The Steamboat Institute, in cooperation with the Cornell Free Speech Alliance, today announced that the opening event for the 2023 Campus Liberty Tour will be held March 15 at Cornell’s Call Alumni Auditorium.
Steven Koonin, Ph.D., will argue the negative on the resolution, “Climate science compels us to make large and rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions,” while Robert H. Socolow, Ph.D., will argue the affirmative. The debate will be moderated by Sarah Westwood, Steamboat Institute Blankley Fellow and investigative reporter for the Washington Examiner.
Koonin served as Undersecretary for Science at the U.S. Department of Energy under President Barack Obama, where he was lead author of the department’s strategic plan and the inaugural Quadrennial Technology Review (2011). Koonin was also a professor of theoretical physics at Caltech, and he is currently a professor at New York University, with appointments in the Stern School of Business, the Tandon School of Engineering, and the Department of Physics.
Socolow is a professor emeritus at the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University. He earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University in theoretical high-energy physics in 1964, was an assistant professor of physics at Yale University from l966 to l97l, and joined the Princeton University faculty in 1971 with the assignment of inventing interdisciplinary environmental research.
“As the Campus Liberty Tour moves into its sixth year, we are looking forward to bringing another round of robust debates to college campuses,” said Steamboat Institute Chairman & CEO Jennifer Schubert-Akin. “Our goal is not to tell students what to think, but to help teach them how to think critically about information that’s being presented to them.”
Tickets to this Campus Liberty Tour event are free and may be obtained here.
The Steamboat Institute is partnering with the Cornell Free Speech Alliance for this event, an independent organization made up of alumni, students, faculty and staff, which advocates for free expression, viewpoint diversity, and academic freedom on campus.
“The Campus Liberty Tour debate will expose my students to the critical thinking of exceptional people who can demonstrate how to discuss and debate contentious issues intelligently and civilly by stating their assumptions and using evidence and analysis,” said Randy O. Wayne, Associate Professor in the CALS School of Integrative Plant Science at Cornell.
Participating Sponsors for the event include:
- Harvard Alumni for Free Speech
- MIT Free Speech Alliance
- Jefferson Council for the University of Virginia
- Academic Freedom Alliance
- Speech First
- National Association of Scholars
- Stanford Business School – Classic Liberalism Initiative
- University of North Carolina Free Speech Alliance
- Open Discourse Coalition of Bucknell University
- The Wofford Way of Wofford College
- The Cadet Foundation of Virginia Military Institute