Foreign policy, bipartisanship, immigration, and midterm elections were among the conversation topics Tuesday night at Wilks Theater.
So, too, were the Miami University experiences of Paul Ryan ’92 and Shefali Razdan Duggal ’93 — and a friendship that started with studying together at Shriver Center and has endured through their prominent political careers.
Razdan Duggal, the United States’ Ambassador to the Netherlands from 2022-2025, and Ryan, Speaker of the House of Representatives from 2015-2019, returned to their alma mater as part of the annual JANUS Forum. The event, titled “Two Miamians, One Ballot: Lives of Public Service,” drew a large crowd to Armstrong Student Center’s Wilks Theater.
Moderated by Nate Novak, president of the JANUS Forum and a junior Political Science major with a Business Leadership co-major, the near 90-minute presentation offered the longtime friends a platform to discuss several issues surrounding the current political landscape, as well as reminisce about their own Miami memories.
“I look upon my time here with nothing but just gratefulness, gratitude. I have lots and lots of friends from here,” said Ryan, who noted he and Razdan Duggal became “study buddies” during his junior year. “I don’t even know if we knew each other’s politics in those days. We’re obviously from other sides of the aisle, but we’ve maintained our strong friendship for many, many years.”