WCSU in the Age of Reason

The intelligentsia and political class have been gnawing lately on the idea that higher education should be a three-year affair. Get ‘em in and get ‘em out, they say, as a way to cut down on what individuals, or their parents, pay for a university diploma.

Some students undoubtedly would do fine with a three-year program, after which they would go to work or start on a graduate degree. Others find reasons beyond efficiency to attend and stay in school, and while their experiences are difficult to quantify, they sound important when you hear students talk about them.

Sara Waterfall is an example.

She is the president of the Roger Sherman Debate Society, which sponsored a debate tournament on the Midtown campus of Western Connecticut State University last weekend.

Four hundred debaters from universities as far away as Virginia took part and many elite schools participated as well, including Harvard and the U.S. Military Academy. It was the third-largest Cross Examination Debate Assocation-sponsored tournament in the U.S. this academic year.

Much to Waterfall’s delight, Cornell was here, too. She likes to see them lose. When Cornell students arrived for the first debate WCSU sponsored a few years ago, they had a certain swagger that seemed to convey the opinion that they considered the setting at a small public university in Danbury to be beneath them. Then they crushed the WCSU team and continued to dominate through several more tournaments.

Finally Waterfall came up against Cornell and she was ready.

“There’s one round where I made them scramble. I didn’t beat them but I felt good because I made them sweat,” she said. Since then Western has pretty much owned Cornell. And it feels really, really good.

O.K., that may not be the best argument for spending four years in college. But the other things Waterfall learned since she joined the debate team in 2005 might be.

“It gives you an educational opportunity you can’t get in another setting,” Waterfall says. “Don’t get me wrong, I love my classes and my professors — but on some levels this is more self-directed.

“I run political campaigns (she takes a semester off every two years to work with a politician) and without debate I wouldn’t quite know how to handle it. It helps me think on my feet. You get different perspectives and that’s hard to replicate in a traditional classroom setting. And making phone calls! I can anticipate your reaction and give you a good response that answers your question.

“I’m really glad the university gives me an opportunity to do this.”

Waterfall has learned how to excel in life — something even better than crushing Cornell. Many of us need a little breathing room, and more than three years, to achieve that.

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