Those who were members of the team last year or in recent years would now walk into a completely different debate atmosphere at Wednesday or Thursday night practice. We came into this year dedicated to making the team into a real force both on campus and on the APDA circuit, and we are off to a great start in both respects.

Linked in and Lookin’ Good

Obviously, the team has a new look. Website, Facebook group, blog, we’re working to get our name out there in a lot of different ways. We even created a promotional video with a Mad Men theme to show the sexy side of debate! Be sure to follow us on Twitter or through any of our new electronic resources.

Outreach

On the subject of getting our name out, we’re looking to expand our work with The School at Columbia University as well as the Big Apple Debate League. We’ll be hosting a small middle school debate tournament later this fall in addition to the large high school tournament we host in the spring. We have also been approached by PETA and will be hosting a huge debate with them on the morality of eating meat. Look out for that in March! Lastly, Columbia Debate is going international! We already met the Chilean National Debate Team on our turf, and have established a relationship with the Venezuelan team as well. We will be engaging in an online debate this winter and are looking into opportunities for some world travel to extend that relationship.

New Novices

We are incredibly proud of the 15 new novices we took on the team this year! Tryouts were far more competitive than ever. About 85 people came out out for the team, and we ended up with an amazing selection of students from multiple schools, backgrounds, and even countries. They haven’t disappointed us. They show up to practice consistently, and it’s clear from their practice rounds and tournament performances that they’re improving rapidly. We can’t wait to help them develop their talents, especially with the use of our one-to-one novice mentoring system, currently in its early stages

Tournament Success

We’ve only sent teams to 4 tournaments thus far, but we’ve already put Columbia on the scoreboard. Two teams have broken to outrounds, both at Harvard, a huge tournament, with one reaching quarterfinals. Columbia team members have won both novice and varsity speaker awards. Several teams have reached bubble rounds.

Fun

We have it. The team is truly becoming a family this year. We work hard and party hard. We become friends. We hang out in non-debate contexts. We win together and lose together, in debate and in life. These are the intangible yet invaluable rewards of being a part of this kind of team, and we hope that all of our members are experience the benefits of the positive social environment we are trying to create.

This is a team that wants to get as much possible out of the college debate experience, and we appreciate any and all support in pursuit of that goal. Look out for a campus event information, stay updated on our tournament progress, and read up on our experiences. If you’re wondering whether this is a really worthwhile activity, we are a debate team, so let us know what we can do to convince you.