On Oct. 18, Hamilton will host Common Ground, a discussion between two diametrically opposed political giants: Karl Rove and David Axelrod.

Axelrod was the Senior Advisor to President Obama and was behind his re-election in 2012. Aditionally, Alexrod was highly influential during the Obama years, and now he is the director of the Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago, and is a commentator for CNN.

On the other side, Rove was also a Senior Advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff to George W Bush, and Bush referred to him as the “Architect” of his campaign in 2004. A powerful republican strategist, since assisting Bush, he has also been an informal advisor to John McCain and has worked as a political analyst for Fox News.

Luckily Hamilton has us covered. At 7:30 p.m., on Tuesday Oct. 3, in preparation for Common Ground, there will be a panel on campus free speech in the chapel.

This panel will feature a variety of speakers of differing opinions who will seek to evaluate how free speech is evolving or being hindered on college campuses.

One member of the panel is Professor Bryan Fair, author of

Notes of a Racial Caste Baby: Colorblindness and the End of Affirmative Action

. His work has mostly focused on the 14th Amendment, specifically the equal protection clause.

Ari Cohn will also be featured. The director of the Defense Program for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. He addresses concerns brought forth by students who believe that their First Amendment rights have been infringed upon.

Lastly, the panel will feature Rodney A. Smolla, First Amendment scholar and dean of the Widener University Delaware School of Law. Author of numerous works, he has a significant reputation within the academic community.

Most famously, Smolla wrote about representing the families of murder victims against a publisher of a murder instruction manual which was used by the killer.

Overall, the panel features a variety of highly acclaimed and talented speakers.