The Problem: Fewer Tenurable Debate Coaches

[Cori Dauber]

True enough -- but those of us interested in playing both games need to
have a specific agenda. We cannot go to our colleagues and say, hey, our
lives are tough, without specific items we think might help us
structurally. I think later release date is one of those things, obviously
there is disagreement from small program directors on that -- I wonder how
much, and how many of those who want a later release date are those trying
to salvage the summers for other projects, which is frankly one of my
agendas on that issue. So another question arises: not only do we need to
address within the debate community as a whole whether the continued
participation of active scholars is of value, those of us who aspire to be
in that category need a second line debate over what would be of use. I
agree with Cheshier on several of the items he mentions, including shorter
season (although I'd shorten on the front end not the back), and there are
a variety of other proposals that strike as being of merit BUT LETS LET
THE DEBATE BEGIN.

On Mon, 16 Mar 1998, Steven Hunt wrote:

> Cheshier is right on.
>
> The fundamental problem, however, is coaches helping research actively
> coaching their teams. It takes so much effort August -April to coach
> research actively to be highly competitive that there is NO time left for
> real academic research.
> That means no main line comm scholarship for most unless there are
> multiple coaches, serious release time, or SUMMERS are dedicated not to
> debate but to comm scholarship. All this is VERY HARD.
> Plus, only a few PHD programs really encourage forensics training and
> scholarship simultaneously in a serious way.
>
> Steve Hunt
> Lewis & Clark
>