Speaker Series allows debate students to showcase knowledge

Payton Primm, News Editor

Junior Olivia Moore steps up to the podium, full of excitement, nervousness, and confidence. She has spent weeks preparing for one of the biggest debates of the year: the Speaker Series. Hours of work have all led up to this moment, and as she takes the floor with a wide smile on her face, she is elated to finally show the audience everything she has learned about her candidate.

“I represented Gary Johnson at the Speaker Series event, and I mainly discussed Johnson’s views on the economy. Johnson is a Libertarian who is not as widely known as Clinton or Trump, so I had to search much deeper than some of my opponents to find his perspectives on certain topics,” Moore said.

Students in the debate program were each assigned a candidate, and their job was to research and present that candidate and their views to the best of their abilities. Each student was given two minutes to answer questions in the same way that the candidate they were representing would answer the question. The Speaker Series is meant to mirror the debates of the national presidential election, as well as to train debate students to debate perspectives that they may not personally agree with. The Speaker Series debate was held at the Springdale Country Club, one week before the national election.

“I think it [the Speaker Series] is extremely important because it allows for students and people of our community to know what is going on with this election, and to really go in depth on who these candidates are and what they stand for. It is really important for us to be educated on America and our government,” senior debate student Caroline Eastep said.

The political candidate that each student would represent was randomly assigned to them. The students were put in teams of four, and they worked together to prepare the topics they would be debating. Senior debate student Chris DuCote and his teammates received Donald Trump as their assigned candidate.

“I am going to be presenting the issue of immigration on behalf of Donald Trump, and I am mainly going to be focusing on the problems that we have abroad. Donald Trump’s candidate is mainly trying to focus on renewing America and renewing its strength before placing other countries in front of the United States,” DuCote said.

Students that were assigned the task of the question and answer portion on behalf of their candidate had to prepare a variety of topics, as they were unsure on which questions they were going to be asked about their candidate.

“My main role was the question and answer section, and I expected to get questions on the taxing systems, health care, gun control, supreme court justices, and social security beliefs of my candidate, Hillary Clinton,” Eastep said.

While the debate is designed to be a creative and new way for students to showcase their debating skills, the Speaker Series also presented a number of challenges that students had to overcome in order to be successful on debate night.

“Preparation was definitely my biggest challenge. I feel like it [the Speaker Series] just snuck up really fast, and having enough preparation really was not on my side,” DuCote said.

Other students faced the challenge of finding information to support and accurately depict their candidate’s views.

“My biggest obstacle was gathering all of the information and figuring out how to say it in a way that makes Hillary Clinton look really good. It also took some work to try to minimize all of the bad information and show everyone why Clinton is the best candidate to be voting for,” Eastep said.

Overall, the Speaker Series was a highly informative event for the students participating, as well as a way for the adults in the audience to gather information on the candidates running for president prior to voting. The Speaker Series also served as a new way for the debate program to raise money to help the team go to New Orleans and to other large tournaments.

“The Speaker Series is important because it allows our students to get out there and know more about the presidential candidates that they are potentially voting for. It is incredibly important to go out into our community and make sure that voters know what issues are being discussed in this presidential debate,” Moore said.