Landon Block is a political science junior and the Opinion Editor at Mustang News. The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of Mustang Media Group.
United States Senator Adam Schiff was on Cal Poly’s campus this Tuesday. He also held his first town hall as a senator alongside U.S. Representative Salud Carbajal at Cuesta College that evening.
This is a huge political event for our tiny college town, so why were next to no students engaged? Did they not care, or did they not know?
It’s not common for our little Central Coast college town to see such major political figures. Then-President Joe Biden visited in January 2023 after ravaging storms, but even that visit didn’t involve Cal Poly’s campus community.
Sen. Schiff, by contrast, spent much of the day on campus. I was with him as he spoke to an Introduction to American and California Government (POLS 112) class. As a GE course, the room was mostly full of non-political science majors, but there were still an abundance of thoughtful questions.
Students asked about Trump’s defiance of court orders, advice when travelling out of the country and how they can start hard conversations to engage their communities. After just an hour, I could sense the newfound energy in this class full of students who wanted to make a difference and engage with politics.
On his way out of the class, Sen. Schiff told me he enjoys visiting college campuses while traveling to hear about young people’s concerns and encourage their engagement. “Especially at a time like this, when things are extremely challenging in the country, it’s really important that we hear young voices,” Schiff said.
I’m grateful Schiff took time out of his busy schedule to hear from Cal Poly students. It’s an important step to hearing from a demographic that all too often feels unseen by politicians. So after he took time to hear from us, I’m left confused as to why this visit wasn’t publicized to the broader student community.
It would have been nice for Schiff and Carbajal to post about this on social media, and Cal Poly and Cuesta could easily have sent out communications to students about the visit. I understand there are security concerns of publishing where Sen. Schiff would be all day, but I don’t see advertising the town hall as a real threat.
At the town hall Tuesday night, headlined by both a sitting U.S. senator and San Luis Obispo’s representative, I saw only a handful of students among the nearly 2,000 RSVPs.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m excited to see SLO get excited about politics. The room got rowdy when Schiff and Carbajal brought up pressing issues like Pete Hegseth’s Signal leaks and cuts to federal government services. They also talked about wars in Ukraine and Gaza, LGBTQ+ rights, and Trump’s threats to democracy: all problems young people care about deeply.
I just wish students knew this was happening. I don’t just mean Cal Poly; Cuesta’s student government president, Lucia Landeros, didn’t even know about the town hall until less than an hour before it started. Many of the people who should have been the most “in the loop” were left out.
I would have loved if Sen. Schiff and Rep. Carbajal had taken further advantage of being in a college town to hear more from young people. I also would have appreciated seeing Cal Poly and Cuesta College make more of an event of this special visit from two of our elected officials.
To their credit, they did acknowledge that town halls typically attract an older audience and aren’t the end of their outreach efforts. “It isn’t enough to rely on town halls to communicate with people. You also need to go where young people are, both in the real world and in the virtual world,” Schiff said.
I agree with this sentiment, and I think Sen. Schiff in particular does a great job of expanding his online presence to meet young people where they’re at. He regularly posts long-form breakdowns on his YouTube channel and shorter content on Instagram. He also often collaborates with progressive media outlets like Meidas Touch and even non-political influencers.
Rep. Carbajal has a smaller social media presence (which makes sense given his smaller constituency), but he also stressed the importance of innovating to reach new and younger audiences. “I mean, if we do the same old same old, nobody’s gonna wanna listen to us,” Carbajal said to media after the town hall.
This is great for engaging young people from across the state, and even across the country. However, I think Schiff, Carbajal, Cal Poly and Cuesta all missed out by not advertising this event to engage students who are physically present. After all, you don’t need to make videos in an attempt to meet students where they’re at digitally if you can meet them where they’re at physically, on campus.
It’s really hard to make young people care about politics beyond the president. In-person opportunities are critical to building engagement with new audiences. I saw it myself in the POLS 112 class; the entire lecture hall was engaged and aware of the gravity of the situation. Talking with Sen. Schiff made a real difference for many of these students, and I expect to see real results.
I know that more Cal Poly students would have been ecstatic to hear from Sen. Schiff and Rep. Carbajal about what they can do in this unprecedented political climate. They just didn’t know they had the opportunity.
So to Sen. Schiff and Rep. Carbajal: I thank you for taking the time to speak with the SLO community. You have busy schedules, and this gesture does not go unnoticed. The next time you’re in the beautiful Central Coast together, I would love to see a collaboration with Cal Poly and Cuesta to interact with more students. I think if you get to know us and hear our concerns, you will gain thousands of dedicated supporters in your fight.
You both reminded the town hall audience that it’s going to take all of us in a fight against a constitutional crisis. I agree that young people are crucial to this fight, and I look forward to working together.
