LYNCHBURG, Va. – It’s exam week at Liberty University and everywhere are signs of last-minute cramming. Study groups are bunched around tables inside the student union. The Jerry Falwell Library is unusually packed. And the weekly campus worship service has been postponed to allow more time to study.
But final exams aren’t the only tests facing this outwardly placid campus this week.
Students here at the nation’s largest Christian university are also preparing for the arrival of President Donald Trump, who will deliver the commencement address for the class of 2017 on May 13. He will be the first incumbent president to speak at the school’s commencement since George H.W. Bush in 1991.
If Trump needed a safe space to deliver his first commencement address, he’d be hard pressed to find a more accommodating school. At the University of Notre Dame, where presidents are often invited to speak in their first year, the prospect of a Trump address sparked vociferous protests. The prominent Catholic university ultimately invited Vice President Mike Pence to speak.
At Liberty, an evangelical university with a pronounced conservative political bent, Trump will be in friendlier territory. Students at the school nestled in the Blue Ridge mountains of southern Virginia voted overwhelmingly for Trump in November. Of the 3,205 votes cast on campus, Trump took 2,739. Democrat Hillary Clinton received just 140. Trump also had the backing of the Liberty President Jerry Falwell Jr., whose early and vigorous support helped him navigate the national thicket of conservative Christian voters.
In interviews this week with dozens of students, the overwhelming reaction to Trump’s impending visit is a sense of pride that the president chose their school for his first address to college graduates. But mixed with the enthusiasm and excitement is a sense of apprehension and caution. They wonder: What will he say? And what will America think about us?
Some doubts linger about the president linger here. Though Trump crushed Clinton among campus voters, he finished a distant fourth in the Liberty precinct in Virginia’s Republican primary, capturing 8 percent of the vote and trailing evangelical favorites Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz.
John Wood, a junior from Upland, California, and chairman of the College Republicans at Liberty, went through Scott Walker, Cruz and Rubio on his journey to becoming a Trump supporter. But the 21-year-old, who’s been told more than once that he looks a bit like Elvis Presley, is thrilled that his fourth choice will deliver the commencement.
“Having a sitting president make his first commencement address at your university is awesome, and I think most here people are generally excited about that,” Wood said.
Wood said Trump’s visit is a signal that the school deserves to be taken seriously. “It’s a step toward establishing us as a top-tier, legitimate school,” he says. “There are a lot of people who still see Liberty as not a legitimate institute of higher learning, which we are.”
Isaac Deal, 20, a sophomore from Clayton, Georgia, echoed the feelings of many.
“I think it’s an awesome, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Deal said. “He is our authority and he is our leader, no matter what you think of his policies.”
Seniors Meredith Boyce, 22, of Rochester, Minnesota, and Hannah Kuster, 22, of Louisville, both voted for Trump. Aside from possible logistical headaches of security screenings for a presidential visit, they are expecting a memorable and enjoyable commencement. Like Wood, they think that Trump’s appearance will help put Liberty on the map. But they are also a bit nervous.
“There’s definitely some apprehension because he can say crazy things,” said Boyce. “I’m just praying no one does anything stupid.”
Caleb Brown, 21, a junior from High Point, North Carolina, says he considers it a blessing that Trump is coming. But he’s looking for more than just a stump speech.
“As long as he puts America before himself, he’ll do a lot more good than if he is just about his ego,” Brown said. “I want him to be specific, not just more rhetoric.”
For some minority students, disagreements with Trump are sharper.
Nursing student Deliani Velez walked with her friends Laina Marble and Jenna Reitz along University Drive, where speakers attached to lamp posts deliver low-decibel Christian pop and hymns as students traverse campus. Velez will be at Liberty during commencement, but won’t attend the ceremony, which is open to all students.
“I consider myself a feminist and I’m Hispanic, so that clashes a lot with Trump,” said Velez, 19, a sophomore from Springfield, Massachusetts. “I’m not really stoked about it.”
Joshua Abrahams, 20, a freshman from Manhattan, is not a fan, either.
“He’s a great businessman, but his comments are unnecessary. He insults everybody and I don’t like that,” said Abrahams, who is black. “My Caucasian friends are excited that he’s coming. My African-American friends are not.”
Despite some pushback, students agreed any significant protest is unlikely. It’s not the Liberty way, they say, even for those who don’t approve of the president. Last fall, Dustin Wahl, a junior from South Dakota, founded Liberty United Against Trump. He and approximately 2,000 others in the Liberty community signed a statement that read in part, “Not only is Donald Trump a bad candidate for president, he is actively promoting the very things that we as Christians ought to oppose.” But Wahl, who will attend commencement to see his girlfriend and other friends graduate, doesn’t anticipate any fireworks.
“I don’t think a protest is particularly helpful right now,” Wahl said. “The president’s there and I disagree with him on a whole host of things, but it can’t be a political day for me because I’ve then let politics conquer other areas of my life and I don’t think it’s a helpful way to promote conversation at Liberty right now.”
Perhaps no Christian leader in the United States has more closely aligned himself with Trump than Falwell. The Liberty president delivered a glowing tribute to Trump during a campaign visit in January 2016. And his support was critical after the release in October of the Access Hollywood video in which Trump was overheard bragging lewdly about groping and trying to have sex with women. Falwell went to bat for Trump, saying that his comments were reprehensible, but that “we’re all sinners, every one of us. We’ve all done things we wish we hadn’t.”
Over the past decade, Falwell has overseen a billion-dollar growth spurt at the school founded by his father, the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, in 1970. Construction cranes tower over the campus and new academic, athletic and residential buildings have recently been completed, with several more in the pipeline. Most of the school’s 80,000 students are enrolled online. About 15,000 take classes on campus. The school has also built up a $1.4 billion cash reserve.
That Trump agreed to speak at commencement is a “great honor” said Falwell, in an interview in his conference room with sweeping views of the surrounding mountains and the school’s athletic facilities. Falwell, who recently called Trump a “dream president” for evangelicals, said he hasn’t spoken with the president about his planned remarks, but he knows what would go over well with the graduating class.
“I’d love to hear him talk to the students about what he plans to do for them to make it a better job market, to make the United States a better place for them to raise their families,” Falwell said, “And then I’d like him to tell them what he needs them to do to help him make America great again.”
