At 9:00pm on the first of October, a handful of students crowded around the tables in the back of the Events Barn, to watch as JD Vance and Tim Walz faced off in the Vice Presidential Debate.
Common Ground Interns screened the debate. While they didn’t disappoint with snacks, this experience was a little bit of a let down compared to the last debate. This time, there were far fewer students and the excitement was suppressed. The atmosphere was not unlike a sleepover, with sweet treats and small clumps of friends. This differed from the Presidential debate, which felt more like a tense, overcrowded movie theater. You could feel the friction between the screen and the students. At the Presidential Debate, everyone seemed ready to make a loud reaction at any moment; the VP Debate was a quieter, more sparse version of that experience. However, the setting, in both cases, seemed to bring a strangely exuberant atmosphere to the watching of something so weighty. While the students were laughing and chatting, the debate itself felt like a tug of war over the future of our country. Both the screening and the debate itself fulfilled their supposed goal of creating a space of community and mutual understanding around the divisions between parties. The differences between the number of students in attendance intrigued me, because it was indicative of the relationships between the student body and politics. There are a number of factors influencing this relationship, including how comfortable students are with bringing themselves and their beliefs into a social sphere, how much time students dedicate to keeping up to date with politics and what exactly they feel is important to stay informed about. All of these factors rely on the underlying current of our College’s environment, and the organizations that allow us to explore and discuss our beliefs.
On the Hamilton College website, Common Ground describes itself as a “widely acclaimed multi-format program that helps prepare students for lives of active citizenship.” Former President David Wippman created Common Ground to bring in speakers from all different professions. His goal was to start new political dialogues in classrooms and at larger events, and to hopefully reach a “common ground” on politically significant topics.
Sarafina Madden, ‘26, ambassador for Common Ground, says that the program “invites Hamilton students to question their political beliefs and expose themselves to a wide range of political perspectives.” She described her role as that of an intern who has the opportunity to send out emails, help set up events, and in this case, run the debate screening. The Hamilton College Website characterizes the seven interns as “our inaugural student team [whose] leaders will help us develop and envision the future of Common Ground and strategically connect with students.”
The nature of debate screenings directly coincides with the goal of the program, which is to inform students of systems of government from many different angles.
I was curious about how important students considered the debate. When asked, Mirix Robertson-Leich, ‘27 said that the “debate [made] people more enthusiastic about their respective candidates” and that it “affirmed how [they felt]about the candidates- not policies necessarily, but the candidates themselves.” Taylor Schuster, ‘28 seems to have had a similar perspective, claiming “I don’t think anyone walks away from the debate with an open mind about who they are going to vote for. [The debate] should be more significant in your decision making than it is.”
Madden shared her thoughts as well, “I think that it's unlikely that the VP Debate alone will win over the swing voters that both candidates are trying to gain . . . [however,] the VP Debate does serve as another opportunity for us to think about each candidate's policies and gain more insight into the candidates we are casting our votes for.”
The Vice Presidential Debate didn’t have as much of an impact on the general as it, perhaps, should have (as Schuster said). I thought this was due to the great disparity in views of each candidate, which made it hard to engage and/or sway viewers, but nonetheless informed us on candidates through the policies they emphasized and the way they presented themselves.
I also asked “What should students do here to be politically active?” Madden responded by saying, “I think that sometimes it feels like political participation as a young person doesn’t have much of an impact…honestly the best way for young people to be engaged civically is to engage in conversation with friends, family members and – especially here – with faculty, to question and to think more critically about our political beliefs, and to sharpen our rhetorical skills so that we are prepared to talk later in political discussions, when our voices presumably hold more weight.”
Robertson-Leich thought that the way to be politically involved as a student requires “[getting] unbiased information from objective news sources using critical thinking, [and] listening to other people”, adding “you will miss things from the news so, it's good to be open minded in conversations.” Schuster, also believed that discussion is important, “Most things don’t have a straightforward answer; two different opinions can be true at the same time and a conversation about them doesn’t have to be hostile.” Adding on to these students, I believe that having organizations and clubs that actively involve politics and give students a place to practice exercising their voice is important. I think it is also important to consider the implications of your beliefs and how to have these difficult conversations.
I am still left questioning whether the steep decrease in attendance compared to the Presidential Debate says something about the specific nature of Hamilton’s students' engagement with politics, if this change is reflective of the larger population. Do these events offer us a platform to speak up, or do they simply allow us to demonstrate our political involvement? What is the difference between watching the debate on your own, or at a Common Ground event?
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