The �ֲ���ý debate team of Abby Westberry ’19 of Readfield, Maine, and Tessa Holtzman ’17 of Las Cruces, N.M., won the North American Women’s Debating Championships, hosted by the University of British Columbia in Vancouver on March 18–19.

In fact, the tourney’s final round was chock full of Bobcats, with the �ֲ���ý team of Katie Ziegler ’19 of Katonah, N.Y., and Sam Malone ’19 of Sacramento, Calif., also advancing to the four-team finals of the British parliamentary style debate.

The team of Abby Westberry ’19 (second from right) and Tessa Holtzman ’17 (right) won the North American Women’s Debating Championships, and were joined in the final round by the team of Katie Ziegler ’19 (left) and Sam Malone ’19 (second from left).

Forty teams from some of the top North American debate programs competed, including squads from Harvard, Cornell, Loyola Marymount, Seattle University, the University of Toronto, and the University of Vermont.

Joining �ֲ���ý in the final was a combined team from the University of Toronto and the University of British Columbia and a team from the University of Alberta. The final-round motion was, “This House believes that feminism is incompatible with capitalism.”

The NAWDC is more than a : It seeks to even the playing field for “women and non-male identifying individuals” who “have been systemically underrepresented in debate, which is seen as part of the male domain.”

Like many real biases, gender bias in debate can be hard to quantify yet still palpable, say �ֲ���ý debaters.

“At tournaments, our debaters compete against and are judged by students from other schools,” explains Westberry. “Within the stressful environment of a debate room, biases manifest themselves in many ways.”

For example, she says, “it is immensely frustrating as a woman when you exit a round knowing that you gave an excellent speech, only to have a judge value it as lesser. This can be incredibly disheartening for female debaters.”

Which is why, Holtzman adds, “we must continue to fight for the inclusion of all voices on the circuit.”

The ever-growing collection of �ֲ���ý debating trophies resides in Pettigrew Hall. (Ryan Donnell for �ֲ���ý College)

The college’s own debate tradition, carried forward by the venerable Brooks Quimby Debate Council, is less fraught with gender issues than the NAWDC’s premise might suggest. Holtzman is president (though, as she points out, she’s the first female president since 2000) and Westberry is vice president.

The college’s director of debate is Lecturer in Rhetoric Jan Hovden. Surveying the debate landscape, she says that BQDC has “significantly more women participating on our team than most debate societies do and we work hard to create a team environment in which all members feel welcome and supported.”

She adds, “The significant success that the women on our team have achieved illustrates that debate doesn’t have to be an overtly masculine space.”

Holtzman says that “we are always trying to reach out to other underrepresented groups. Other schools also do this, as we all have an interest in fostering an environment where everyone feels like they can speak and be heard.”

In January, �ֲ���ý sent four women and four men to the 2017 World Universities Debate Championships, in which the �ֲ���ý team of Zoë Seaman-Grant ’17 and Matt Davis ’18 advanced to the finals. Holtzman, Westberry, and Zeigler also competed at WUDC, as did Cole Limbach ’18 of Los Altos, Calif., Bennett Saltzman ’18 of Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., and Dylan Desjardins ’18 of Arlington, Mass.

“Sending this many women debaters to such a prestigious tournament is certainly notable and says a lot about the work �ֲ���ý puts in to ensure that its female debaters feel supported and empowered,” Holtzman says.

The dynamic duo of Taylor Blackburn ’15 and Jac Stewart ’14 ended a strong �ֲ���ý debate season with the squad’s first-ever national team title, winning the U.S. Universities Debating Championship on April 13 at Purdue University.

Jac Stewart (left) and Taylor Blackburn brandish their trophy after winning the U.S. Universities Debating Championship. (Photograph courtesy of BQDC)

In the final round, Blackburn and Stewart went up against teams from Yale, Cornell and Loyola Marymount.

