Former U.S. representative, lawyer and alumnus Ted Poe will visit campus on Oct. 1 to speak with the Jack Pope Fellows, the Pre-Law society and The Optimist.

Poe graduated in 1970 and served as a chief felony prosecutor for eight years, and he was appointed as a felony court judge in 1981. In 2005, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives for Texas’s second district in Houston. As a judge, he gained fame for his unusual, “Poe-tic” sentences, said Neal Coates, chair of the Department of Political Science & Criminal Justice.

“He became statewide, known and even nationwide,” said Coates, director of the Pope Fellows. “Known for his creative and appropriate help people understand the impact of their crime, but then also to rehabilitate.”

While Poe is here, Coates hopes students can learn from the many different roles he has held in his life. He said Poe can come to a terrorism class and talk about his experience as the chair of a subcommittee that dealt with terrorism, he can talk to a criminal law class about how to give sentences that implement change, and he can talk to journalism students about his experiences working with the media.

“He’s a person who’s had [many] careers and has excelled at all of them,” Coates said. “That’s great for our students to listen and hear from him, whether they are a Jack Pope Fellow, or they’re a government criminal justice major, or they’re a pre-law.”

While he is on campus, Poe will meet with the pre-law society to discuss his time as a judge. Canaan Fairley, president of the Pre-Law Society, said that he wants to learn more about balancing his faith in the law profession.

“I would like to go ahead and learn about the balance between upholding the law and being Christian,” said Fairley, senior political science major from San Antonio. “That’s certainly something that is a difficult interplay for lawyers [who] are Christians, because it’s like upholding the law and upholding justice.”

Canaan also wants students in society to be inspired by Poe’s career and his achievements.

“But if anything, I want these individuals to be able to, like, have a little bit more of a spark,” Fairley said. “I know a lot of our students are just interested in finding out what does law school look like, whether that’s a good career path. I’d be happy if our students were able to learn a little bit about what this particular dimension of the law looks like, and see if it’s something they’re interested in.”