Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) will host a bipartisan team of two former Members of Congress as part of the Congress to Campus program. The Honorable Elizabeth Esty, U.S. Representative for Connecticut’s 5th congressional district covering central and northwest Connecticut from 2013 to 2019, and The Honorable John J. Faso, who represented the 19th Congressional District in upstate New York from 2017 to 2019, will engage with area university and high school students and take part in a community town hall at RPI’s Curtis J. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC). The town hall is free and open to the public with online registration (https://webforms.rpi.edu/congress-campus-community-town-hall).

Congress to Campus is aimed at fostering healthy partisanship and civility within disagreement. At RPI, Esty and Foster will meet with faculty, staff, and student groups as well as local high school government leaders to impart the value of open discussion and bipartisan dialog, and to provide insight on how Congress works and how Members accomplish things amidst disagreement.

“In today’s dynamic and complex world, understanding opposing views, different lived experiences, and conflicting values is paramount.  The importance of civil discourse cannot be stressed enough,” said Provost Rebecca Doerge. “Our goal in bringing Congress to Campus is to model civil discourse and to provide real-time discussions that exemplify the essential skills needed for everyone to come together and move forward as a society despite opposing viewpoints.”

At the town hall, Esty and Faso will address how technology and social media impact governing and electoral politics, as well as the Congressional mechanics of banning TikTok in the United States. It will be moderated by Dr. Hanna Rodriguez-Farrar, vice president of community engagement at RPI.