MONMOUTH, Ill. — A century ago, Monmouth College students were among
the most rabid in support of their peers. When they weren’t cheering
athletes, they could be found rallying their school’s debaters, too. In an
effort to revive this tradition and to showcase their respective new
debate programs, students from Monmouth and Knox colleges will square off
in the first-ever Knox-Monmouth Debates.
The event, which will be held April 7 at 7 p.m. in the Barnes
Electronic Classroom in Monmouth College’s Hewes Library, will follow an
intercollegiate softball doubleheader at 3 p.m. between the Fighting Scots
and the Prairie Fire, which will be played just 100 yards away at MC’s
Bobby Woll Memorial Field. Both the softball games and the debates are
free and open to the public.
The athletic-academic challenge serves as a small-scale reminder of a
popular occurrence from the late 19th century, when intercollegiate
athletic events such as baseball games and track meets were held on the
same day as oratorical competitions.
In his book “A History of Monmouth College Through Its Fifth
Quarter-Century,” Monmouth professor William Urban wrote, “What fun it
used to be to attend the autumn field days. It was a jolly, noisy and
enthusiastic crowd that heard this summons on the morning of Wednesday,
Oct. 3, 1894. The occasion was the prospective annual meeting of the
Illinois colleges for a trial of strength of brain and brawn – or to put
it more exactly – in oratory and athletics.”
At the April 7 event, three students from each school will face off in
one-on-one debates. Topics will include: whether colleges place too much
emphasis on athletics; the responsibility colleges have to stop Internet
file-sharing among students; and the rivalry between the two schools that
spans nearly 150 years. Each round will be judged by one person, with Knox
supplying two judges and Monmouth one.
“We took great care in selecting topics that would be interesting,
engaging and debatable,” said sophomore Ron Bronson of Plainfield, N.J.,
director of Monmouth’s debate team, who will represent MC along with
Brandie Miller, a freshman from Milledgeville, and Joe Cross, a junior
from Lake Zurich. “Public debate is accessible to anyone. Judging can
be done by any adult of reasonable intelligence – it doesn’t require a
Ph.D. The onus is on the debaters to convince that their side is right.”
Individual winners in each debate round will win awards and the winning
school will receive a large trophy.
“We figured that with new programs, any opportunity to compete for
hardware is an added bonus,” Bronson added. The teams hope to turn the
debates into an annual event to be held in the fall, with the schools
alternating as hosts.
The Monmouth and Knox squads met earlier this year, when they debated
at the Harper College Invitational Debate Tournament. Monmouth won both
rounds against Knox.
“We’re not focusing on that anymore,” said Bronson. “The format for
this debate is different and I have no doubt that they will be ready to
beat us.”
“We’ve been wanting to do something like this for quite some time, so
it’s great that we’ll finally be able to do it,” said Jennifer Klinesmith,
co-president of the Knox debate team and a sophomore from Sheridan, Wyo.
“We look forward to starting our own tradition with these debates.”
Also competing for Knox will be co-president Christine Kjelland, a
sophomore from Minnesota, and Emily Smith.
