For Coumoundoruros, the debate culture of Adrian College is a continuation of the type of dialogue that first became prominent in Ancient Greece, when figures like Socrates encouraged discussion of deep philosophical questions like morality, happiness, and justice. “It’s about the pursuit of truth and being able to discuss hot-button issues in a civil manner, putting the knives away and just talking,” Professor Coumoundoruros says. Professor Goetting, on the other hand, says that he didn’t have Adrian’s history in mind in the creation of a debate series. “It’s a tremendous history, but debates should be taking place on any college campus, regardless of their history or traditions. If I worked at a college where there had never been a debate before, that’s something that I would always like to introduce,” Goetting says. For Goetting, learning to participate in a civic process in a mature way should be an objective of every college student. He expresses dismay at many colleges, in his opinion, depriving their students of the opportunity to witness debates on important issues. He and Coumoundoruros made a point to seek out what they describe as “accomplished, thoughtful professionals who knew about the issues in the topics they would be debating,” in order to present what they hoped would be a model for participating in civil debate for students at Adrian. While Goetting and Coumoundoruros hoped to find a female perspective to debate the topic of abortion, scheduling conflicts among those who they hoped would help debate made the debate occur between only two men, which led to some criticism. The debate series offered attending students a chance to challenge the speakers in a question-and-answer session. “When they opened up the floor, that’s when the atmosphere changed, because then you could see the preparedness change,” freshman Datoka Norris, who attended the abortion debate, says. “A guy in front of me brought up the word murder, and then the air just sort of left the room, but both speakers handled the debate pretty well. There’s a lot of interest among the student body coming to these debates, which I think is even better than enthusiasm,” Norris says. “So far, I think it’s gone very well, and I’ve been impressed with the questions that the students have asked. That’s the most joyous part of this process, is seeing how engaged the students have been,” Goetting says.
The College World 