Wednesday’s speech by AP national political editor David Scott began the sixth year for the Six@Six series.

“The purpose of the series is to focus on the research, creative work and passions of our NKU community,” Collette Thompson, coordinator for the Scripps Howard Center for Civic Engagement said.

Thompson said the series is a way for the university and community to come closer together.

“We’re one of the many bridges that connect the university out to the community and brings the community into our university campus,” Thompson said. “This is a really fun and exciting way to do that.”

Mark Neikirk, director of the Scripps Howard Center for Civic Engagement, also agreed the series is a chance to show off NKU.

“The idea is to export our intellectual capacity to the community,” Neikirk said.

The series has had as many as 13 speakers but decided to scale back the number of speakers this year.

“We realized that we’re a really small office, so it was a lot to manage,” Thompson said. “We were looking at how we had saturated our audience. So we decided to scale things back this year and refocus.”

With the presidential campaign season already underway, Thompson said Scott was the perfect guest speaker to bring his perspective on the ongoing campaign.

“I think it’s exciting to hear what it’s like to be in that position of going all around for the various debates and covering the different candidates…the whole excitement around that and the fact that it’s such a long process to be engaged in,” Thompson said. “It’s over a year out and they’ve already been at it for weeks now.”

Thompson said Scott stayed for an all-day symposium Thursday on the changes that college and high school students feel need to occur to the election process.

Wednesday’s speech was the only one in this year’s series that will be held on campus. The upcoming series schedule is listed below. Tickets can be reserved through the series website at http://civicengagement.nku.edu/programs/lectures—forums/sixatsix.html.

2015-2016 Schedule (all events start at 6 p.m.)

• Nov. 18, 2015: Race and Race Relations in the US, The Carnegie, 1028 Scott Blvd, Covington, Ky.
• Dec. 2, 2015: Punk Talks – Mental Health in the Emo and Punk Community, Baker Hunt Art & Cultural Center, 620 Greenup St, Covington, Ky.
• Feb. 3, 2016: Project Hope and the Study of the Good Life, Campbell County Public Library – Carrico/Fort Thomas Branch, 1000 Highland Ave, Fort Thomas, Ky.
• March 2, 2016: Sherlock Holmes Version 2.0: Forensic Science in Scotland, Behringer-Crawford Museum, 1600 Montague Rd, Covington, Ky.
• April 5, 2016: Gangsters, Baseball and Fried Chicken, The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County – Main Library, 800 Vine St, Cincinnati, Ohio
• April 28, 2016: The Timeless Connection of W.G. Sebald and G.W. Steller, The Mercantile Library, 414 Walnut St #1100, Cincinnati, Ohio.