February 22, 2017
The St. John’s Debate Society recently completed a week-long outreach project in Montana travelling to 5 Tribal Colleges on Native American Reservations to teach and practice the art of debate and advocacy.
Yves Nguyen, Taylor Tate, Mikayla Doherty, and Amber Hatcher were selected to participate in the inaugural program, which has the SJUDS partnering with Rocky Mountain College in Billings to provide debate education to the Tribal Colleges. Director Dr. Steve Llano and Graduate Assistant Emilio Horner accompanied the students as well.
The students travelled to the Little Big Horn College on the Crow Reservation, Chief Dullknife College on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation, Fort Peck Community College located on the Fort Peck Assiniboine & Sioux Reservation, and Stone Child College located on the Rocky Boy’s Indian Reservation. At each site, St. John’s Students worked with Rocky Mountain Debate students to provide debate instruction, demonstration debates, and lead discussion about how to argue and debate about important issues facing the world.
The students debated the question of the completion of the Dakota Access Pipeline, a project that has received international attention due to the protests led by Native peoples from the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North and South Dakota.
“This outreach effort is a unique way that the Debate Society can further the mission of St. John’s to serve those in need,” Dr. Llano said. “We look forward to an annual outreach program in cooperation with our Montana partners at both Rocky Mountain College and the Tribal colleges to spread debate as a powerful tool for producing knowledge about the world.”
Students had not only the opportunity to teach debating, but the opportunity to learn through discussing tribal and reservation issues with their peers at these colleges, as well as sitting in on a class on Modern Tribal Law.
The program will take place next year in the spring and will involve more tribal colleges.
The St. John’s University Debate Society is a co-curricular program for all St. John’s University students that is housed in the Department of Rhetoric, Communication, and Theater in the St. John’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. The program uses competitive debating to teach the art of rhetoric and persuasion, and is available with no audition or cost to any student at St. John’s University. Contact Dr. Llano if you would like to participate.
The Debate from Stone Child College can be viewed here: https://youtu.be/HXUmVwDSXfE
The Debate from Fort Peck Community College can be viewed here: https://youtu.be/G0Q3yvAXncg