Memories of Robert Newman: Teacher, Scholar, Mentor

Robert Newman changed my life. In 1965, I was teaching English and coaching forensics at a high school in Orlando, Florida, when a flyer arrived in my faculty mailbox advertising a weeklong workshop for high school debate coaches to be held that summer at Georgetown University. I decided to go, and that decision proved to be the most significant turning point in both my professional and personal life.

Bill Reynolds, the debate coach at Georgetown, and Herb James, the legendary Dartmouth coach, ran the teachers’ workshop; Newman was on the faculty of the high school debate workshop, which was running concurrently. Before the workshop ended, both Herb and Bill began trying to convince me that I should give up high school teaching and go to graduate school at Pitt so I could work with Newman. After meeting Newman, doing some research, and applying to Northwestern and Ohio State as well as Pitt, I ultimately took their advice.

It was a transformative experience. 1960s Orlando was a medium-sized Southern town. Pittsburgh was the first truly metropolitan city I had spent any significant time in. The cultural divide was enormous—and there was snow. It was also the first time I had been entirely on my own; although I was taking home more money than I had as a high school teacher, I had a lot to learn about navigating the world, not to mention the world of academe.

I went to Pitt intending to pursue a master’s degree; I had indicated on my application that I was interested in a PhD, but only because I believed—correctly, it turned out—that I had a better chance at funding if they thought I was going on for a doctorate. In truth, I had no idea what I would do after the master’s. Almost immediately, I realized that my rather cynical motive for checking the PhD box masked a deeper ambition of which I was not even aware. But once I had enrolled, it never occurred to me to stop until I had completed the PhD.

My mother and I drove from Orlando to Pittsburgh in my old Ford Falcon, loaded down with books and the things I needed to set up housekeeping in the apartment I had rented long distance. The day after we arrived I went over to the university, to Schenley Hall, where the William Pitt Debating Union (WPDU) was housed then, and reintroduced myself to Robert Newman. Newman was leaning back in his office chair with his feet propped on his desk, smoking his pipe. He informed me that the squad would be leaving the next day for debate camp in the Allegheny National Forest, and I should appear by the appointed hour ready to go. The next day, I went to debate camp and my mother remained behind to clean the apartment.

Thus began my three years under the tutelage of Robert Newman and my career as one of “Newman’s historians” (to quote Bruce Gronbeck). Thinking back over that time, I find I would categorize the “lessons I learned from Robert Newman” into three groups: lessons I learned from Robert Newman the teacher, the scholar, and the mentor.

I encountered Newman first as a teacher. That initial year I enrolled in both of his graduate seminars, my introduction to argumentation as a field of study.

Lesson 1: The best way to learn about argument and argumentation is to read materials that contain arguments, rather than books and essays about argumentation. We would begin by examining the underlying elements of the arguments we encountered in the material we read.

Our reading list was diverse; although Newman’s focus in the mid-1960s was primarily the Vietnam War, we read some theoretical texts, such as A Strategy of Decision by Braybrooke and Lindblom. Newman expected us to evaluate the reading material in terms of its utility in developing a system for analyzing arguments and for evaluating evidence; it seems we were all working with him in devising that system.

Lesson 2: Expect everyone to read the material and chances are they...