally offers 17 undergraduate degrees, 5 master degrees as well as 114 specializations through its five smaller colleges.

Lynn was chosen to host the final debate for several reasons. Its location was relatively easy to secure but more importantly, Florida is a major battle ground state in the election. Secondly, 25% of Lynn students are foreign and the debate’s topic of foreign policy would appropriately accompany this fact. Finally, the small but beautiful Wold Performing Arts Center would be an ideal stage to host the debate.

As a reporter for the Circle Gazette, a South Florida children’s local newspaper, I initially applied for a media credential pass for the Lynn Debate but I was politely denied access to Spin Alley by secret service. Fortunately there was another way to be part of this once-in a lifetime event; I could volunteer.

I volunteered for two days at the debate, the Sunday before, and the night of the debate. On Sunday, I got assigned to a tiring, uneventful job: media parking at Spanish River Library, a block away from Lynn. Because there was limited parking on campus, most people had to park at the library and be shuttled over to campus. My job for 6 hours was to check that the media people had their credentials on to gain access to Lynn before getting on the bus.

Thankfully on debate night, I got a much better job: credential scanning inside of Spin Alley. After going through an airport-like security outside conducted by secret service officials, I found myself in a large, decorated gym, buzzing with media people from all over the world. In opposite corners of the gym were the Obama and Romney campaign headquarters, both hidden by the stages positioned in front of them. My job was to check credentials next to the Obama headquarters door and make sure that no reporters would try to enter; I had a great time! Within a few minutes of arriving, the Obama door opened and I was surprised to see Massachusetts senator and 2004 presidential candidate John Kerry and a few campaign people rush by me to give interviews to the television stations already set up. On the opposite side of the gym, Arizona senator and 2008 presidential candidate John McCain was doing the same. News reporters flocked them like birds fighting for scraps of food on the sidewalk. TV cameramen pushed and shoved to get a good view of the men and photographers flashed their cameras many times. The notable stations inside of the media center included Fox News (and Business channel), whom I was stationed next to, MSNBC, CNN, CSPAN, and CNBC. Inadvertently I was in the background of many of the live news broadcasts as I walked around behind the news anchors.

As we got closer to the debate, the media center started to settle down. Reporters sat down at the media tables stationed in front of the numerous TV monitors and prepared to take notes of the debate. The introduction to the presidential debate actually started at 8:30, with messages from the Lynn University President Dr. Kevin Ross and several other notable people. Work basically stopped in the media center as everyone settled down into their seats. The 30-40 TV monitors were turned on, and a dead silence filled the room as Bob Schieffer introduced the candidates. There was a small applause from all the students in the media center as Mitt Romney thanked Lynn for hosting the debate.

The debate itself was decent, a lot of redundancy from both candidates, if you have seen their previous debates. Although the debate was on foreign policy, Romney constantly steered his answers to the economy, and President Obama soon followed. He was clearly the aggressor while Romney was satisfied playing defense, knowing that the president was still making up ground from his disappointing performance in the first debate.

Governor Romney was at his best throughout the debate whenever he criticized Obama’s lack of sufficient progress improving the economy, or his dealing of the Libyan attacks on our embassy, which left four Americans dead. Meanwhile President Obama looked official and confident whenever he attacked Romney’s conflicting past and present views of certain topics, like keeping troops in Iraq or when he attacked Romney’s tax plan of taxing the lower and middle classes more than the wealthy.

One interesting thing that happened before the debate finished was that nearly 75% of all the media stopped reporting, got up from their seats and prepared to interview the senators and representatives. The politicians would be entering the media center immediately following the completion of the debate so there was no time to lose, even if that meant missing the closing statements of the candidates. Volunteers soon entered with picket signs with the names of the politicians as soon as they arrived. In an instant, the room was alive again as all the television stations commenced their live reporting of the debate. Politicians such as Marco Rubio and Robert Gibbs were being interviewed and filmed. I stayed a little bit longer to hear what the politicians thought of the debate, and then headed home.

Overall, I had an amazing time at the Lynn debate. It was a once in a lifetime experience to be next to the nation’s most powerful political figures and to help volunteer at such a wonderful event. I will surely remember this for the rest my life.