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The College of New Jersey students Caitlyn McNair, left, and Jennifer Loughran, right, helped develop debate questions submitted to the Commission on Presidential Debates. (Sarah Ratner | The College of New Jersey)
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EWING -- Like so many other Americans, Caitlyn McNair can't wait to watch Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton go head-to-head Monday night in their first presidential debate, she said.
But while McNair, 20, is eager to hear what the candidates say, the junior at The College of New Jersey likely will be more interested than most viewers in what the moderators ask. There's a chance it could be a question she helped pick.
McNair, of Hackensack, was one of 150 college students selected by the Commission on Presidential Debates to suggest questions to moderators in this year's debates. She and her TCNJ classmate Jennifer Loughran were picked to travel to California, help generate hundreds of potential questions and narrow that list to the five best.
There's no guarantee the moderators will ask any of the questions the students submitted, but McNair and Loughran have high hopes that they'll hear them, they said.
"It will be very exciting to be sitting there wondering if something that you helped put together is going to be asked," McNair said. "There was a lot of thought that went into the wording of the questions."
In order to be picked for the initiative, called College Debate 2016, students had to illustrate that they are active in political discussions on campus and able to engage in civil conversations about the election.
Both McNair and Loughran, a junior from Lakewood, passed that test and were sent to Dominican University of California, about 20 miles north of San Francisco. There, they met with a collection of politically engaged students from across the country.
There were some students in "Make America Great Again" hats, others in Hillary Clinton shirts and a few that didn't seem to lean toward either candidate, said McNair, who declined to reveal which candidate she supports.
Despite differing political views, the students worked collaboratively, said Loughran, who said she doesn't like Donald Trump but isn't sold on Hillary Clinton either.
"We didn't focus on the candidates themselves," Loughran said. "We focused on issues."
The students were given 15 broad topics and narrowed that list to five: foreign policy, social justice/civil rights, immigration, education and income inequality and economy.
Then, they broke into groups to generate subcategories in those topics, come up with dozens of questions and vote for the five best questions to submit to the Commission on Presidential Debates.
Because of a tie in the voting, the group put forth six questions, including two in foreign policy.
McNair might miss the beginning of the debate because she has a late class, but she fully expects a text from Loughran if one of their questions is asked, she said.
"I am going to probably freak out," McNair said. "And then call my dad and make sure that he was watching and he knew it was one of the questions, too."
Here are the six questions the students picked:
Foreign Policy: What specific circumstances would prompt the United States to use military resources in a foreign country? How would you utilize the nation's military resources?
How do you plan on supporting Syrian civilians without creating further conflict with other political actors?
Social Justice/Civil Rights: What will you do to reduce the recidivism and mass incarceration rates in communities where poverty and violence are prevalent?
Immigration: What is your plan for aiding the employment of skilled refugees and immigrants in their respective fields?
Education: How will you ensure quality education to areas of socioeconomic disadvantage both in terms of K-12 and access to higher education?
Adam Clark may be reached at adam_clark@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on twitter at @realAdamClark. Find NJ.com on Facebook.