This past Thursday, Feb. 21, the first ever Monmouth College Raft Debate took place in the Highlander Room of Stockdale Center. The event was sponsored by the Alpha Lamba Delta (ALD) honor society.

The basic premise of the event was this: the world is flooding and only three majors on campus can be saved. The event brought together professors from various departments on campus to argue for the salvation of their major.

In order to keep things fun and discourage any hard feelings, professors wore snorkel nametages, and lifesavers were distributed to the audience.

To begin, each professor was given three minutes to present their case. Following this initial round, the audience voted, and two professors were eliminated: Steve Richter (Music) and Petra Kuppinger (Anthropology/Sociology). The remaining professors then had an additional three minutes to further argue their case.

The winners of the debate were Bradley Sturgeon (Chemistry), Farhat Haq (Political Science) and Sue Holm (Modern Foreign Languages). Other representatives were Steve Price (English), Benita Dilley (CATA) and Marsha Dopheide (Psychology).

ALD officers involved were Katie Clarizio (president), Brittany Darwent (vice president), Rachel Leigh Bold (secretary) and Om Kumar Shreshta (treasurer).

As fun as the event proved to be, let’s just hope this decision never actually has to be made.

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