The Story

LOST: William and Mary Edition

Sep. 30, 2011 | By Heather McCormic, DSJ Staff Reporter

Hundreds of spectators. Four Professors. One life raft. The Raft Debate.

The Sadler Center Commonwealth Auditorium was packed full of students, professors, and others from the Williamsburg community by the time the Raft Debate finally commenced on Thursday, September 22. An annual tradition at The College, the Raft Debate pitches three professors representing the humanities (Vassiliki Panoussi, Classical Studies), the social sciences (Andrew Fisher, History), and the natural and computational sciences (Larry Leemis, Mathematics) against each other in an epic battle of logic and wit. The setting: If the professors were left on a deserted island with only one single-man life raft destined to return to humanity, who is most deserving of the seat? To throw a wrench into the works (or, to suit the tropical island theme, to drop a coconut on someone’s head) a Devil’s advocate, this year Professor Pamela Eddy from the School of Education, is appointed to argue that none of the �"ivory tower intellectuals” (as �"Judge” Laurie Sanderson, Dean of Graduate Studies and Research, Arts and Sciences, characterizes them) are worthy of the seat. Nay, the world would be better off without the lot of them! But, in reality, the final decision is not left to the professors, or even to the judge. Instead, the audience determines the king (or queen) of the sea, the master of the tides, by a clap-vote.

Center stage was the single-man (or woman) life raft that would carry the victor of the debate back to civilization. The congregated crowd, prepared to cling to every last sarcastic word of the debate, waited not-so-quietly as the professors made their last preparations before taking their seats on stage. I spotted a sign in the audience, �"The gods are with you!” obviously in support of the togaed Professor Panoussi. Stage left stood an easel, prepared to bear the weight of the forthcoming arguments and evidence. When the professors and the judge walked on stage, the crowd erupted in applause and cheers. Sanderson gave an introduction to the audience about the debate, and it quickly began!

The first professor to step up to the podium was Panoussi, representing the humanities. After making an argument for the art and beauty of classical civilization (and reminding us of the very successful J.K. Rowling, who was a classics major), she stepped aside to allow Fisher, sporting a long Dumbledore-esque beard, to make his case. Fisher condemned the hard sciences, saying that �"scientists never do anything on their own. They go around saying of political scientists ‘you don’t have a methodology’… but history swings both ways as an art, and a science.”

After an incredible, outright sarcastic argument, Fisher allowed Professor Leemis to make an argument for the natural and computational sciences. Leemis claimed that the other two professors’ areas of expertise had not contributed to the progress of mankind, while the hard sciences helped humanity progress over the last two centuries by building on both success and failure.

Last up was Professor Eddy, the Devil’s advocate. Using the easel to show a poster of Greek letters, Eddy made the point that we rarely use the Greek alphabet for anything more than Greek life on college campuses nationwide. Also, Eddy pointed out that the levels of racism and poverty have been increasing, showing that the social sciences have failed to cause much positive change over the years. She claimed that none of the information from mathematics classes and the GREs ever come up in the modern era, �"no one cares about the area in a square after the triangle in another square is taken out!” The most important lessons learned are those taken from �"life outside of the classroom.”

After these initial arguments, rebuttals were presented. First, Panoussi made the simple argument that the humanities put the fun in technology. Next up was Fisher, who promptly pointed out that the humanities scholars �"can’t even agree on the meanings of words.” The last argument Leemis made on the natural sciences’ behalf was that without hard sciences, survival would not be so easy. And �"taking advantage of the last word” was Eddy yet again. Showing a pie chart of student life, Eddy explained that 9% of a student’s time in college is spent in class, while 33% was spent sleeping. The remaining 58%? That was spent on life. I can say I agree to an extent…

After the ruckus and clap-vote, the winner was declared: the social sciences! A question and answer session followed the results. One of the most notable questions from the audience was �"How long would it take for the deserted compatriots to rebuild society?” The humanities estimated two weeks, while the mathematician thought years was a better time frame. Needless to say, the Devil’s advocate got the last laugh out of the audience; she predicted that all of the professors would just throw a never-ending frat party on their little piece of real estate.