The resolution, timely in the context of world events, was “This House regrets the continuation of NATO after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.”

In the , the victory is believed to be the first national title by a �ֲ���ý varsity team, says Director of Debate Jan Hovden.

“Jac and Taylor put forth a tremendous effort to win the national title,” Hovden adds. “Their performance was stunning.”

Blackburn and Stewart, who hail from Atherton, Calif., and Keene, N.H., respectively, weren’t the only members of the Brooks Quimby Debate Council who made the garnet glow at Purdue.

In fact, all four �ֲ���ý teams that entered the championship tournament advanced to the quarterfinals.

The squad’s “overall level of competitive success” at the UDC tourney might be just as big a story as Stewart and Blackburn’s win, Hovden says.

Matt Summers ’15 of Short Hills, N.J., and Stephanie Wesson ’14 of Mont Vernon, N.H., made the semifinals, while the quarterfinal teams were Ben Claeson ’15 of Bangor, Maine, and Emily Schwalbe ’14 of Concord, N.C,  and sophomores Sasha Grodsky of Watertown, Mass., and Shannon Griffin of Philadelphia.

“It was a tremendous team effort to reach this level of success, and I couldn’t be prouder of the team,” Hovden says.

In winning the championship, Stewart and Blackburn topped some 300 other debaters from top-ranked U.S. programs.

“The BQDC demonstrated its extraordinary depth this past weekend,” said Stewart. “We are a close-knit team, so it was exhilarating to see friends and teammates succeed at USU.”

Not to mention alumni: Colin Etnire ’12, now in graduate school, was on the Loyola Marymount team in the finals; his team placed second.

Blackburn and Stewart’s victory in the British parliamentary style UDC tournament concludes a season that saw the pair rock the BP debate circuit.

(�ֲ���ý participates in both American and British parliamentary debates. In AP debates, a two-person team argues in support of the motion, and a two-person team opposes it. The British style doubles the fun, with two teams on each side of the motion. Besides the format difference, British debate can be faster-paced and more strategy-focused.)

Blackburn and Stewart won the Yale Inter-Varsity Debate Tournament last October and the Brandeis Inter-Varsity Debate Tournament two months later, vanquishing world-class rhetoricians from Yale, Harvard, Brown and McGill, among various institutions.

The �ֲ���ý contingent at the U.S. Universities Debating Championship included (from left) Director of Debate Jan Hovden and debaters Shannon Griffin, Sasha Grodsky, Taylor Blackburn, Jac Stewart, Stephanie Wesson, Matt Summers, Emily Schwalbe and Ben Claeson. (Photograph courtesy of BQDC)

“Debating with Taylor this year has been a pleasure and tremendous learning experience,” said Stewart. “I’m excited to see how she and the rest of our growing team fare next year.”

In January, the pair went on to the World Universities Debating Championships in Chennai, India, where they were ranked 21st in the world — where, too, Summers and Wesson finished at 39th.

And in March, Wesson and Claeson won the King’s College Inter-Varsity Debate Tournament in New York City.

�ֲ���ý’ success in BP debating was matched by equally formidable achievements on the American circuit, and Brooks Quimby ended 2013–14 ranked ninth in the

Summers and Blackburn finished the season as the fourth-ranked APDA team, posting top-five finishes at the largest, most competitive tourneys the nation, including tournaments at Harvard, Columbia, Brown and Boston University.

And the newbies are coming on strong.

Zoe Seaman-Grant ’17 tied as the fifth-place novice of the year in the U.S., while Matt Kahn ’17 finished as the eighth-ranked novice debater of the season. The team of Seaman-Grant and Kahn won the BU Novice Tournament last fall and placed in the top five at the Vassar, Brown and Brandeis tournaments.

“Only a few debate programs follow the �ֲ���ý model of accepting and training all interested students,” said Stewart. “It has been incredible to go from never having debated to learning to perform at the highest levels.

