The week before the debate, every one of Washington University's 11,550 registered students, full-time and part-time, graduate and undergraduate, was automatically entered in a lottery to determine who would receive tickets to the event. At the time no one knew exactly how many tickets would be available to Washington University students. Estimates ranged anywhere from 20 to more than 100.
University Registrar Stuart Yoak, Ph.D., entered all of the student's identification numbers into a computer program. Each identification number was randomly assigned a rank order from one to 200. These students would be the lucky few to be considered for the unknown number of seats.
On Friday, Oct. 9, winning student identification numbers were posted all over campus. Crowds of students flocked to the lists, searching for their numbers. On Sunday, the winning students went to the Francis Field ticket booth, where the tickets were being distributed. The first student selected in this lottery would receive the first ticket and so on. Those close to 200 held little hope of getting in, but all showed anyway, fortunately for them.
As it turned out, 137 tickets to the debate hall floor were assigned to Washington University. All these seats went to students. No members of the administration or faculty received tickets. After the 137 tickets were distributed, a wonderful thing happened.
Robert Petersen, superintendent of the U.S. Senate Press Gallery and credentialer of the reporters attending the event, found more than 110 unused press seats in the balcony. He turned these over to Yoak for the rest of the 200 lottery winners; then the rest went to students standing nearby, who were waiting in the hope a miracle would turn up additional floor tickets.
"If the students had a hero in the event, it was Bob Petersen who turned over a number of unused floor tickets to students," said M. Fredric Volkmann, vice chancellor for public affairs.
Second-year law student Heather Schlozman knew without a doubt that she would be one of the students selected to watch the presidential debate from inside the hall. Schlozman was No. 1.
"I knew I was going either way," she said. "I was thrilled. It's exciting for the University. It's a real honor."
Ashwin Rao, a second-year MBA student, was No. 88. "I couldn't believe it," he said. "I got home and heard the message on the answering machine from the registrar's office. I played it over 100 times and called everyone I knew."