The Idea of a University Debating Society...Reviving the Philodemic Tradition

By Manuel A. Miranda, F’82 

In seven years, Georgetown’s Philodemic Society will be 200 years old.  It has had prominent  student leaders, Jesuit advisors, and distinguished alumni, but there can be no argument that its most consequential member was Eric M. George, C90, L’93, without whom the Society would not presently exist and without whom the achievements and memories of the last 34 years would not have occurred.  This piece continues from Part 1 of the history of the revival he started in 1989, and that lasted through 1995.     

Ironically, the story of the Philodemic’s revival and last 33 years of success is not one in which university administrators can share in because they placed every possible roadblock in its way.  That is not true now.

The constitution and format of the revived Philodemic, attaching itself to the traditions that began in 1830, were entirely opposite to the objective of Georgetown’s student affairs professionals: a cookie-cutter club culture based on a recreation, just-join principle. They could not care less about the depth of the education or life-altering experience that a college endeavor can be.  The revival of the Philodemic was a manifest rejection of that principle and to this day the Society is a gemstone of Georgetown's associational life, despite the Georgetown administration “educators” and not because of them.  

A few decades ago, at Georgetown, it was quite common to find a Newmanist. Cardinal St. John Henry Newman’s Idea of a University was required reading in Fr. James V. Schall’s class, and others.  I bought my hardcover copy in the little bookstore on the corner of 36th and N streets.  Most excitedly, the Newmanists exchanged insights from Discourse #6.

 “Recreations,” said Newman, “are not education; accomplishments are not education. Do not say, the people must be educated, when, after all, you only mean, amused, refreshed, soothed, put into good spirits and good humor, or kept from vicious excesses. [These] …are not education. … Education is a high word.”

With that, we rejected the Georgetown model.  Instead, in restoring the Philodemic, we delighted in Newman’s most basic requirements for a university education, requiring not professors, nor administrators, nor a spa campus. When students “come together and freely mix with each other,” said Newman, “they are sure to learn one from another, even if there be no one to teach them; the conversation of all is a series of lectures to each, and they gain for themselves new ideas and views, fresh matter of thought, and distinct principles for judging and acting, day by day.”

From the start, the revived Philodemic Society satisfied the longing we shared to be part of a great university, and in particular a great Catholic university like the ones that had enshrined debate as a great tradition. The Society was designed and intended not as a mere club for its like-minded members but to embody the idea of the university as a marketplace of ideas open to everyone.   

Of course, we embraced the Society’s earliest purpose, memorialized in our Latin motto, translated as “to cultivate eloquence,” and from it adopted a rallying cry for our correspondence, “ELD”, signifying the second part of the motto “eloquence in defense of liberty.”  We also took seriously the 1851 oath that one would take to become a member: “to advance in myself the love and knowledge of the Truth and to make progress in Eloquence.“

This was all reinforced by the reminder of the great Professor Richard Alan Gordon, C’50, L’53, who gave us our unofficial motto.  “Debate,” said Dean Gordon, “is the servant of Truth.”   As an undergraduate, Gordon had served as president of the Philodemic and was a Merrick Medalist. It was Gordon who in 1950, after a Philodemic Debate on the issue, rallied the entire student body to walk off the campus to protest the continued segregation of the College. The Jesuits desegregated a few months later. 

With all this wisdom, and his own, Eric George laid down the mosaic foundation that would become the restored Philodemic.  Having first collected a constitution based on past constitutions, with some innovations, and establishing his vision by adopting rules for debate and a clear format, George accomplished the three most crucial elements for success: members, recruiting the imposing ethicist Fr. Frank Winters to serve as Faculty Moderator, and recovering the Philodemic Hall for weekly debates.  George was firm that to succeed the Philodemic needed to meet weekly on a day and time that was fixed.  This was proven right.  Many of us believe that “Thursday at 8 pm” was the key to the restored Philodemic’s survival and success.   

George recruited a wide array of like-minded students as well as young and old alumni to join the project. The students included the indomitable Rita Jankovich, GSB’91, as his vice-president.  Jankovich was a great unifying influence throughout the revival. She would succeed George and become the first woman president of the Philodemic Society, and, upon her graduation, she would be the first president of the Alumni Philodemica that I had established in 1989. 

A key partner for George was Thomas J. Fisher, Jr. (C’90) who would serve as the first Membership Secretary.  Both men were Alpha Phi Omega (APO) brothers, as was I.  Tom Fisher recalls “the exhilaration of knowing that we were restoring a conversation on campus that was 155ish years old, that connected Georgetown through the ages. Every single Thursday evening I had butterflies in my stomach wondering how the evening would develop, hoping for a thoughtful debate and curious about whether the resolution would succeed or fail. Reading the old minutes was a remarkable experience for me and a real touchstone of my Georgetown experience.”

Another key collaborator turned out to be Brian W. Jones (C’90), the chairman of the College Democrats. Jones would go on to be a prominent leader of the African-American community as president of the Center for New Black Leadership.  He would serve as general counsel of the Department of Education and go on to be president of Strayer University, the educational institution that has bestowed the largest number of degrees on African-Americans.  

Jones was not the only African-American in the first cohort that Eric George recruited.  Niger Innis, son of the great civil rights leader Roy Innis, who would go on to be the long-serving spokesman for the Congress for Racial Equality.  There was also the fearless Eric Hudson, who would go on to work for Amnesty International and be a courageous youth mentor and community leader in Chicago’s toughest neighborhoods.    

George also had to deal with the sensitivities of those who were part of the existing, nationally competitive, Philodemic Society debate team. Had they objected to the use of their name, the university administration might have sided with them.  George made certain that the members of the team were welcomed at the weekly debates and became members of the restored Society.  It is important to credit Eddie Daniels (C’90), who led the national team, for his cooperation.  Interestingly, Daniels joined George at the podium as a finalist when we restored the historic Merrick Medal Debate in 1990; both men in black tie. Neither gentleman won the medal.  George is still miffed.

George reached out to alumni and Philodemicians among the faculty for support, including Dean Gordon and John Pfordresher, C’65 .  George and Fisher recruited other alumni like me and graduate students to be Philodemic alumni.  This included my college roommate, Richard J. Cellini (C84, L'88), also APO, the founder of the Georgetown Slavery Memory Project, and several others, some serving today on Georgetown boards.  He already had Fr. Joseph Durkin and Fr. Frank Winters to run the ball for him. 

Eric George started the game with a full bench.  The obstacles came notwithstanding. 

Part 3 of the revival’s history is available here.

Manuel Miranda is the founder of the Alumni Philodemica and secretary of The Sodality for the Historic Preservation of Philodemic Hall, an association of Philodemic alumni and supporters.