“�ֲ���ý’ no-cut policy is instrumental to our success.”

On weekends throughout the fall, the Brooks Quimby Debate Council has sent teams across the Northeast to compete against the country’s — and in many cases the world’s — best debaters. The results? Judge for yourself:

• As an entire team, �ֲ���ý now ranks fifth overall in the trailing only Yale, Harvard, Brandeis and Rutgers.
• The team of Matthew Summers ’15 of Short Hills, N.J., and Taylor Blackburn ’15 of Atherton, Calif., is third-ranked in the country. “This is an enormous accomplishment, considering there are around 100 teams at any given tournament,” said Jan Hovden, director of debate and lecturer in rhetoric.

Next to a familiar rental van, Taylor Blackburn ’15 and Matt Summers ’15 get ready to drive the �ֲ���ý team to Harvard for a recent tournament, where they finished fifth out of more than 100 teams. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

• BQDC president Jac Stewart ’14 of Keene, N.H., and Blackburn teamed up to win the highly competitive Yale Inter-Varsity Debate Tournament in early October.
• Blackburn is the 10th-ranked varsity individual speaker in the U.S.
• Zoe Seaman-Grant ’17 of Brooklyn, N.Y, and Matthew Kahn ’17 of Newington, Conn., are the first- and third-ranked novice individual speakers in the U.S.
• Even before snow hit campus or the cider machine left Commons, debaters Blackburn, Summers and Stewart already qualified for the APDA national championship tournament in April 2014 at the University of Pennsylvania.

At the Yale tournament, �ֲ���ý outperformed teams from Harvard, Stanford, Brandeis, Brown and Princeton in a tournament that’s considered a key prep for the Worlds Universities Debating Championship, this year to be held in Chennai, India, from Dec. 28 to Jan. 3.

Summers will be one of the �ֲ���ý debaters heading to Worlds, paired with Stephanie Wesson ’14 of Mont Vernon, N.H., along with Blackburn and Stewart.

Summers says that the chance to travel abroad and debate drew him to �ֲ���ý.

�ֲ���ý debaters, include novice winning team Zoe Seaman-Grant ’17 (second from right) and Matthew Kahn ’17 (third from right), gather after the Vassar tournament. (BQDC)

“One reason I ended up at �ֲ���ý was because I heard there was this wonderful debate team where you could travel the world,” he said. “I’m now living that experience, going to India over winter break and then traveling to China.”

Hovden has announced that Summers will team with Stephanie Wesson ’14 of Mont Vernon, N.H., at Worlds, while Blackburn teams with Stewart.

Follow �ֲ���ý debate tournaments on BQDC  or .

Unlike other colleges and universities that perform at this elite level, BQDC, acting in the spirit of �ֲ���ý as a whole, requires no tryouts and makes no cuts.

The team likes to boast that rookies can come to their very first practice on Monday not even knowing to take notes during rounds (let alone how to debate), and be off to a tournament by Friday, ready to engage in five rounds of persuasion and argumentation on topics for which they often haven’t prepared.

Taylor Blackburn ’15 and Jac Stewart ’14 brandish their first-place trophies after winning the Yale Inter-Varsity Tournament in early October. (BQDC)

“�ֲ���ý debate is this wonderful balance between being really open and friendly — a community of friends — while having a competitive edge,” Blackburn says.

For first-years especially, debate provides both a new activity and a community of supportive students interested in unearthing the logic in everyday life and current events.

“The �ֲ���ý team was incredibly welcoming and were ridiculously supportive,” says Seaman-Grant.

Perhaps more tangibly, debaters say they often see a direct correlation between what they learn in debate and how they succeed in the classroom. Debate hones skills not only in public speaking but also in organization and analysis in papers and research.

On Halloween, BQDC heads into America’s past. Costumed in Colonial-style outfits, they’ll debate the motion, “This house believes that the 13 colonies should declare independence.” The debate takes place in the Edmund S. Muskie Archives at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 31.

