Ithica College

This blog entry is about the great couple of days we spent at Ithica College, which is located in one of the most beautiful parts of up-state New York.

Having spent a few days at Cornell with our ol’ pal Alex Just, and our hero-host Sam Nelson, we travelled a very short distance across the city of Ithica to Ithica college where we were met by our new host Scott Thompson.

We dropped our bags of in the guest-house and made our way to the college. We were scheduled to have four debates over two days, all of which were on the motion ‘This House Believes the sun is setting on America, and rising on China” We were the government so went through the SBS World Guide (AKA The Infamous Book of lies!) every copy of the Economist we could find and all of the research material Wikipedia and Google had to offer.

The first debate was in the afternoon and our audience included a mix of students and some local retirees who were part of a debate programme Scott runs in the community. As government for all four debates Ben and I tried out our arguments about Chinese oil strategy, foreign policy and manufacturing industry. Aside from one audience member being slightly disturbed by our support for Chinese repression the debate was a great success!

We were invited for a dinner at a great Italian restaurant, which reminded us of England before suiting up and heading to the high-profile public debate back at College. Once again the audience were impressed with our research, but specifically there was a resident professor of Chinese government, from China, who graciously contributed her expertise at the end of the round.

That evening we met Scott’s wife who is from Mexico, and family, back at their home in Ithica. We were given all sorts of traditional Mexican tequila which is apparently, supposed to be sipped neat. We had a really fun night and even got a bottle as gift to enjoy during our trip! Thanks again!

The next day we got a full tour of the college, which is built on one of the most attractive landscapes in America. We finished up with two final debates for communication theory classes, after which we talked about some of the tactics we use for public speaking. The students had some really great questions about England, tuition fees, the London riots, and my personal favourite Harry Potter!

Upon completion we drove towards our next destination, Colgate University, and were welcomed by British Weather. The snow started to fall that late evening, as Scott’s children taught us some Spanish and we travelled to our next destination, exited about continuing the best tour ever!

Cornell University

After a fantastic weekend of adjudication at the Yale Intervarsity tournament and a chance to catch up with the mud-island migrant community in New England we boarded the bus to Cornell University. Our snug six hour journey to Ithaca, New York was made far more comfortable by stunning views of the Catskill Mountains and good if blurry-eyed conversation with our kind hosts from Cornell. Our first afternoon in Cornell allowed us to get some much needed laundry done and to spend the evening having a great Thai meal with our fantastic hosts Sam Nelson and Alex Just. They were keen to stress (having both been on previous tours) that they wanted to give us some free time to relax and gather our strength after being on the road for a month.

As such our second day in Ithaca allowed us to explore the stunning grounds of the campus. Cornell University is regularly voted as one of the most beautiful campuses in the U.S. situated on a hill the campus provides stunning views of the surrounding autumnal trees and the nearby lakes. We spent our afternoon becoming acquainted with the programmes that Sam runs and took embarked on our first visit to maximum security prison (more on that later). That evening we were asked to give a short talk on our perspectives on the London riots, a subject which both Richard and I felt suitably under-qualified to talk about – nonetheless the gathered students seemed suitably interested to stay and ask some thought provoking questions. Our evening was topped off by a pub quiz with Alex and all the good people at the Telluride House (our kind accommodation hosts). Our collective intellectual efforts were supplemented by plentiful amounts of local beer and free popcorn yet despite receiving bonus points for Ben’s ability to lick his own elbow we only managed a rather mediocre second place.

The following day we were tasked with a number of debates. Our final evening’s debate drew a good crowd to debate whether we should reveal the true horrors of war. Despite our host’s valiant efforts and some keen questions from the audience we scored a narrow victory. However, by far the most affecting experience of our stay and possibly our tour so far was our visit to prison earlier that day. For the past five years Sam has spearheaded a programme which aims to engage young people imprisoned in McCormick detention facility just outside of Ithaca. Our task was to argue that African Americans should not be granted reparations for slavery. The environment and the fact that our audience and opponents were all African American made the case somewhat of an uphill battle. But the debate was good spirited and everyone was willing to ask sharp questions and react to some impressive speeches from the residents.

We left with tremendous admiration for Sam and the relationship both him and his students have developed with the residents of McCormick. Our return journey was one in which few words were exchanged. It was incredibly difficult to square the kinds of crimes these young men had committed with the articulate and intelligent people we had the pleasure of debating against. Even with those crimes in mind (most of which were committed when they were barely in their teens) it seemed such a tremendous waste of life to lock children up for 23 hour hours a day, with little or no social contact and no meaningful stimulation.