Photos by Ralph Freso
Five members of the Grand Canyon University Speech and Debate team knew they were stepping into a potentially thorny environment six days before the election.
Their task in an election town hall was to lay out the positions of presidential and Senate candidates on major issues and take questions from a standing-room-only crowd of students in Ethington Theatre on Wednesday afternoon.
Junior Mariah DeBono’s assessment afterward was an apt summary of the challenge she faced in an event organized by her coach, Director of Forensics Michael Dvorak.
“I personally liked it. We are so close to Election Day, and there is so much going on on campus. I’m an independent voter, so I am not seeing anything that is coming from an unbiased side,” she said. “In my public policy class – I’m a sociology major – we tend to get heated very fast. As someone who is not part of the two-party system, I always see it and wonder why we aren’t promoting open conversation with each other.
“Why aren’t we trying to find middle ground? Which is was why I was excited to talk about civil discourse. It is something I am passionate about. There is a lot of growth when you decide to listen to the other side, find where you agree and disagree … and find ways to find common ground.”
Dr. Sherman Elliott, dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, led off the event with encouragement from history before DeBono’s speech on civility.
Elliott said that nearly 250 years ago, the colonists got together and decided they wanted a democracy, but the question loomed on how to get along. The Civil War later questioned if we could.
“But today is about getting along,” he told the crowd, speaking about the spirit of town halls, whose origins go back to America's earliest days. "... People got together and decided what do we have to do to make our lives better.”
He quoted Thomas Jefferson: “I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy as cause for withdrawing from a friendship.”
“Can we get along and still be friends? Jefferson, one of the founders of our nation, says yes.”
DeBono began with a short speech on civil discourse, saying that it’s not just about “being nice but fostering engagement.” Rather than only absorbing social media narratives, she encouraged students to enrich one another’s understanding of the issues with research and respect for differing opinions.
Sophomore Olivia Anderson summarized presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump’s positions on abortion and election security, freshman Aliyah Carr covered inflation and immigration, junior Seth Margolis discussed local issues and propositions and sophomore Jeffery Peterson laid out positions of Kari Lake and Ruben Gallego, Arizona candidates for U.S. Senate.
The summaries were brief but deeply researched. For example, Carr’s discussion of the inflation in home prices detailed Harris proposals for tax incentives versus Trump’s proposals to deport illegal immigrants to free up limited existing housing stock. Anderson reviewed Trump’s support for states deciding abortion laws, while Harris supports federal abortion rights.
When they were asked deeper questions by students, they mined their research for answers.
It wasn’t surprising to them that nearly a third of the 15 questions from students were about immigration.
“This is a conservative campus, and I think it’s an issue that a lot of conservatives care about. That and abortion,” Carr said.
Added Margolis, showing a flair for backing it up with research: “Immigration, according to Pew Research, is the sixth-ranked issue among voters.”
“We also go out (and volunteer) in the local community … I think that also is why so many people care about it,” Carr said. “We are involved in those communities and try to help those people.”
Anderson said her issue of election security involved so many facets, such as poll watcher protections, voter ID laws and mail-in ballot issues, that it took weeklong research to get a handle on it.
But she said her experience in extemporaneous debate, which requires massive background research in public policy and current events to respond quickly, helped her responses to questions.
“I thought they had really good questions. It sounded like they were listening,” she said, although remaining neutral is tough in these times of heightened emotion. “It’s really difficult. I am very opinionated. But I had to be unbiased. It’s easy when you just present what the candidates have said. But even that is hard. I didn’t want to put anybody in a bad light.”
Peterson said the event brought attention to the issues from peers, rather than relying on what the media tells them.
At just short of an hour, it felt like they just scratched the surface among students eager for discussion.
“We haven’t had this type of turnout in years for this event,” Dvorak said. “Seeing the audience engage and ask questions and have that discourse was something we strived for. It was nice to see young people politically engaged in a way we haven’t seen in previous generations.”
Grand Canyon University senior writer Mike Kilen can be reached at [email protected]
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