This weekend, �ֲ���ý will send teams to tournaments at Northeastern University and University of Vermont tournaments.

For alumni interested in catching up with debaters during Homecoming Weekend, the BQDC will hold a reception from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., Nov. 2, at the Edmund S. Muskie Archives.

This past New Year’s Eve, �ֲ���ý debaters Catherine Djang ’13 and Ben Smith ’13 were listening to a countdown of a different sort.

Catherine Djang ’13 and Ben Smith ’13 are the first �ֲ���ý debaters to “break” at the World Universities Debating Championship since 1999. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College.

They were in Berlin, in a big meeting room at Technische Universität along with 384 of the world’s best debate teams.

After nine grueling preliminary debates over the prior three days, the debaters were listening to the slow roll call of teams that had earned enough points to “break” into the 48-team elimination rounds of the World Universities Debating Championship, held Dec. 27 through Jan. 4.

Forty-four teams had already been announced.

Just four spots remained.

No �ֲ���ý team had advanced since 1999.

Then came from the front of the room: “Breaking 45th, on 18 points: �ֲ���ý A.”

A few minutes later, Djang was shaking, mostly because a fellow �ֲ���ý debater had just grabbed her shoulders. “Do you know what this means!?” exclaimed Taylor Blackburn ’15.

“Do you know what this means for �ֲ���ý!?” continued Blackburn. “Do you know what this means for you!?”

What “this” means is this: Djang and Smith are now “among the elite of elite of global debaters,” says Director of Debate and Lecturer in Rhetoric Jan Hovden, who served as a judge in Berlin, as did Blackburn. (Adding to the �ֲ���ý presence at this year’s WUDC was Colin Etnire ’12, who was selected as one of nine judges of the Grand Final, won by Monash University.)

Breaking at the WUDC is one of those feats that’s more impressive the more you learn about it. For one thing, they are the first �ֲ���ý team to break since Tamara Pogue Drangstveit ’99 and Amy Keith ’99 did the trick their senior year.

“Not many people realize how big an achievement this really is,” says Drangstveit, who now directs the Family & Intercultural Resource Center in Summit County, Colo. “The tournament is really the Olympics of international spoken and analytic competition.”

The numbers support what she says.

Djang advances her team’s argument during a World Universities Debating Championship match as teammate Ben Smith ’13 watches.

This year, those 384 teams came from 264 colleges, universities and debating societies in 64 countries, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. Once featuring mostly teams from England and Australia, WUDC is now more worldwide and competitive than ever, and this year’s field was about double that of a decade ago.

“You can be in a room with people representing every continent except Antarctica,” says Hovden.

Djang and Smith’s feat gains even more luster when you learn that Americans have no edge in international debating (�ֲ���ý’ long history of international debate notwithstanding). A handful of English and Australian colleges dominate: “Oxford and Cambridge, Sydney and Monash,” recites Hovden.

International debaters tend to be vastly more experienced, nearly professional. As Smith says wryly, “We’re not as good.” International debaters are often law students or Ph.D. candidates. “It can be intimidating.”

Even at home, �ֲ���ý debate walks a distinctive path, as most other colleges have tryouts and cuts; �ֲ���ý never has.

Of the 33 U.S. colleges and universities that sent 53 teams to Berlin, only nine teams made the break: �ֲ���ý, Stanford, Harvard, Yale and Princeton. Not making the cut were U.S. teams from Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Duke, Swarthmore, Amherst, and Williams, among others.

Djang and Smith confer as a McGill University debater presents the Opposition argument during a preliminary round of the 2013 World Universities Debates Championship. �ֲ���ý argued the Government position with Australia’s Griffith University, while McGill was paired with Durham Union Society of England.

Americans are also at a disadvantage at the WUDC because U.S. parliamentary style differs from the British style employed at most world tournaments.

