The debate is simple. We have one topic and students pick sides, if they are for or against it. Each person has only a few minutes to make a point or to argue another point. Debates can be very fast and very emotional.

I want the students to become comfortable with debating. Once they become comfortable, I want them to compete with other schools in debates. There are also many organizations that sponsor debates, and I would like them to participate in those.

When students participate in debate, they learn to study issues in depth and from perspectives, a skill I use everyday in the Senate.

Our kids have to work doubly hard to compete with schools that require their students to take debate as a class.

Often I think we can accomplish things in the summertime that can't be in the three other academic quarters. Students have more time in the summer, when there are fewer major requirements being taught. We could have intensive courses in critical languages at that point where students who wanted, in the course of a single quarter, to get the first or second year of a language accomplished, they would have to be willing to study, but the incentive to do so would be there.

We are going to wait for the moment of the debate, and we'll make the decision,