1988-1989

The Faculty

Bob Withycombe, Director of Forensics

Whitman News

The College renamed the Political Science major as the Politics major.

Pete Reid, the Chief Financial Officer of Whitman retired after 20 years of service to the Whitman faculty. Janice Abraham replaced him.

The acting President was Edward Foster. David Deal was the Dean of Faculty. Brek Lawson was the Student Body President.

Professor Jim Todd leads a movement on campus to adopt the northern hawk-owl as the Whitman mascot.

Michael Mann '91 and a debate team member was named as a Truman Scholar. He was only one of 200 college undergraduates in the nation that was able to receive such an honor.

Speech Courses

Speech Department Description: Courses treat public speaking as a liberal art, proposing that such speaking is not a skill learned by rule but an exercise of judgment that can be no better than the speaker's understanding of the nature of the communicative acts.

SPEECH 110. Fundamentals of Speech, 3 hours.

SPEECH 221, 222. Principles and Practice of Forensics, 1 hours (individual events), 2 hours (debate). 

SPEECH 270. Argumentation and Persuasion, 3 hours.

SPEECH 370. Seminar: Western Rhetorical Thinking, 3 hours.

World News

A. George Bush was inaugurated as President.

B. Soviet Political Reform was approved.

C. Bess Myerson, Miss America was acquitted after facing charges of bribing judges.

Team Awards

A. The debate team consisted of roughly 10-20 debaters and interpers.

B. Drummond Kahn, ’89, finished fourth in the United States in the extemporaneous speaking division at the American Forensic Association National Individual Events tournament held in Fargo, North Dakota.

C. Kahn, who was named the top Northwest speaker in March, was the first Whitman student to reach a final round in the nationals since 1984.

D. Kahn he is one of only three students in the Northwest who have qualified for the national tournament all 4 years of his college debate career.

E. Whitman completed the debate season with awards from more than 14 tournaments in nine different states.

F. Whitman Competed in CEDA debate and various forms of speech competition.