American style features one team (the Government) supporting the motion, and the other team (the Opposition) against. British parliamentary style doubles the fun. Two teams are on each side of the motion, each team getting a chance to support or oppose the motion.

For example, in one of their debates, Smith and Djang, along with a team from Australia’s Griffith University, were the Government, supporting the motion that “universities should never prohibit research or teaching on the grounds of sexist, racist or otherwise discriminatory implications.” The Opposition teams were from Canada’s McGill University and Durham Union Society of England.

“The British style is a lot more competitive,” Smith says. “It’s more exciting, and there’s a lot more strategy.”

Breaking at worlds puts Djang and Smith “among the elite of elite of global students,” says Director of Debate and Lecturer in Rhetoric Jan Hovden. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen.

Hovden explains that the two styles reflect “different argumentative communities.” That is, “the way you might argue in a court of criminal law is different from civil law. How you are argue with the person on the street differs from how you argue” in the academic realm.

Given the complexity of the format, it’s imperative for a team to keep track of all arguments, then wisely choose which ones to argue. You simply can’t argue them all.

“You have to identify the really critical arguments of the debate and use them to your advantage,” Smith says.

This ability, taught to Smith and Djang by their coach, Jan Hovden, is also what debate alumnus Erich Fuchs ’92 learned from the late Bob Branham, the coach who completed the �ֲ���ý program’s  shift from policy debate to the more freewheeling parliamentary style by 1990.

Fuchs, now on the faculty in the Department of Communication Arts and Sciences at Penn State, recalls how Branham would “caution against simply refuting each argument separately” during a parliamentary debate, even as he taught his debaters to track the many different arguments carefully.

Branham “recommended developing perspective on the entire debate, then developing a few carefully selected responses or incisive points of information,” Fuchs says.

“Points of information” are occasions when a side can question the other. “Because there can be several people asking you questions, you can get bombarded,” Smith said. “But it’s more fun that way.”

All told, being an underdog at a world-level event suited the �ֲ���ý team just fine. Like any competitor who relishes the arena, Djang and Smith savored the chance to “play up.”

“There’s greater pressure to perform, but we like that,” Djang said. “The different knowledge backgrounds, different educational backgrounds — it’s exciting on so many levels.”

In at least one instance, the �ֲ���ý team used its academic coursework for effect.

Catherine Djang ’13 and Ben Smith ’13 ponder a question as they pose for photographs near the debate trophy case in Pettigrew Hall. Photo by Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College.

In the fifth preliminary round, Djang and Smith argued the Government side on the motion that progressive males “of dominant ethnicities” should refrain from taking jobs when there is a qualified candidate from a “historically disadvantaged group.”

A politics major (with minors in philosophy and Spanish) whose senior thesis looks at the underrepresentation of women in politics, Djang, who goes by “Cat,” pounced.

“I was able to easily articulate a justification for why it is important to consider historical marginalization and access to positions of power,” she said.

Of course, a debate motion can just as easily clash with a debater’s set of beliefs. (Case in point: Smith, being a self-described progressive male, had less zeal for the motion.)

Specific motions aside, the overall experience at an event like the WUDC, where debaters might argue more than a dozen motions over a few days — on sensitive topics ranging from nuclear weapons and aid to Egypt to feminism, monogamy, religious intolerance and population control — is enough to jostle anyone’s beliefs.

“You go into a debate and you realize that your strongly held opinions are matched by strong opinions on the other side, with very valid arguments to support them,” Smith acknowledges. “You can lose track of what you yourself believe.”

But, says Hovden, offering her students a path out of this rhetorical rabbit hole, by arguing a position that you don’t believe, “students to gain a better understanding of the issue as a whole.”

In turn, understanding an issue is the first step toward testing one’s own beliefs, a basic tenet of a liberal arts education. From that test comes greater respect for the positions of others.

“Ultimately,” Hovden says, completing her own neat argument, “that makes the student a stronger and more empathetic individual.”