Panel discussion kicks off 2024 election programming at Skidmore College
Skidmore College is working to educate students and the broader community about the important issues at stake in the Nov. 5 U.S. elections and to prepare them to participate in the democratic process.
That commitment was on full display at a Friday, July 19, panel discussion on the election at Skidmore featuring Tom Healy, a poet and political insider; Professor of History Jennifer Delton; and Joseph C. Palamountain Jr. Chair in Government Beau Breslin.
The panel was both the final session of this year’s New York State Summer Writers Institute, a monthlong series of workshops and talks featuring leading writers, and a preview of the robust series of educational programming that Skidmore has planned for the fall that will highlight the importance of civic participation.
Healy, a regular participant in the Summer Writers Institute, opened the discussion by evoking the Irish poet William Butler Yeats and the ways that politics and rage can disfigure the ways that people talk about important issues.
The Tang Teaching Museum is among campus offices and departments that will organize events this fall. (Installation view, "A More Perfect Union" featuring Mel Ziegler’s "Flag Exchange," Tang Teaching Museum, 2016.)
Much of the panel discussion, which took place just two days before President Joe Biden’s announcement that he was withdrawing from the presidential race and would endorse Vice President Kamala Harris, focused on the issue of change and questions associated with Biden’s health and age. Healy offered impressions of Biden based on recent personal encounters, which convinced him that the president had declined somewhat in several ways since their previous time together six months earlier.
Delton, a historian, described the current political climate as reminiscent of the social upheaval that accompanied the Great Depression that allowed President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to usher in the transformational social programs known as the New Deal.
“We are in a period of political transition, when norms are changing, a new economy is emerging, and there is great inequality and populist energy,” Delton said. “Like the New Dealers, Donald Trump's opposition to the old system attracts those who’ve gotten a raw deal from it and those capitalist elites who will build and profit from a new one.”
Breslin, a political scientist, similarly noted the energy of Trump supporters, who often cast themselves as part of a broader conservative movement rather than members of the Republican Party.
“Movements are more passionate,” Breslin explained.
Healy argued against the notion that the energy in the emergent campaign belongs principally to populists and election deniers, contending that in the areas of climate control, abortion rights, and support for democratic norms, there was an energetic liberal mobilization taking shape.
Upcoming election programming at Skidmore College
The panel is one example of the engaging programming Skidmore is offering this year, with departments ranging from the Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery to the Environmental Studies and Sciences Department organizing programs.
Speakers and panels will consider topics such as how to engage in dialogue during divisive times; questions of democracy and racism; climate policy; the shifting composition of the Democratic and Republican parties; gun control; gender equality; and even election security and the role of artificial intelligence.
Educating for democratic citizenship is one of the primary aims of the Skidmore mission.”Marc C. ConnerPresident of Skidmore College
“We are working to educate students and our community about the election and its processes and to cultivate a community of trust in which the essential elements of freedom of expression, diversity of perspectives, openness to many points of view in conversations and collaborations, and a welcoming spirit inform and enhance the liberal arts education Skidmore provides,” Conner said.
Conner is a founding member of (CP2) — a movement of campus leaders dedicated to equipping students and graduates for civic life in a democracy – that has grown to include more than 70 college and university presidents.
Professor of English Robert Boyers, who directs the Summer Writers Institute, noted that the election panel similarly aimed to bring together a variety of differing and unique perspectives that went beyond more day-to-day coverage in the news media.
“What these writers bring to the table is a very broad historical, conceptual, and philosophical framework, as well as a grasp of contentious issues that I think resonates with students,” said Boyers, who is also editor of , which is published at Skidmore.
Salmagundi is organizing the Sept. 27-29 conference "Are we all fundamentalists?” as part of Skidmore’s election programming. Speakers will include Kwame Anthony Appiah, Claire Messud, James Wood, Orlando Patterson, Darryl Pinckney, Namwali Serpell, Laura Kipnis, Rochelle Gurstein, and Susie Linfield, among others.
All of the programming, Boyers noted, should encourage people with differing views to engage with one another.
“Of course, it's hard to do that because the country is so polarized ... and yet that's what we must aim for,” Boyers continued. “Of course, you don't want to give any speaker a free pass. You want to insist that the speakers have to answer to the objections of other people who are often just as smart and well prepared as your favorite speaker.”
