The Bailey Oratorical 2017- Civil Engagement

The Bailey’s prompt this year was: “At the heart of the liberal arts is civic engagement: How can we use the values of our liberal arts education to heal divides in our nation and world?”

I liked Anh’s speech the best because she engaged with the audience. She had energy and made occasional jokes throughout her speech. Her thesis was easy to remember: curious, critical, and courageous questions need to be asked in order to engaged in civil engagement. She talked about past how her best friend became her best friend. Her speech was easy to follow and she kept repeating her thesis over so the lisener would understand the argument.

Nitya talked about how American’s perceive other people that are different from them foreigners. Her thesis is the way to limit xenophobia is to become curious. She talked about her personal experiences at Juniata. She tied the prompt in well because she stated that her experiences and values she personally learned Juniata helped her heal a divide she had with herself.

Anne-Marcelle talked about language and how it will help to heal a divide. She talked about dialect and accents of people. She made a connection that language is the stepping stone to interact with one another. The only problem I had was that she did not tie the prompt in too well. I agreed with everything she stated language and engagement. But the speech lost me at how do I do that with the skills and values I learned at Juniata?

Maeve Gannon’s speech was very personal and emotional. She stated that students need to get involved and engaged with what is right. I believe in what she was talking about but her thesis was blurred. I found her speech hard to follow the main arguments. She did tie the prompt of the liberal arts education to how college helped her transform.

All the speeches made crucial points to the present. Some speeches talked about the political atmosphere and how we can change people’s minds that way. But the speeches that placed first and second were the ones that stated that you need to do small things to encourage civil engagement.

Many of the candidates spoke from a personal experience but some were stronger than others. I think the strongest ones were Nitya and Anh’s because they talked about personal experiences and related to the prompt.