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The
Policy and Parliamentary Debate Programs are off to a great start with
excellent showings at the year's first two tournaments.
POLICY DEBATE
In
Policy Debate, an intense, fast paced form of debate requiring hours and hours
of indepth research, Seniors Eric Chalfant
and Mike Meredith
advanced to quarter-finals at the extremely competitive Gonzaga University
tournament defeating Texas's top team and one of the University Southern
California's top teams before losing to the same USC team in quarters. Eric was
also a top 15 speaker at the tournament. Sophomore Nate Cohn and Junior Sam Allen as well as
Frosh Daniel Straus
and Junior Luke Sanford
advanced to octafinals. Four other Whitman teams
competed at the tournament.
Whitman's showing of three teams in octafinals
matched UC Berkeley as the best for a school at the tournament but
Whitman advanced a team past the octafinals whereas
UC Berkeley did not.
While
Gonzaga featured 5 to 8 of the nation's top teams and many other strong teams,
Eric, Mike, Nate, Sam, Daniel, and Luke will travel to the University of
Kentucky on the first weekend of October and face even more of the
nation's best teams at one of the year's largest tournaments.
PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
In
Parliamentary Debate, an extemporaneous, broad based knowledge form of debate,
Senior Jeff Wilson
and Frosh Chris Fleming
advanced to semi-finals in open division at the Reed College tournament. Chris
also received a top 10 speaker award. Senior Chris Fryefield
and Sophomore Amy Soderquist advanced to quarterfinals and
Senior Annie Hickman
and Frosh Joel Wilson
advanced to the partial double-octafinals. In novice
division, Ryan Lum and Cat Valverde took
FIRST PLACE and Ryan and Cat were first and second speaker respectively.
Overall,
the Whitman
Parliamentary squad finished first in NPDA Sweepstakes at
the tournament including over Willamette, Puget Sound, Western Washington
University, Lewis and Clark, Oregon, Reed, and Pacific Lutheran--the
parliamentary powerhouses of the Northwest.
jim :)
hansonjb@whitman.edu
The
strength of a program often is in how it handles the challenges it faces
and there have been plenty over the past month.
POLICY DEBATE--THE
CALIFORNIA FIRES
In
Policy Debate, five teams traveled to Pepperdine University for competition
against some of Southern California's best teams. After preliminary
competition, four of our
five teams advanced to elimination rounds including
Junior Luke Sanford
and Frosh Daniel Straus;
Sophomores Lewis Silver
and Dave Mathews;
Frosh Jonathan Dentler; and Frosh Allison Ikeda and new
team member Gary Wang.
The squad went home to the Cotlers, generous and
fun loving parents of a Whitman student who host our team to help us save
money. After a restful night of sleep, Jim woke to a call from the tournament
director to hear that the
remainder of the tournament was cancelled because the Malibu fire had closed
the Pepperdine campus. Unfortunately, we were not able to
get back to the tournament for our tubs of evidence and so they are being
mailed to us this week.
Even with the unusual situation, the squad took pride for Whitman
advanced more teams into the elimination rounds than any other school at the
tournament.
In
early October, the squad also sent three teams to the University of Kentucky
where it was tough going. Seniors Eric
Chalfant and Mike Meredith and Luke Sanford and Daniel Straus went 5-3
and Sophomore Nate
Cohn, suffering from laryngitis, and Junior Sam Allen went 4-4.
This tournament is very difficult so those results are commendable but less
than we had hoped. Eric, Mike, Nate, and Sam are at the Harvard tournament as I
write this.
PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE AND SPEAKING EVENTS--A CHANGING CAST
We've
had a lot of changes in the makeup of this part of the team during the past
month with various illnesses, event conflicts, partner repairings,
and a few students moving on to other things. Still, the team had a successful
showing at the Lewis and Clark tournament, particularly in speaking events. 8
of our 10 events advanced to finals producing a gleaming set of awards:
Senior
Chris Fryefield, 2nd, Extemporaneous Speaking
Senior
Maile Zheng,
3rd, Extemporaneous speaking
Frosh
Cat Valverde,
5th, Extemporaneous speaking
Sophomore
Amy Soderquist,
6th, Extemporaneous speaking
Frosh
Kristen Coverdale,
2nd, Impromptu speaking
Frosh
Joel Wilson,
3rd, Impromptu speaking
Frosh
Ryan Lum,
5th, Impromptu speaking
Frosh
Nigel Ramoz, 6th, Impromptu
speaking
Nigel and Maile
advanced to quarterfinals and Kristen
and John
advanced to semifinals in Junior division of
Parliamentary debate.
Nationally,
the Whitman Parliamentary
squad is 16th in the nation and is the highest ranked
team that has been to only two tournaments (meaning our ranking is
likely to increase).
The
squad heads to the University of Puget Sound this weekend but sadly is missing
two more students due to illness and a conflicting event.
HIGH SCHOOL TOURNAMENT
After
the students return from Harvard and the University of Puget Sound--it is time
to work on the High School Tournament--a major undertaking with the
hundreds of high schoolers, coaches, parents, and
judges that come to our campus. The tournament takes place Thursday afternoon
November 1 through Saturday evening November 3.
jim :)
hansonjb@whitman.edu
in case you aren't on the community listserv . . . (also sent to the faculty listserv)
Whitman College's Policy Debaters have come roaring back at the end of the season for an amazing conclusion.
It has been a very tough semester for the team. Senior Eric Chalfant has faced multiple eye surgeries for a tumor and was not able to attend two important tournaments; three students were not able to compete at two other key tournaments; and the team had a really disappointing showing at the important UC Berkeley tournament in mid-January.
Despite his troubles, Eric and his partner, senior, Mike Meredith, were still ranked 28th in the nation in early February. But, the squad's morale dropped and with the cold, icy weather, Hunter seemed kind of empty.
But in late February, the lights started burning again in Hunter. Students and coaches worked hard to get ready for the national championship tournaments and specifically the Northwest CEDA Championship. The work paid off. Eric Chalfant won the coveted Becky Galentine Top Speaker Award. Whitman had 3 of the top 4 teams at the tournament including Eric and Mike who took second and semi-finalists sophomore Nathan Cohn and frosh Daniel Straus and junior Sam Allen and junior Luke Sanford.
Then, Nathan and Daniel went on a 9 win in a row streak at Frosh-Sophomore Nationals before losing on a close 2-1 decision to place 3rd in the nation. Nathan was named the top Frosh-Sophomore speaker in the Nation at the tournament.
From there, the team was pumped up and spent nearly a full week of researching during spring break preparing for Nationals. Whitman blew away the competition at the CEDA National Championship held at Wichita State University in Wichita, Kansas--advancing 4 teams to the double-octafinals (top 32), more teams than any other squad in the country including Dartmouth, Kansas, Emory, Missouri State, Texas, and many others. Our teams advancing include Luke Sanford and Sam Allen (tied for 5th place), Nate Cohn and Daniel Straus (tied for 9th place), Mike Meredith and Eric Chalfant (tied for 17th; they had a heartbreaking 2-1 loss in the double-octafinals), frosh Nick Griffin and sophomore Spencer Janyk (tied for 17th). A fifth team, frosh Jonathan Dentler with hybrid partner Robby White from WWCC, advanced to triples (top 64).
A special kudos to Assistant coach Aaron Hardy as well as to Ross Richendrfer '07 alum who have worked tirelessly for hours and hours to assist and teach our students; they really are helping to advance Whitman's mission of building critically inquiring minds as these students learn voluminous amounts about Middle East policies (this year's topic) and contemporary political philosophy.