Bob Buckhorn at USF

Bob Buckhorn frequently talks about making Tampa a destination place, not only for aspiring young people across the country, but more importantly, for local residents who frequently leave the area after graduating from college. His message during the campaign is that he wants to be the change agent to make Tampa a more dynamic place to live and work, so they won't depart to San Diego, Austin, Raleigh-Durham or other places considered frankly hipper than the Cigar City.

He invoked that same rhetoric Monday night on the USF campus, where he spoke to a crowd of approximately 70 students at the Marshall Center, at an event hosted by the USF Student Government.

And while most of the students seemed to enjoy hearing from the Mayor, one said she was underwhelmed by his response regarding an issue that is of definite concern on college campuses these days, the Dream Act, legislation that on a federal level would provide conditional permanent residency to certain undocumented students of good moral character who graduate from US high schools. The issue, backed by President Obama, went down to defeat in the U.S. Senate last December.

"I was very disappointed," said USF Senior Catherine Czerwien. "He kind of was beating around the bush and I didn't appreciate that. It's a huge deal right now, so really feel it should be brought here, and I just thought I'd get a better answer and I didn't."

When asked the question, Buckhorn joked, "Should I be for it?," before commenting that in his role of mayor he had no control over education issues (Later he told CL he simply wasn't familiar with the legislation).

This article appears in Oct 6-12, 2011.