The Bailey Oratorical

The Bailey Oratorical is the longest reigning contest and tradition at Juniata College. For over one hundred years, the award has been given out to students who were brave enough to respond to a rhetorical situation laid out by the committee. Students this year were given the prompt, “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?” This prompt is prominent today because of the clear division in our country through not only the election, but other factors such as race, gender, sexual orientation, etcetera.

From the very beginning, there was a sense of seriousness in the room. Everyone knew that the problem that the contestants would be responding to was one of controversial stature and we were all eager in the crowd to hear what they had to say. Starting off, we had Claire DeLaval, who began the night with making the argument of considering each other’s differences, even if we may have extreme differences of opinion. She used examples of the firehouse in Huntingdon that she volunteers for. She formed her arguments using evidence based through real life experiences. These arguments were constructed in response to the exigence of the divides in our nation. Since she is from California, she took a major culture shock when she was surrounded by rural firemen, all men. She stated how they all cared about her and wanted her to be the best that she could be, while shockingly making rape jokes while she was right there. This difference in culture, in my opinion, shows that our differences may be apparent, but we have a natural care for one another.

In conclusion, the Bailey Oratorical raised some interesting perspective on how we can unify our worlds by the means of listening and attempting to understand each other. We, as a society, seem to allow our biases to overtake us. Sometimes, instead of listening to the other side, we jump to radical conclusions about another human being. We are all human, we all have minds, and because we have minds, we can change the thoughts of another and give our perspective through persuasion.