Jim Amidon — I’ve often written about how much goes on at Wabash — in a single day or week — and I’ve often written about the unique opportunities our students have during their four years on campus. Last week I hitched a ride with some students, and it both lifted my spirits and reinforced my feelings about the remarkable liberal arts education we provide. On Monday, students in David Timmerman’s rhetoric course brought their studies of debating to life. As part of a class assignment to bolster what they had studied, four of them simulated a Lincoln-Douglas debate. I wasn’t there for the debate, but I gather that the students struggled a bit, essentially having to stick with a plan, whereas earlier in the term they had been allowed to give extemporaneous arguments. The idea, though, was for the students to gain a better understanding of the series of seven debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas that would change the course of American history. The debates were held in the late summer and early fall of 1858 and took place all throughout the state of Illinois as Lincoln and Douglas fought for a seat in the U.S. Senate. Douglas, though dogged and run down by the final debate in October, would go on to win the Senate seat. Lincoln would win a bigger prize — national prominence — and would go on to win the presidential election years later. Fast forward from the students’ debates on Monday to their next class period on W ...
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Jim Amidon — I’ve often written about how much goes on at Wabash — in a single day or week — and I’ve often written about the unique opportunities our students have during their four years on campus. Last week I hitched a ride with some students, and it both lifted my spirits and reinforced my feelings about the remarkable liberal arts education we provide. On Monday, students in David Timmerman’s rhetoric course brought their studies of debating to life. As part of a class assignment to bolster what they had studied, four of them simulated a Lincoln-Douglas debate. I wasn’t there for the debate, but I gather that the students struggled a bit, essentially having to stick with a plan, whereas earlier in the term they had been allowed to give extemporaneous arguments. The idea, though, was for the students to gain a better understanding of the series of seven debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas that would change the course of American history. The debates were held in the late summer and early fall of 1858 and took place all throughout the state of Illinois as Lincoln and Douglas fought for a seat in the U.S. Senate. Douglas, though dogged and run down by the final debate in October, would go on to win the Senate seat. Lincoln would win a bigger prize — national prominence — and would go on to win the presidential election years later. Fast forward from the students’ debates on Monday to their next class period on W ...