TIF Debate and Discussion Club

In Spring 1999, Temple Issues Forum created its student extracurricular offshoot, the TIF Debate and Discussion Club. Of TIF D&D’s two components, TDT, the Temple Debate Team, is by far the larger, but PDD, the Public Debate and Discussion group, may have greater campus impact as a consequence of its forum events and public hearings. Students in TIF D&D often try out one, then the other, and a very few do both at once. They can earn up to two credit hours per semester for the former, one credit for the latter, for up to three semesters. Between them these activities offer what one TIF D&Der described as an “escape from escapism.” Particularly as Temple increases its residential undergraduate population, TIF D&D fills an after-class need. Like Temple Issues Forum, it also provides a counter-force to careerist preoccupations. Said Business School Professor Terry Halbert,

In my college, there is a strong focus on relevance—not to the larger social and political questions, but to personal and more mundane questions, like: “What can I learn that will enhance my chances for getting a good job?” As we prepare business students to take their places in the world, we give them too few chances to consider what and how to think about the bigger context. And while there are many courses outside my college that address the bigger context, within them student inquiry is overwhelmingly controlled by us instructors, one way or another. We determine what questions will be under investigation; we determine the pace and scope of inquiry. TIF and its stunningly successful student Debate and Discussion Club constitutes the only sustained effort to address this problem that I’ve witnessed in 20 years teaching here.