Cat Gonzales
Photography & Social Media Editor
Butler Community College has been debating across the Midwest. Assistant Professor of Philosophy Donnie Featherston has led the team to three tournaments where the team broke to quarter finals, won speaking awards and placed third overall in debate sweeps.
“We’ve been to three tournaments so far,” Featherston said. “First, we went to Oklahoma University in Norman last fall, Gideon Wiley broke to quarter-finals. Second, we went to a tournament in Salina at Kansas Wesleyan University, where we didn’t make it to finals but brought home two speaker awards. Finally, most recently, a few weeks ago we went to Carl Albert State University in Oklahoma, where Gideon Wiley won for novice IPDA debate, and the team won third in overall debate sweeps. We were thrilled with this most recent tournament.”
The team meets weekly, usually on Friday in the afternoon at the Andover campus. They have considered having meetings in El Dorado and may add a second day or do a rotation between the campuses and keep it on Friday.
Sophomore biology major Gibeon Wiley is a part of the debate team at Butler Community College. He was homeschooled during his high school years, and he was a part of a small co-op team.
“I was homeschooled during high school,” Wiley said. “But I was a part of a co-op and had access to a small debate club. We never went to any competitions, but I got to practice, and it awakened my love for debate.”
The debate team has helped Wiley by being able to speak confidently, think quickly and develop clever arguments.
“Debate is quite helpful in the following ways: it increases speaking confidence, it helps with thinking quickly, and it assists with dissecting argumentation,” Wiley said. “There’s a lot of clever arguments in the world, and debate really helps you be able to sift through the language and get to the crux of the argument. It also keeps you informed. I owe a lot of my current event knowledge to being involved in debate.”
Featherston hopes for three different key points and he looks forward in the growth of the debate team futures.
“1. Community,” Featherston said. “Debate is fun, and the people who do it tend to be fun people. I think the biggest thing I want from this is students involved to feel a part of the Butler community. 2. Learning to think critically. This style of debate and approach favors quick and critical thinking. 3. Self-confidence. Nothing challenges people more than speaking in front of an audience and add to that the demand to construct a coherent and clear argument. Debate will force you to be more confident in your own ideas, and ability to think about the world around us.”
