Four shipwrecked victims will land on Longwood’s campus this Friday, April 19, and there is only one life raft that will save a single survivor. From 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. in Hiner 207, the University Lectures Committee will be hosting Longwood University’s first annual RAFT Debate.
In the RAFT Debate, three faculty members will represent their disciplines in an attempt to obtain the life raft by making the best argument in favor of their respective disciplines and by pleasing the audience. There will also be an additional faculty member who will serve as a devil’s advocate who will argue that all of the disciplines deserve to sink. Whoever gets the most applause wins the life raft, thereby winning the debate.
Each speaker will be allowed an allotted time of 15 to 20 minutes each for their initial speech with straws drawn to determine the order of the speakers, while the devil’s advocate will speak last. After opening statements, each representative is given an additional five minutes of rebuttal time.
The judge and moderator for the event will be Associate Professor of Communication Studies Jeff Halliday. The three faculty members who will argue the merit of their disciplines will be Professor of Anthropology Dr. James Jordan, who will represent the Cook- Cole College of Arts and Sciences; Professor of Information Systems & Security, Finance and Real Estate Dr. Bennie Waller, who will represent the College of Business & Economics; and Associate Professor and Coordinator of Special Education Dr. Christopher Jones, who will represent the College of Education & Human Services. The devil’s advocate will be Professor of Mathematics Dr. William Abrams.
The organizers for the RAFT Debate are Dr. John Miller, assistant professor of English, and Dr. Robert Marmorstein, associate professor of Computer Science. Miller serves as chair of the University Lectures Committee and Marmorstein serves as a member of the committee.
As each faculty member argues why his discipline may hold more merit than the others to win the debate, Marmorstein said, “We try to avoid hard feelings. Usually, what happens is instead of attacking the other disciplines, you build up your own. You say look how important and necessary what we do is.”
For students who attend the event, Marmorstein said, “I hope that they [learn to] appreciate the value of all the different disciplines, that they learn a little bit about the disciplines they don’t major in, that they wouldn’t have otherwise known.”
He added, “We’re encouraging students, faculty and members of the community to enjoy the scholarly debate and input in intellectual thinking. It’s supposed to be a good time.”
Abrams spoke on his excitement to play devil’s advocate during the debate, saying, “Basically, you’re the one arguing that everyone deserves to die, which, while probably not a realistic point of view, for someone who enjoys debate and argument –andIdo–it’samuchmore entertaining and amusing point of view to take on.”
Abrams laughed, “Since I know all of the other three people in the debate, I’m really looking forward to it. We’ll see if I have any friends afterwards, but I’m looking forward to it.”
Speaking on the event, itself, Abrams said, “I think it will be entertaining. I think it’s just going to be fun. I think it’s good for them [students] to see their professors in a less formal situation. I think it’s good to think about how to construct an argument. Half of what we do here is how to construct an argument, I think. I just think mostly, though, it’s going to be fun.”
The professors who are participating were chosen by nomination by the University Lectures Committee. With the hopes of continuing the event for next year, Marmorstein stated that there is hope for faculty nominations for the RAFT Debate to be open to Longwood faculty and students for next year’s event.
Longwood’s Theatre Department assisted with the making of the event by designing and making costumes in which each speaker will be dressed. Speakers will be allowed to bring their own props.
Marmorstein noted that he had received help for the organizing of the event from Assistant Professor of Management Dr. Ayse Balas, Assistant Professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders Dr. Peggy Agee, Visiting Assistant Professor in Theatre Leslie Cook-Day and more.
