The Counselors: Should the Draft Be Reinstated?

Join us for the next edition of The Counselors—an engaging program featuring debates on contemporary topics. This fall, Dole Institute Visiting Fellows and attorneys Ed Duckers and Pedro Irigonegaray will debate whether or not the military draft should be reinstated in the United States with the assistance of expert witnesses.

This program will be moderated by Abbie Clements, a member of the Dole Institute Student Advisory Board and a Student Events Assistant. She studies political science, strategic communications, and history.

Affirming Side

Pedro Irigonegaray is an attorney and partner at Irigonegaray, Turney, & Revenaugh. A trial lawyer since 1973, Pedro is a former President of The Kansas Trial Lawyers Association, a Fellow in The American College of Trial Lawyers and a Fellow in The International Academy of Trial Lawyers.

Dr. William M. Raymond, Jr., is an assistant professor in the Department of Command and Leadership at the U.S. Army’s Command and General Staff College (CGSC) at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He served in the U.S. Army for 30 years in a wide variety of field artillery and educational assignments, leading diverse and high-performing teams and organizations. He has more than 22 years’ experience teaching students and developing curriculum at the undergraduate and graduate levels during active duty (at the United States Military Academy (USMA) and CGSC) and civilian service (at Benedictine College and CGSC). He has a BS in Engineering from USMA, an MMAS from CGSC, and an MA and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Michigan.

Dr. Roosevelt Barfield, brings a wealth of experience in strategy, operations, budget, training, management, and leadership having served as a Professor at Virginia Commonwealth University and an Army Veteran with 32 years of service. A veteran of the Armed Forces, Brigadier General (retired) Barfield served as a Military Legislative Assistant to the U.S. Senate and held progressive levels of command responsibility with the military. Dr. Barfield holds a Doctorate of Business Administration from Walden University, a Master’s of Science Degree in Management from Central Michigan University, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in History from the University of Kansas, and is a 2013 Dole Fellow.

Negating Side

Ed Duckers is partner at Stoel Rives LLP and the head of the firm’s Litigation Practice in California and a member of the firm’s Executive Committee. He is a past chair of Stoel Rives’ Food and Agribusiness Industry Team.

Steve Leonard serves as the Assistant Area Director for Management and Entrepreneurship in the KU School of Business. Prior to joining the faculty in 2015, he spent nearly thirty years in uniform as a U.S. Army leader, where he served as a senior military strategist and war planner. A career writer and speaker, he is the author and co-editor of several books, including Power Up (Casemate, 2023), To Boldly Go (Casemate, 2021), and the upcoming Professionals Talk Logistics (Howgate, 2025).

Debra Sheffer is a Professor of History at Park University in Parkville, Missouri. She holds a PhD in Military History from the University of Kansas. She was a 2007 Fellow at the West Point Summer Seminar in Military History. Her published works include The Buffalo Soldiers, “Lincoln’s Wartime Diplomacy and the Emancipation Proclamation” in The Routledge Handbook of Military and Diplomatic History: The Colonial Period to 1877, “The Convergence” in A Companion to Custer and the Little Big Horn Campaign, and “African American Soldiers: The Struggle for Equality through Service in the Civil War and the Great War” in Wars Civil and Great: American Experience in the Civil War and World War I. Her current research explores the cultural constructs of death and honor in the Civil War.