He calmly faces the broad, clean line of windows framing the futuristic slant of the Philadelphia skyline, speaking with clear and confident authority. Seth Williams is a big man, easily an imposing figure in a debate or courtroom, with an open, unyielding gaze and strength in the lines of his face and frame.

But there is depth to his eyes and his calm is the relaxed tension of a man unfamiliar with apathy. A tension punctuated by the contrast between the quiet luxury of his apartment building and the dull downtown street it sits upon; between the exquisitely simple elegance of his high-ceilinged apartment and the relics -- a mountain bike, records, newspaper clippings -- of his collegiate days.

The contrast shows the last stages of a boy becoming a man, with his energy the thread linking the two. He has wanted to be an architect, a priest and finally a doctor, but because he didn't have the motivation for math, he decided he could help people by being a politician.

He says his desire for activity is a result of his parents.

"They taught me that if you see something wrong, you do something," he said. He continued, explaining his adoption, family and background with quiet clarity, but when asked about his years at the University as president of Black Caucus and the Undergraduate Student Government, his eyes reflect a fire of pride and nostalgia.

That reflection encompasses a passionate reign at the University that won him a death threat, national media eminence and some real and lasting impressions on the University.

The journey from the USG presidency to an assistant district attorney's office began innocuously with a teen-age Williams getting kicked out of the U.S. Military Academy.

"It wasn't for me, and I wasn't for them," he said, laughing about his 197 days at West Point.

Then he enrolled at Ogontz Campus in January 1986, and on his third day there, became treasurer of the Black Student Union. After his transfer to University Park, he rose through the ranks steadily by being in the right place at the right time, he said.

"I didn't really have a Napoleonic desire for power, but no one else went up for these things," Williams said.

He was involved with many student organizations and became president of Black Caucus his junior year and USG president the next.

His mother, Imelda Williams, was present when her son was elected. "He came over to me before he went to the podium and said, 'Mommy, what should I say?' I told him to speak from his heart, and he did."

An ominous start, including an anonymous death threat and circulation of fliers racially derogatory to himself and his staff, did not dampen his fervor.

"A lot of people saw me as an angry black boy, so I tried to appeal to Mr. Joe-Conservative-Six-Pack," he said.

During his presidency, he went to Harrisburg to talk to legislators about money and ran against state Rep. Lynn Herman, R-Centre, in an 11th hour write-in campaign designed to heighten students' awareness of the power they could have.

"If students chose to vote, they could do something, but they tend to pick the path of least resistance," Williams said.

His term also included one of the most publicized controversies in University history, when students took over the Telecommunications Building after former University President Bryce Jordan failed to meet with them to discuss recruitment and retention of African-American students.

"I think he felt we were moving too slow," Jordan said, calling Williams one of the most aggressively anti-administration USG presidents ever.

"But personally, we got along splendidly," Jordan added.

After 11 hours of sitting in, state troopers in full riot gear were sent in to remove students from the building. Williams said the whole incident was the worst thing for the University, but the best thing for his cause.

"The University looked bad with Dan Rather saying how ignorant they were . . . every media organization in the Western Hemisphere was sticking a microphone in my face," he said. "Although I spent the whole time fighting the University, I didn't hate the school, I just thought it could be better."

Thomas Poole, director of student activities, said Williams was very much an activist student leader.

"Seth used his position as president to serve as a platform for his activism, and did so effectively," Poole said.

Williams, with other activist student leaders of the time, got many of the things he wanted, Poole said, adding, "We're probably a better Penn State because of them."

The stretch from working against an administration, as he did as USG president, to working with an administration, as he does now as an assistant district attorney, may seem long, but to Williams it is logical.

"The more education you have, the more degrees you have, the more people take you seriously," he said, explaining that he needs these things in order for people to see him as more than just an angry black man.

For the future, he said it might be great to be governor and sit on the University's Board of Trustees. Williams is looking for a way to change things and do what his parents taught him to do --what is right.

"If people say the world is messed up, I look back and think that a few kids --with really no idea -- figured out what buttons to push," he said.