Here are the results from this weekend's United States University Debating Championships.
Winners:
Harvard BE (Jo Box & Cormac Early)
Finalists:
Yale DF (Max Dovala & Kate Falkenstein)
New South Wales KM (Angela Kintominas & David Maher)
Alaska CS (Sarah Carpenter & Aime Stanley)
Top Speakers
1. Cormac Early (Harvard)
2. Jo Box (Harvard)
3. James Kilcup (Loyola Marymount)
4. Kate Falkenstein (Yale)
5. Colin Haughey (Alaska)
6. David Maher (New South Wales)
7. Naz El-Khatib (Yale)
8. Margaret Brower (Colgate)
9. Max Dovala (Yale)
10. Bob Cashen (Loyola Marymount)
Semi-Finalists
Yale BE (Nate Blevins & Naz El-Khatib)
Alaska CH (Drew Cason & Colin Haughey)
Alaska FP (Brett Frazer & Amy Parent)
St. John’s CM (Kamya Chandra & Nipun Mahajan)
Qtr-Finalists
Carleton CM (Simon Cameron & Romeo Maione)
Claremont SW (Will Savage & Matt Wolfson)
Queens EW (Kayla Ellis & WuDi Wu)
Fordham MM (Peter Morrissey & Caitlin McElroy)
Edinburgh BO (Paul Brown & Sebastian Osborne)
Colgate SS (Austin Schwartz & Travis Steele)
Cornell BY (Alex Bores & Ryan Yeh)
Loyola Marymount CK (Bob Cashen & James Kilcup)
Octo-Finalists
St. John’s FP (George Fitzpatrick & Korey Pace)
Seattle KP (Michael Kaemingk & Chase Parker)
Claremont CB (Joseph Clifton & Jesse Katz-Blumenthal)
Harvard KR (Praga Kakani & William Ryan)
Vermont AC (Sarah Anders & Dam Cmejla)
Vermont GL (Paul Gross & Issac Loeb)
UCDLS OR (Dearbhia O’Gorman & Janine Ryan)
Patrick Henry GN (Joanna Griffith & Michal Walters)
LaVerne MT, (Ryan Mansell & Corey Teter)
Colgate BC (Margaret Bower & Michael Cohen)
Portland BB (Aaron Baker & Lindsay Bing)
LaVerne PP (John Patrick & Brian Pride)
Seattle SW (Sophia Sanders and Ben Watts)
Swarthmore KM (Jenny Koch & David Mok-Lamme)
Regis BD (Kaleb Brooks & Jon Denzler)
Bates EM (Colin Etnire & Ian Mahmud)
Novice Winner
Cornell RS
Novice Finalists:
Claremont MT
Colgate MS
China Peking-Fudan HZ
Best Judge:
Monica Ferris
Josh Martin
Top Judge:
Gavin Ilsley
Coach of the Year
Stephen Boyle (University of Vermont)
Motions:
Final: This House believes that the United States government should actively facilitate the circumvention of Internet filters in other countries.
Novice Final: This House would open brothels on military bases
Semi: This House supports a constitutional right to a minimum standard of living
Qtrs: This House would instruct juries to acquit where they believe conviction would not be in the public interest.
Octos: This House believes that human shields are legitimate targets in war
R5: This house would create a public forum for active duty military personnel to criticize government policy.
R4: This House would mandate a quota for women on the boards of large corporations
R3: This House would grant amnesty to dictators who voluntarily leave office.
R2: This House would charge players who commit violent sporting fouls with assault.
R1: This house would mandate insurance in disaster prone areas
Coach of the Year! LOL! Unnecessary expense of the year more like. When was the last time a team from the US with a full time coach actually won something outside the US?
ReplyDeleteThat's an interesting, although invalid, approach on the value of coaching in the US.
ReplyDeleteWhile US schools may not be incredibly successful, we cannot say that they would be just as successful without coaching. In this regard, the coaches are not necessarily unnecessary.
I'm often amused by the uninformed nature of the sniping that goes on on this blog, but as the person in question I did want to offer a couple of very brief thoughts.
ReplyDelete1. Most successful teams around the world have some sort of formal coaching. Be it Sydney where (I believe) Tim Mooney set up a training programme, to Cambridge where Mary Nugent was in charge of training and many others beside, successful teams work hard.
2. Most established teams probably don't need formal trained coaching. They have institutional experience, people who live in the area (not true for most geographically isolated US schools) and a wealth of experienced debaters in-house, all of whom can pass on knowledge. That is not true for most US teams, particularly those operating on weaker circuits where they don't get exposed to a high enough level of competition to get pushed to develop to worlds-breaking standard.
I don't feel the need to justify my qualifications to hold my job to a stranger. Anyone familiar with the higher levels of worlds debating already knows them anyway. However, a couple of facts worth bearing in mind.
1. The last US team to win a tournament outside of the US was Vermont in Slovenia at the IDAS tournament in November. The one before was Alaska who won the Cork IV just before Koc Worlds. This year, of the five US teams breaking at worlds, two were from Alaska and one from Vermont. Whether that's worth the money is up to universities to determine, but as most people who are familiar with it would know, nearly all of coaches money comes from lecturing (which I also do) and the coaching comes from a love of debating (which anyone knows me also knows I emphatically have!)
What's most important though is that we've just run one of the largest competitions ever held in BP outside of worlds. We brought teams and judges from all over the world and had an incredibly high calibre of both judging and debating. In my capacity as CA of the competition, I'd just like to thank again all those debaters, judges and volunteers that made it happen. We couldn't have done it without you.
Stephen
Hi Stephen,
ReplyDeleteLet me apologise for the sniping attack on you. I agree that some of the comments on the blog are overly negative (and more often than not aimed at me).
Hi Anon,
Anyone who has actually watched the debating circuit in recent years will see the great success of well coached US teams like LaVerne, Vermont and Alaska. These are colleges with some of the best coaches. I'm sure there are coaches who are a waste of money and just sit in their office doing as little as possible for their pay. You will find these in every career and profession. However there is no way anyone could accuse Stephen of being one of those.
I have been giving some thought to this recently for another project and coming from an Irish debating background I firmly believe that the Debating Society should be the core of debating in a college. Certainly I learned as many life skills working on the committee of the Limerick Debating Union as I did speaking at the Debating Union. If US colleges fall down in any area it is here. There does not seem to be the same culture of student led clubs and societies in all activities not only debating. This is an area that I think the US colleges could learn from the rest of the world. But in return many colleges in the rest of the world could do with appointing full time coaches and not rely on the good will of graduates to come back and coach for free. There is not a debating society in the world that would not benefit from having Stephen (or Ian, Steve, Tuna etc) working with them.
Finally let me say Congrats to Stephen for some well deserved recognition. And well done to the team behind USU and Vermont in what seems to have been an excellent tournament.
Colm
Well ..... i would like to congratulate STEPHEN on his achievement at USU 2011. It is beyond a shadow of a doubt that you deserved that recognition.
ReplyDeleteAs a debater outside of the USA, i must point out that i have learned a lot from feedback that i have received from you at WORLDS.
The encouragement you gave me at the end of one of the round, has had a lasting impression on me. In that very moment, i realized that you were in debating because of the love and passion you have for it.
More over, IF THAT NAMELESS COWARD, actually listened to TUNA's comments at the end of USU 2011 ... they would have realized that in VERMONT, bebating is a lot more than the lazer engraved plastics and titles handed out at the end of the event.
With that said ////// CONGRATS AGAIN.
AND FOR THE RECORD MY NAME IS DANIEL ZANLICH