Debate and Communication Club Meetings

Touro Communication Club Notes #24

While the Communication students have been busy with the Debate Team and Communication Club, the Communication faculty has also been pushing the frontiers of Communication into other parts of Touro College. We already have a rotating Communications seminar in the MBA program of Graduate School of Business in the Wall Street area. The seminars cover public speaking, memo writing, teamwork and interpersonal communication.

This past week Touro’s Graduate School of Education. accepted two new Communication proposals, beginning this fall. The first is the only graduate course in Oral Communication in the Master’s degree program in TESOL (Teachers of English for Students of Other Languages). It will introduce TESOL teachers of grades K-6 to methods of including oral Communication in their classes. The courses will include vocabulary building, conversation skills, impromptu speaking, voice and diction, leading a discussion, questioning practice, etc.. Video will be used in the class. This is an unusual course since most of their TESOL coursework deals with writing.

The second course will be called “Communication Skills for Teachers.” Master’s students in Education and Special Education will practice a variety of oral skills similar to the TESOL course but geared to the students themselves. Strategies to build vocabulary, practice conversation, develop class discussions, impromptu speaking, learning how to question, etc., are among the topics to be covered. Video will also be used. The course is being added to enhance the oral skills of these MS students.

Here’s the upcoming schedule of the Communication Club:

Wednesday, April 30 – 1 pm -Debate Team

The team has set Wednesday, May 28 as the date for our public debate on Gun Control. That’s 4 weeks away. It’s during Finals period. We have much to do as we finalize the affirmative and negative cases and practice presenting them and enduring cross-examination. We have a tough month ahead.

Wednesday, May 7, 2008 – 1 pm – Club – “The Bully Pulpit Meets Politics”

After a very successful discussion about “Race, Religion and Rhetoric” in our first Bully Pulpit discussion. Professor George Backinoff will continue the exchange of the ways the concept of a Bully Pulpit moves into the arenas of politics and media. It should be very interesting!

What happened on Wednesday, April 16, 2008 at The Bully Pulpit”?

A solid turnout made the discussion very interesting. Drani Gabu, Theresa Wright and James Millner of the Debate team welcomed newcomers Olushile Akintade, Dennis Kniazev and Lara Koerfer. Lara won lst place in the recent 5^th Speech Contest.. Professor Jason Carvell led the discussion while Communication faculty member George Backinoff, Richard Green, David Nussbaum and Hal Wicke participated along side of the students. Dean Timothy Taylor also participated in the discussion.

Jason began by asking what “Bully” in the workshop title meant. “Intimidation, pushy, scary” were among the responses. To his question, “What does a bully do?” the group responded with a variety of negativity behaviors that characterize bullying. What is a pulpit? Who has one? were the next questions. The Pope (Pope Benedict XIV was about to visit New York City this weekend) and religious leaders, politicians and teachers had their pulpits of various kinds. They had pulpits because each had a forum where people listened to what they said.

So an audience is necessary for a pulpit, Jason summarized. And that audience had to belong to some group and have an identity, he concluded from the discussion. He pointed out there are competing bully pulpits for different audiences. The audience was divided into three discussion groups who were asked to identify 2 individuals who had competing bully pulpits. The group was asked to define where these “bullies” derived their authority - “What right did these people have to have their “pulpits”?

One group chosen “Presidential spouses” – Michelle Obama and Bill Clinton – the significant others of Democratic Presidential candidates, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Another group chose Winston Churchill and Adolf Hitler. The third group picked Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

In the discussion that followed, many issues affecting both the “bully” and the “pulpit” were mentioned – formal title; personal authority; style of speaking; all speakers gave hope to their listeners; their supporters were people willing to listen to the speakers.

For the sake of a humorous comparison, Jason mentioned the power and authority of Miss USA. Although she had a title, her power was very limited and perhaps was only a symbol of the popular American ideal of “beauty.” “American Idol” is another example of a title with dubious power and authority, except in the eyes of those who voted for a particular singer.

Jason asked the group to identify the source of the following quote, “I have come to believe that the biggest purveyor of violence in the world...is my own government.” The author was Martin Luther King. Before he was assassinated, King was called “anti-American’ because he opposed the Vietnam War. Then Jason made a transition to the comments of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the former pastor of Barack Obama’s church in Chicago. There has been a public outcry about Wright’s controversial “anti-American” comments. There was discussion about the issue as the group struggled to answer Jason’s question, “Why were Wright’s comments controversial?” The group generated a number of possibilities.

Jason proposed having a controversy with a dog .over some issue. The group agreed that there could not be any controversy because there could not be any significant communication between human and dog.. Another topic was President Jimmy Carter’s recent controversial meeting with the Hamas leadership, an anti-Israel Arab group. Napoleon was mentioned as using his Corsican roots to help him return to power.

To give a more vivid picture of the tradition of fiery African-American preachers, Dean Taylor commented on his experience in the black church. Often, he said that certain ministers would use their righteous indignation to the history of unjust treatment of African-Americans to motivate their congregations toward actions to correct these terrible conditions. Dean Taylor commented that Dr. King was famous for fiery sermons to galvanize his people to take action.

Jason commented that when the bully pulpit changes contexts, the meaning of the message changed also. He raised the use of the generic bully pulpit. In a religious and political context, the bully pulpit is a platform designed to change behavior. By comparison, Hollywood uses the bully pulpit to get their audiences to feel the depth of the issue, but not to act on it.

The entire 90-minute discussion gripped the attention of everyone present. As we left, knots of students and faculty continued to talk about various aspects of this endlessly fascinating topic.

Join us as we try to promote more light than heat! See you next time. Bring a friend!

Hal Wicke