Multiple professors put together a debate each year at Longwood as a way for students to experience real world problem solving. The debate is about which professor should survive the fictitious shipwreck they went through, now only one professor can survive on a raft with enough supplies to get away. On April 4 four professors came together to debate on who should survive on the raft. The four professors were: Dr. Eric Moore, philosophy representative, Dr. Catherine Franssen, representing psychology, Dr. William Abrams, representing mathematics, and Dr. Julian Dymacek, the devil’s advocate.
“I have been (to the debate) in the past,” said junior Joshua Lancaster, computer science major. “I found it to be very entertaining, one of the computer science teachers set it all up, so we hear a lot about it beforehand.”
The debate started with an explanation of the rules and the introduction of each contestant, a professor from three general studies: natural science, humanities and fine arts, and social science. Last year’s winner, Dymacek, was given the opportunity to play devil’s advocate this year, his job was to turn the students against the idea of letting one profession go free on the raft.
“Since last year’s winner was a computer scientist, we wound up with two scientists on the raft,” said Dr. Robert Marmorstein, associate professor of computer science. “However, the winner of the debate, Dr. Moore, is a philosopher and represented humanities. He might be amused to be described as a scientist.”
Each contestant gave a fifteen-minute lecture on what their department specifically does for society, specifically what the department does for college students. Abrams brought up the point that technology popular for students would not be available without mathematics. Dymacek, the devil’s advocate, pointed out the flaws in the debate, including that students weren’t given enough details about the situation. He told students he wasn’t actually playing devil’s advocate, but being the devil in the details.
“I thought it was pretty funny, I liked all the humor that was put in along with actual facts,” said sophomore Amy Sivills, communication science and disorders major. “I would be interested (to see) if they put some out of the way majors in that no one really knows about.”
The debate is meant to be entertaining for the students as well as educational, each year there is an attempt to have diverse candidates for the debate. In past years, there have been representatives from business, education, economics, anthropology, biology, and english. This year, the candidates did admit that it would be more important for their department to survive rather than the individual; which Dymacek pointed out as another reason to sink the raft, because the department was not at stake.
“If you take the time to think about it, you can see that the Raft Debate actually focuses on a very deep question: do the liberal arts have merit?” said Marmorstein.
