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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.