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Re:Religious Holidays.
I feel the need to be one of those to voice a concern about the
apparent lack of regard for religious debaters and coaches. As a
relatively new coach, with an extremely small budget, from a private
religious institution, our tournament choices are extremely limited.
Due to the small amount of resources available to us, we, of course,
are limited to tournaments within driving distance. As a coach with a
full-time teaching load, I am also limited as to the number of days I am
able to be absent from the college. Third, as a college supported
by, not only student tuition, but gifts from churches across the U.S.,
we, by choice, refuse to participate in tournaments that run on Sunday. Our
college teaches the students the importance of church involvement, so it
would be hypocritical (and violate the trust of those churches and
pastors who support us because of our teachings) to do so.
What all of this means is that we have very, very few tournaments from
which to choose each semester. As a matter of fact, this past semester,
due to all of the factors involved, we were able to attend one
CEDA-sponsored event.
This brings up a discussion topic that, I believe, is worthy of
discussion. Where is it "mandated" that tournaments must be two- or
three-day marathons? It would seem worth our while to consider, within
CEDA, scheduling more "one-day tournaments". This could prove to be
more liberating, budgetarily speaking, for many of us; furthermore, it
could make it possible for coaches and debaters who have religious
convictions a greater selection of tournaments from which
to choose without forcing them to choose between their academic pursuit
and their spiritual welfare.
C. Beck
E-Mail: cbeck01@ozarks.sgcl.lib.mo.us
References:
Archive created by Jonathan Stanton (jonathan@cs.jhu.edu)
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