Clifford Symposium - Student Plenary Debate

A Student Debate on the Liberal Arts College 

The launch of the yearlong symposium will conclude with a formal public debate organized and moderated by the college’s student debate club. Rather than ending with a conventional panel of experts summarizing the preceding sessions, this plenary will place students at the center of the final argument and ask them to test the principles, tensions, and unresolved questions that have emerged over the course of the symposium. The debate will focus on a carefully framed resolution concerning the responsibilities of a liberal arts college in protecting academic freedom. A possible resolution is: A liberal arts college should protect all lawful academic and political expression, even when that expression conflicts with its stated institutional values. 

The session will be framed as an exercise in intellectual exchange rather than ideological competition. The purpose is not to identify a winning position, but to demonstrate what serious disagreement looks like when participants are required to define terms, respond to opposing arguments, acknowledge tradeoffs, and revise claims under pressure.