To The Pioneer,
I’m writing in response to Gary Wang’s column “Intolerance of high-school debaters unfair.”
I understand that the high school debate tournament is highlight for the high school students and that it is overall a good thing for our school. However, while living at Whitman I tend to feel like Ankeny is my backyard, Reid is my dining room and classrooms are my study. So having a large group of debaters in my home is not something I immediately welcome.
Now, I have not heard of any Whitman student being particularly rude, refusing to leave a study space or calling for the discontinuation of the tournament, so I wouldn’t say that there’s a huge movement against it. But being a part of a studious group of biology majors preparing for our senior written examination and struggling to find a place with a white board to practice drawing the lac operon on a Friday afternoon: I’d have to say it was annoying to have debaters in every academic building and meeting room. We adapted, it worked out but it would not have been a problem another weekend.
So please, don’t call me intolerant for rolling my eyes when a short, bespectacled young man looks nervously into a room littered with flashcards and gigantic text books and has to call Dave Mathews to ask us (very kindly) to move. Don’t say I’m passively ignorant because I’m annoyed at the 400-odd high schools debaters that spent the weekend in my home: I’m just saying that it’s like an annoying house guest: they come every year, you endure and get to make jokes afterward.
I’ll hold on to my annoyance because it reminds me how much I love this campus and because it makes me appreciate how I get to live here and call it home.
Thanks,
Kali Stoehr
P.S. I would like to applaud the students and staff who put the debate tournament together; they really did make some strides in making it a less invasive weekend.
Kali Stoehr • Dec 9, 2009 at 10:55 am
Hi Gary-
I think we’re coming from slightly different places. You mentioned that we share the campus with 1500 other students but my feeling is that as a Whitman Community those 1500 other people are like a family. They have the right to call Whitman home if they feel like it. I never feel like I’m ‘visiting’ campus when I pick up trash on my way to class or when I walked across campus in my pajamas for brunch. I would consider debaters visitors on this campus, they certainly wouldn’t call it home.
As for “sharing” our “home”, we do–we share it albeit grudgingly. My biggest complaint about your article was the fact that you called me, and others, intolerant and made statements that it is wrong to even feel annoyed even if we don’t act on it. I merely wanted to make the point that perhaps there are reasons to be annoyed that have nothing to do with how good of an opportunity it is for high-school students.
And just for your reference the incident of changing study rooms did occur in a room that was slated for the tournament, but we only moved there after being asked to leave another study room that was not scheduled that we had planned to use. The one we moved to was empty and not in use, sorry if we didn’t jump to move again. And of course I understand him being nervous- but can you understand my annoyance?
Gary • Nov 27, 2009 at 4:36 pm
Hey Kali,
Thanks for your letter to the editor addressing my opinions in the column. I appreciate the effort and I’m glad (in the interest of sparking discussion) that my column provoked your reaction. I would like to clarify that my columns weren’t of a personal nature and if they personally offended you I’m sorry.
However, my point is that why can’t we, as Whitman students, conceive of “sharing” our “home” (Ankeny and Reid) for a weekend with 400 or so high school students? Properly speaking, Ankeny isn’t our home. You and I don’t claim exclusive ownership of it. And yes, it must be annoying to have to move when you were preparing for your writtens because they’re undoubtedly more important to you than any debate tournament or debate round. But, it all worked out didn’t it? I mean, our home is where we live, our bedroom or our off campus home. We share the campus with 1500 other students.
And since it worked out; that in most cases debaters don’t provide that much of a physical or actual disturbance to us yet their presence invites a hostile response is what I disagree with. It’s not as if the campus holds its breath while they’re here; jokes coincide with their presence. And yes, that short, bespectacled boy did ask you guys to move because presumably you guys were in a room marked for debate. But wasn’t he really really nervous? Probably scared to death of having to ask, as a high school sophomore or whatever, a group of seniors to move. In your annoyance, which is undoubtedly deserved b/c of orals, would it be possible to understand why he was so nervous? That at a tournament that probably means a lot to him, he has to do something really uncomfortable and he knows he’s annoying you guys too.
And it’s that understanding of the position of the high school debaters, in their nervous business formal dress, that is missing from campus year and after year. And that’s why to me there is a big difference between ‘enduring’ their presence and ‘tolerating’ them. We can endure what we must, what we dislike and what we really don’t care for. But is that the best way for two groups, Whitman students, and high school debaters, to coexist even for just a weekend?