AEI Pre­sents “The Pur­suit”

MISHAWAKA—On Wednes­day, Nov. 6, the Amer­i­can En­ter­prise In­sti­tute [AEI] will be show­ing “The Pur­suit” at 7 p.m. in the Aca­d­e­mic Cen­ter, room 342. Free Chick-fil-a is be­ing pro­vided for at­ten­dees who reg­is­tered for the event by Oct. 31. 

Ac­cord­ing to the event de­scrip­tion on eventbrite.com, the movie fol­lows the true story of “pro­fes­sional mu­si­cian turned in­tre­pid econ­o­mist Arthur Brooks” as he trav­els the world seek­ing to an­swer the ques­tion, “How can we lift up the world to­gether, start­ing with those at the mar­gins of so­ci­ety?” By the end of his jour­ney, Brooks “dis­cov­ers the se­crets not only to ma­te­r­ial progress for the least for­tu­nate, but also true and last­ing hap­pi­ness for all.” 

An­drew Aguilar, a se­nior eco­nom­ics and fi­nance ma­jor, is cur­rently pres­i­dent of Bethel’s AEI ex­ec­u­tive coun­cil. 

“What AEI is all about is, ba­si­cally it’s a think­tank based out of Wash­ing­ton D.C.,” said Aguilar. “Our fo­cus is on ex­pand­ing and de­fend­ing hu­man dig­nity, build­ing a freer and safer world which fo­cuses on be­lief in democ­racy, free en­ter­prise and the Amer­i­can strength in global lead­er­ship.” 

AEI is very dif­fer­ent from other clubs or groups on cam­pus since it is part of a much larger or­ga­ni­za­tion. Cur­rently, there are only four Bethel stu­dents who are mem­bers, but they are look­ing to re­cruit many more. 

“There’s an ap­pli­ca­tion process you have to go through,” said Aguilar. “You fill out the ap­pli­ca­tion on­line, and then there’s a rep­re­sen­ta­tive... she’ll con­tact you, do, like, a video in­ter­view... she got a lit­tle bit into my be­liefs, my po­lit­i­cal stance, just a gen­eral ba­sis of where you’re at.” 

Aguilar said they are look­ing for peo­ple who en­joy thought­ful con­ver­sa­tion about im­por­tant so­cial ques­tions. 

“They just want peo­ple who are open thinkers and are look­ing to cre­ate dis­cus­sion on dif­fer­ent pub­lic pol­icy is­sues,” said Aguilar.  

If you are in­ter­ested in join­ing AEI, you can con­tact Aguilar via his Bethel email, an­drew.aguilar@bethelu­ni­ver­sity.edu, or you can email the fac­ulty ad­vi­sor for AEI, Dr. Aaron Schavey, at aaron.schavey@bethelu­ni­ver­sity.edu.  

“We’re all ju­niors or se­niors, so we’re go­ing to need peo­ple to step up,” said Aguilar. “That’s what this event is all about, is try­ing to find those fresh­man and sopho­mores so the club does­n’t die out in two years.” 

Aguilar also be­lieves that the movie will cre­ate im­por­tant dis­cus­sion and re­flec­tion among at­ten­dees.  

“It makes you think,” said Aguilar. “I don’t want them to leave here, leave the film, and think ‘I be­lieve this’; I want them to leave the film and start think­ing about it more... this is just look­ing at a dif­fer­ent view of how we can help peo­ple, which I think is valu­able.” 

AEI will be host­ing an­other event on Nov. 20, a lead­er­ship din­ner; a po­lit­i­cal com­men­ta­tor will be giv­ing a talk on the Chris­t­ian role in pol­i­tics. 

“We’re look­ing for 30 to 40 stu­dents to at­tend that,” said Aguilar. “We def­i­nitely want some fresh­man and sopho­mores, so if you’re in­ter­ested, come talk to Dr. Schavey or one of the coun­cil mem­bers."