“He was clearly an enormously bright fellow, who wasn’t arrogant,” Miner said.

In fact, Obama was eager to share recognition with his fellow students and strove to include his fellow students in dialogue, instead of merely showing off his superior knowledge.

Obama “wanted faculty and other students to see that other people in the classroom had good and interesting and provocative ideas,” Ogletree said.

Obama felt that other students contributed to a collective answer, formulated from the layered input of all the class members.

“He was as much a teaching assistant as he was a student,” Ogletree said.

Obama could have pursued an career in academia had he not chosen to dive into politics, Olgetree said.

Although Ogletree describes Obama as a “terrific teacher,” pundits have said that Obama has struggled to effectively harness his ability to translate his platform to the American public in a simple and relatable form during the last four years.

“There’s no better salesman than Barack, but there was a period when somehow his voice got muffled,” Miner said of Obama’s first term. “He followed bad advice and lost his voice.”

THE MEDIATOR

In 1990, Obama became the first African-American to pass through the grueling election process and win the much-coveted position of Harvard Law Review president.

According to Ogletree, Obama expressed some “reluctance and anxiety” about running.

“He had to be chosen by a cross-section of people who all were smart and gifted and who were different races, genders, political persuasions and even classes,” Ogletree said.

Obama “was pleasantly surprised to see the wealth of support and enthusiastic endorsement of him as the president,” Ogletree said.

At the time, Randall Kennedy, a professor of law, told the Crimson that Obama’s selection proved that “talent can be recognized regardless of race.”

According to Ogletree, Obama wanted to open doors for future students who would follow in his footsteps as leaders of the Law Review. Soon after his election, Obama said that he was happy to be the first African-American elected,