Public Debate
Throughout its history, the WPDU has frequently convened public debates on salient and pressing topics facing local, regional and national communities, sometimes drawing large crowds and media attention. Today, these debates typically feature a mix of student and expert advocates, audience participation periods, and formats tailored specifically for each debate. Topics have included school vouchers, the merging local governments, and transportation issues, peer-to-peer file sharing, textbook pricing, and sex education. In 2000, the Cross Examination Debate Association recognized the Union’s public debate efforts with the Public Sphere Award.
Read more about this topic: William Pitt Debating Union
Famous quotes containing the words public and/or debate:
“Colonial system, public debts, heavy taxes, protection, commercial wars, etc., these offshoots of the period of manufacture swell to gigantic proportions during the period of infancy of large-scale industry. The birth of the latter is celebrated by a vast, Herod-like slaughter of the innocents.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“Abject flattery and indiscriminate assentation degrade, as much as indiscriminate contradiction and noisy debate disgust. But a modest assertion of one’s own opinion, and a complaisant acquiescence in other people’s, preserve dignity.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)