Annie Rau ’19: The Junto advisors and Board are hosting a “Presidential Debate.” taking place on Thursday, October 27th, during activity period on the Main Stage theater. The Democratic and Republican platforms at Episcopal will be debating later this October.
“The Junto board tries to pick topics that are interesting to the community and to which there are two sides to the issue.” states Kris Aldridge. The advisors for the club are Kris Aldridge, Lynne Hay, and Jennifer Maier, and the board is made up of mostly seniors and one junior. Board member Ryan Foster ‘17 adds, “I think debates are important in general because, first of all, they are fun, but they also help public speaking skills and increasing improvisational intellectual ability.”
Although the board members usually monitor the debates, this year’s “Presidential Debate” is special because the students on the board are able to take part as debaters. Foster says, “We decided to include board members as debaters this time because in the past, it wasn’t formatted properly enough.” There will be two students on each side of the platforms talking about controversial issues, and the Junto Board advisors choose what topics are discussed between the two.
“What we want to avoid is any topic that really is a weakness of one candidate and a strong suit of the other, but rather include one of which the platforms of each party are equally defined, equally advanced, and equally sound. Our hope is to absolutely avoid those topics in particular platforms that are weak,” Aldridge continues. “The debate this October is really not about the Presidential candidates so much as the Presidential platforms.
On the Republican side, Schuyler Kresge ’18 and Nick Horbowy ‘17 will be tackling the questions at hand and on the Democratic platform it will be Maximo Moyer ‘17 and Ryan Foster ‘17.
Kresge ‘18 explains, “I am strictly debating the Republican platform. For example, in the debate we can not bring up either candidate directly, that way no platform can make direct comments about Hillary or Trump. This way the debate will be more about the facts rather than a he said she said type of thing.” Kresge plans on tackling the issues of the second amendment, gun control rights, as well as immigration. Regarding the debate, Moyer stresses, “We will be debating matters of policy concerning the platforms and not the candidates…I think it’s vital that we shift our focus from these gossip-like scandals and refocus on how the candidates are actually going to the run country rather than how they act in their spare time.”
“We have spoken to both Young Republicans and Young Democrats and really I think in a lot of ways just to give them a heads up and hear either any objections they would have to the debate or how they would like to see it structured. Because again, we really view it as a Junto function because the people who are leading the debate, monitoring the debate, identifying the issues that will be discussed, the main participants in the debate, are Junto board members.” said Kris Aldridge. She adds, “The overall hope of Junto is that by participating in the events and debates, students can become better public speakers, develop quick thinking skills, respond to questions on their feet and also become more mindful of the views that they take.” Foster comments on potential plans for Junto saying, “To participate, you don’t necessarily have to be in Junto, but you do have to be serious about the topic and the debate…In the future, we hope to also include faculty in other regular debates to continue discussing the election.”