In what is believed to be a first for St. Petersburg College, students at four campuses will take part in a live-streamed civic engagement project with a PBS talk show host, Alexander Heffner.

Originating from the Digitorium at the Seminole campus at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 27, a forum titled Clinton, Trump and Millennials, with Alexander Heffner, will be live-streamed to students at Tarpon Springs, the Downtown Center and Clearwater. There, instructors will facilitate discussion of the speaker’s key points and submit questions via text and email while Seminole students engage with him in person.

The speaker, Alexander Heffner, is host of the PBS Sunday talk show The Open Mind. A millennial crusader for robust political debate and free speech, Heffner exudes a passion for public affairs gained at the feet of his late grandfather, Alexander Heffner, who founded the PBS show 60 years ago.

The live-streamed event is an attempt to make outside speakers accessible to students who may not have the time or means to travel to Seminole from their home campuses. It enables students in evening classes to take advantage of valuable outside resources without leaving their classroom. A number of instructors of evening classes have committed to make the forum an assigned class activity. For directions on how to stream the event live and submit questions, click HERE.

SPC students will have another opportunity to engage with Heffner, on Wednesday, Oct. 27 he will be the lead speaker at a forum in the Institute’s Dinner Series for students and the public. This will be from 6 to 8:15 p.m. in the Seminole Conference Center. Tickets, which include a buffet dinner, are $20 for students and educators and $25 for the general public. Advance registration is required at https://solutions.spcollege.edu/.

Heffner, who has covered American politics, civic life and the millennial vote since the 2008 presidential campaign, will explore the character of politics, the space of old/new media, and the ongoing 2016 presidential campaign. He will be joined at the diner event by Adam Smith, Political Editor of the Tampa Bay Times, and Dr. Laurie King, Professor of Ethics at St. Petersburg College.

Millennials – those born between 1982 and 2004 – comprise the largest generation of Americans at 75.4 million, topping the 74.9 million Baby Boomers whose birth span is 1946-1964 and who are now senior citizens. These young people will comprise more than one in three of adult Americans by 2020 and make up as much as 75% of the U.S. workforce by 2025. More relevantly for politics, they will be 40 percent of the electorate by the next election.

In addition to the millennial factor, the panel will look at a political landscape battered by one of the most negative presidential primary campaign in decades. What will be the effect of Donald Trump’s candidacy on the political process – and the parties – going forward?

David Klement
Executive Director
Institute for Strategic Policy Solutions
St. Petersburg College