PVCC’s Presidential Mock Debate

Charles Stish, staff writer

 Oct. 17, 2016 was the starting day of  PVCC’s Free Speech week. With it, activities and events were celebrated throughout the school in honor of the United State’s First Amendment.

One of these events was a presidential mock debate conducted by one half of the student body in the American National Politics course (PLS 153), taught by Assistant Professor of Political Science Connie Jorgensen.

“This is not to entertain, but to inform, because people will make the outcome of the presidential election,” said Roger Howard, student project manager for the mock debate.

The mock debate had been planned and coordinated by the PLS 135 students assigned with the task since the second week of this semester.

The debate included three debate panelists (Scott Atkins, Rachel Dabowski, Therese Baber) who asked scripted, relevant questions pertaining to foreign policies, gun control, and financial aid for college students.

The questions would be answered by four students (Joseph Chaftez as Hillary Clinton, Jermey Lawson as Donald Trump, Alexea Duquesne as Gary Johnson, and Tiana Sigala as Jill Stein) who individually represented the four presidential candidates in this election year, and answered in a fashion that their selected candidate would answer the question.

The students representing the candidates were actors portraying a character as they answered according to a script, and some did not agree with the political views of their candidate.

A debate administrator gave the candidates twenty seconds to answer the questions and would cut off the responses if they went on for too long.

If you want to be active and learn about national politics and political issues within higher education, PVCC’s Virginia21 club meets bi-weekly on Wednesdays from 12:00 p.m. to 12:50 p.m. in room M158.

The student contact for Virginia21 is Grayson Katzenbach, chapter president: gk242@email.vccs.edu
Their faculty advisor is Connie Jorgensen:  cjorgensen@pvcc.edu