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Whitman Speech and Debate 2008-09 News Page Whitman
News Releases. Jim’s Emails. Etc. |
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Click the headline to go to the story Whitman News Release: Team Succeeds 2008-09 Debate
Program Update Fall 2008—Jim’s Email to Campus No
more tubs — Whitman Debate Team goes paperless (Whitman Article, Lenel
Parish) The
Team Goes Paperless—Jim’s Email to Campus |
Debate
Program Update Fall 2008—Jim’s Email to Campus
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Whitman's debate program has had a great fall semester with teams in elimination rounds at every tournament we have attended and we are currently the Number One combined Parliamentary and Policy debate program in the country, clearly ahead of U Wyoming and UC Berkeley, our biggest competitors. Whitman is currently ranked 10th in the nation in NPDA Parliamentary debate and 15th in the nation in NDT Varsity rankings. |
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Nate Cohn, Allison Humble, Lewis Silver. |
Jon Riley, Nick Griffin |
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In Policy Debate, two highlights among many: Frosh Tom Friedenbach and Adam McKibben have been in finals of both JV divisions they have attended. They look to uphold Whitman’s 8th of out 9 tries to win JV division over the past 10 years at the University of Southern California tournament. The Policy program is debating whether agriculture subsidies should be cut. |
The Policy Debaters showing their “hardware” from the Idaho State tournament where six of our seven teams advanced to elimination rounds. |
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Most of the Fall 2008 Parli-IE Team showing their awards from the PLU tournament where 7 teams advanced to elims. |
In Parliamentary Debate, a few highlights: The Parliamentary program debated a wide variety of issues at their tournaments. |
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The squad is looking forward to tournaments at the University of Southern California and Cal State Fullerton, Washburn, Weber, Western Washington, and UC Berkeley as the second semester begins. More information at our newly updated web page is at: |
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No
more tubs — Whitman’s winning debate team the greenest in the country (Whitman
Article, Lenel Parish)
First place is no stranger to the members
of Whitman’s Debate Team, but this fall they took the lead in a new race:
Whitman’s paperless debaters are the greenest in the country.
Whitman has been one of the most
technologically advanced programs in the country for many years, said Jim
Hanson, professor of forensics and debate coach. Until this fall, however, the
team still printed thousands of pages of research materials that needed to be
transported to every tournament in large, cumbersome plastic tubs
Hanson planned to move toward computer-only
debate in the 2009-2010 academic year, but the airline industry’s
implementation of ever-higher fees for luggage--and large plastic tubs of
paper--jump-started the effort to go paperless. Determined cutting-edge macro
programming by Aaron Hardy, policy debate coach, and the team’s willingness to
try, said Hanson, have the team debating off laptops this fall.
“The switch is saving trees and printing
costs, and it has made getting to and from tournaments much easier,” said
Hanson, three-time debate coach of the year (once national, once Washington
State and a third from a Pepperdine tournament.) “We’ve talked to many other
teams interested in moving to paperless debating.” A Denver team made an
attempt several years ago, but without the macro program for setting up
speaking documents that Whitman now has, and didn’t catch on.
The paperless condition seems to agree with
his team. “In policy debate Nate Cohn ’10 and Daniel Straus ’11 won seven
debates in a row to advance to the semi-finals at the national circuit Georgia
State tournament. This third-place showing followed a fifth place showing at
the season opener at Gonzaga University. Five other Whitman teams were among
the upper seeds at the tournament including sophomore Nick Griffin ’11 and Jon
Riley ’12, Lewis Silver ’10 and Allison Humble ’12, Dave Mathews ’10 and Ali
Edwards ’10, Spencer Janyk ’10 and Blake Barnett ’12, and Brian Cole ’12 and
Alex Zendeh’12.
The policy teams are debating whether
agriculture subsidies should be cut. In parliamentary debate, said Hanson,
Whitman advanced seven teams into elimination rounds at the season opener at
Pacific Lutheran University, more than any other school at the tournament. The
team was led by new parliamentary debate and individual events coach Mike
Meredith ’08.
