Black world studies students debated the relevance of hip-hop in the African-American community in the second installment of the "First Annual Great Debate Series" Monday evening.

The Great Debate Series aims to teach students in Introduction to Black World Studies (BWS 151) how to think critically about issues and to show students not in the class the benefits of taking the course.

"The idea springs from the idea that possibly the best learning process is involved in critical thinking and debating rather than telling students what to believe," said Rodney Coates, professor of black world studies and the class participating in the debates. "This is also clearly intended to showcase BWS to students who might not consider taking a BWS class."

This year's debate series is co-sponsored by the Gentlemen of Distinguished Character (GDC) and Miami University's NAACP.

Senior Gamby Camara, secretary of GDC, said he's satisfied with the debate series so far.

"We decided to sponsor it because it promoted intellectually inclined discussion about race," Camara said. "It went beyond certain differences and discussed it intellectually."

Camara said the series has met the GDC's expectations so far because "it promoted the discussion of issues of race and gender relevant to us all."

Junior Phillip Sanders, career services chair of GDC, attended the second debate and disagreed with Camara's statement.

"I did not enjoy the debate personally because the debaters were not animated," Sanders said. "The material they were covering was removed from their experiences … it didn't mean anything to them."

Despite his low opinion of the second debate, Sanders plans to attend the next debate Nov. 23.

"It's a great discussion at least," Sanders said. "If you don't discuss something, it's not that it doesn't exist, but that it's OK to be a bigot."

The first debate in the series took place Sept. 28. The focus was the role that race, gender and class play in American politics. Debating teams examined the significance of the election of Barack Obama in 2008 to support either the argument that race is no longer important in American society, or that this election signifies no pivotal change in American society.

Coates said the first debate was successful and attracted a large audience.

"It went quite well," Coates said. "We had more than 100 students, not members of the class."

Coates said the audience was predominantly white, with the debaters also being predominantly white.

Coates said many students are reluctant to take BWS classes because they tend to look at economic benefits of certain majors.

"Students are becoming more pragmatic looking at the economic aspect of degrees they receive," Coates said.

Coates said his former students' success demonstrates the advantages of taking BWS. He said many of his students have continued to law school, business school, medical school, as well as continued studies in journalism, cultural studies and film studies.

"It's because they're learning critical thinking, how to research and how to problem solve," Coates said. "They're challenged to support their ideas not with 'I believe,' but with research."