Sydney Sericolo ’17
When Eric Brower ’17 returned to Loudonville from working on political campaigns in New Hampshire with Jack Collens, Ph.D., assistant professor of political science, and his Presidential Nomination Campaigns classmates, he knew his political journey was not over.
Brower, a rising senior and Community Policy Institute (CPI) Fellow, continued to follow his passion for politics, and was selected as one of the six student representatives for New York State in the #CollegeDebate16 Conference. This conference is a national, non-partisan initiative to empower young voters to identify issues and engage peers in the presidential election. The conference has a special focus on the influence social media has in the 2016 Presidential Election.
“I believe this will be a great opportunity to continue exploring the topics covered in Dr. Collens' class and to learn more about the issues that my fellow citizens from across the county find important,” said Brower.
The conference brings the participating student delegates, representing 150 college campuses across the nation, together to Dominican University’s campus in San Francisco. Here, the students are trained to initiate issues-based conversations with their friends, classmates and campus. During part one of the two-part conference series, Brower and his fellow delegates attended lectures with California Secretary of State Alex Padilla, PBS The Open Mind host Alexander Heffner and Dr. Sybril Brown, professor of journalism at Belmont University.
When the delegates return for the second session in September, they will participate in a town hall meeting where they will agree on the key issues - and very specific questions - for the presidential candidates to address. These questions will be presented to the moderators of the 2016 presidential debates.
Brower’s hope for the #CollegeDebate16 in September is, “to gain a better perspective of the issues people feel are important in this cycle and learn the best ways to engage voters and potential voters in the electoral process.”