Whitman absolutely dominated the novice
division going 22-2. John-Henry Heckendorn ’12 and Galen Phillips ’10 won the
novice division. Genevieve Venable ’12 and Tim Wilder ’12 took second. Charlie
Weems ’12 and Michael Bell ’11 placed third, and Peter Qualtere-Burcher ’12 and
Sara Rasmussen ’12 placed fifth. In the senior division, Whitman advanced three
teams to the octa-finals: Brie Coyle ’09 and Ali Edwards ’10, Chris Fleming ’11
and Paul Wyatt ’12, and Dave Mathews ’10 and Carson Booth ’09. At the
tournament, Whitman’s parliamentary debaters talked about the issues of free
trade, green buildings, renewable energy, and relations with Russia and Iran.
The squad is looking forward to tournaments at the University of Kentucky;
University of Nevada, Las Vegas; Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Idaho
State University and University of Puget Sound during October.
No more
tubs — Whitman Debate Team goes paperless (Whitman Article, Lenel Parish)
First place is no
stranger to the members of Whitman’s Debate Team, but this fall they took the
lead in a new race: Whitman’s paperless debaters are the greenest in the
country.
Whitman has
been one of the most technologically advanced programs in the country for many
years, said Jim Hanson,
professor of forensics and debate coach. Until this fall, however, the team
still printed thousands of pages of research materials that needed to be
transported to every tournament in large, cumbersome plastic tubs.
Hanson
planned to move toward computer-only debate in the 2009-2010 academic year, but
the airline industry’s implementation of ever-higher fees for luggage — and
large plastic tubs of paper — jump-started the effort to go paperless.
Determined, cutting-edge macro programming by Aaron Hardy, policy debate coach, and the
team’s willingness to try, said Hanson, have the team debating with laptops
this fall.
“The switch
is saving trees and printing costs, and it has made getting to and from
tournaments much easier,” said Hanson, three-time debate coach of the year
(once national, once Washington State and a third from a Pepperdine
tournament.) “We’ve talked to many other teams interested in moving to
paperless debating.” A Denver team made an attempt several years ago, but
without the macro program for setting up speaking documents that Whitman now
has, so it didn’t catch on.
The
Team Goes Paperless—Jim’s Email to Campus
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Whitman's debate program is off to a great start and lit up the nation's imagination for the future with paperless debating. For years, Whitman has been one of the most technologically advanced programs in the country but we still printed off hundreds, indeed, thousands of pages of meticulously researched materials produced by members of the program each year. With some programming help of Aaron Hardy, our Policy Debate coach, and a willingness to try, we are debating off laptops. The switch is saving trees, saving us printing costs, cutting back on rental vehicle costs and plane baggage fees, and makes getting to and from tournaments much less of a hassle. We've taken many questions and requests for moving to paperless debating from other programs. |
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The old way—tubs with hundreds of pages of paper files. |
The new way—files on laptops. Debaters read their materials off the laptops and share evidence with their opponents with laptops. |
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In Policy Debate: The Policy program is debating whether agriculture subsidies should be cut. Blake had this to say about his involvement with the program: "Policy debate has extended the horizons of my academic experience far beyond the class room. Hours of research have given me in-depth education on everything from the factors of the current food crisis to the philosophical implications of living in a 'constructed world.' I am truly a more informed citizen on issues I didn't even know existed before getting involved." |
Most of the Policy Team Fall 2008 |
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Most of the Fall 2008 Parli-IE Team |
In Parliamentary Debate: The Parliamentary program debated free trade, green buildings, renewable energy, relations with Russia, and relations with Iran at the tournament. Ali said this about
parliamentary debate: "The great thing about parli debate is
that it encourages quick critical thinking. Since there is very
little prep time, you have to learn to process arguments and responses
simultaneously. It makes you keep up on current events since you have a new
topic every round; you end up learning a great breadth of
information." |
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The squad is looking forward to tournaments at the University of Kentucky, Las Vegas, Lewis and Clark, Idaho State, and Puget Sound during October. |
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