Professors from ASU's political science department got together Thursday night to try to discern who was the biggest nerd among them.
Pi Sigma Alpha Political Science Honors Society organized Nerd Fest, a two-and-a-half hour debate and panel discussion. Students got to witness two panels of their political professors answering questions relating to what they teach at ASU.
(Watch video of the professors debating the Terri Schiavo issue.)
The two panels, one junior and one senior, each consisted of four panelists with varying educational backgrounds.
Each panel was asked between six and seven questions. They had no specific time limit to answer the questions and they were not required to answer every question. The moderators picked the professors' brains with thought-provoking or rather silly questions. Some were just thought provoking questions that gained rather silly answers.
"Who is your favorite American President? Why?" was one question asked by the moderators.
The junior panel went first. Rodolfo Espino, an expert in political behavior, said his vote goes to Ulysses S. Grant, "If you can fumble through office drunk, you gotta give them kudos for that. I guess you would have to give our current president kudos for that also."
Fellow professor Paul Goren's choice came from the opposite end of the political status, Democrat Bill Clinton. "His horrific behavior has given me much to riff on in class." If there were any straight answers, I could not hear them over the laughter.
After a quick break and free pizza, the senior panelists received more complex questions.
One such powerful question was "Who made more of an impact in the 20th century, Pope John Paul II or Adolph Hitler?"
The discussion erupted in a theoretical debate mostly between Jack Crittenden and Avital Simhony, naturally. It also fueled other questions that sprouted during the question-and-answer session, especially one about the "Culture of Life." Crittenden said he was more interested with the "Culture of Death." Unanimously, Hitler had the greatest impact and according to Simhony, it could happen again.
"It's easy to do evil and harm," Simhony said. "It is very difficult to do good."
A serious question that garnered silly answers from this panel was "Should Congress be involved with regulating the drug problems Major League baseball is experiencing?"
Richard Herrera and Crittenden broke into a debate over apple pie.
Each panelist was given a ribbon and one was even rewarded as "The King of Nerds."
Political science junior Corey Harris, an officer of Pi Sigma Alpha, came up with the idea of this political event and organized it with the help of Mallory Hutchison, the president of the honor society.
With the help of her officers, Hutchison brought Harris' idea to life.
Joaquin Rios, a political science freshman, said he liked seeing different faculty come together to share their views.
"I think that Mallory and Corey reached their goal," Rios said. "They did have a turn out of over 125 people for their first year after all."
Crittenden was crowned king of the nerds and said he was very honored to gain the title.
"Who could be a bigger nerd than me?" Crittenden asked.
Christine Rose is a contributor to the Web Devil. Reach her at christine.rose@asu.edu.
