For the first time in many years, Hamline has an active debate club on campus. In the past, Hamline has had organizations, such as a mock trial club, that have been an outlet for student debate, but never a club dedicated to developing speech writing, delivering and rebuttal skills like a debate club.
“These days, everybody looks at their phone so they don’t have strong social skills,” Professor of Communications and Debate Club advisor Suda Ishida said.
A key feature of debating is having the skills and knowledge to successfully write and speak a speech. Skills such as these are slowly being forgotten due to Artificial Intelligence (AI) produced work.
“AI might be able to write the scripts for you, but how about standing up and delivering them?” Ishida said.
The debate club fills a specific role on campus, allowing students from any major to learn the skills needed for public speaking.
“The topic can be broad, and you can be in any major. It’s not particular to social justice or political science,” Ishida said.
The debate club will be an opportunity for students who are looking to learn the skills of argument, the uses of which expand beyond typical argumentative majors. These include things like how to identify and speak to a specific audience.
“You first have to understand who you’re talking to,” Ishida said.
The beginning of the organization was an interesting mix of motivations for first-year and club President Kent Ernst.
“There’s two reasons, the first one is spite. The second one is because it’s my passion,” Ernst said.
The reason for the spite was sparked by the coach of Ernst’s high school debate coach.
“He was really good. He hosts one of the best teams in the nation, but he plays favorites. I wanted to prove to him that you can have a successful debate program without playing favorites,” Ernst said.
Beyond this, Ernst is still passionate about public speaking and wants other students to have the opportunity to learn.
“We are covering whatever we want to talk about. The other part of the club is going to be teaching how to properly debate without doing it unethically,” Ernst said.
The other intention behind the club is to expand the education of public speaking on campus.
“Starting the push to try and get more of these programs out because we only have like two classes for public speaking and debate in total, I want to try and show and show there is more interest so we can have more opportunities,” Ernst said.
With the upcoming winter break, there were limited opportunities to have their first event. After the winter break, students who are interested in joining the club should look for a meeting after winter break.
“We planned that once winter break is over, we would plan on finalizing the first meeting and it will be posted in the newsletter,” Ernst said.
