Seawolf debaters travel to Thailand to compete in the 28th World Universities Debating Championships
ANCHORAGE, AK – The Seawolf Debate Team traveled six debaters to Bangkok, Thailand over the winter break to compete in the 28th World Universities Debating Championships. In attendance were 396 teams, hailing from 150 colleges and universities and 47 nations.
Representing UAA were the teams of Michael Rose (senior, political science) and Ben Ferguson (junior, philosophy); David Childers (junior, political science) and Jennifer Lucas-Duffy (graduate student, psychology); and Nick Byrne (junior, English) and Drew Cason (freshman, biology). This was the fourth trip to the world championships for Rose and the second for both Ferguson and Childers. Duffy, Byrne and Cason attended their first "Worlds" tournament.
Over the course of nine preliminary and four elimination rounds, the 792 debaters at the tournament engaged one another on numerous controversial topics. They included whether governments should rescue failing private industries, whether we should deny terminally ill patients access to scarce medical resources, and whether religious adoption agencies should be required to place children with homosexual couples. Over the course of seven days, the Seawolf debaters exchanged ideas and perspectives with individuals from many of the world's top academic institutions while they interacted with people from varied educational, social and cultural backgrounds.
As an example, Round 1 of the tournament found Childers and Lucas-Duffy assigned the role of Opening Proposition to defend the motion "This House would allow the use of torture." UAA’s team was pitted against teams from Harvard, the University Teknologi Malaysia and Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Serving as adjudicators and engaging the competitors in a thorough analysis of the debate upon its conclusion were representatives from UCC Law School (Ireland), Duke, Swinburne University of Technology (Australia), the University of York (U.K.) and the University of Western Australia.
Throughout the tournament UAA's debaters interacted with delegates from such universities as Bandung Islamic University (Indonesia), the Beijing Language Academy, Cambridge, Dubai Aerospace Engineering University, Hanyang University (South Korea), International Islamic University of Malaysia, Oxford, Princeton, Seikei University (Japan), Stanford, the University of Aukland (New Zealand), the University of Cape Town (South Africa), the University of Hong Kong, the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia), the University of Santo Tomas (Philippines), the University of Zagreb (Croatia) and Yale.
While the upcoming semester includes four tournaments, the team's primary focus will be hosting the campus intramural debate competition: the Cabin Fever Debates. Any UAA student enrolled in at least three credits is eligible to compete. For more information visit the Cabin Fever Debates Web site at www.uaa.alaska.edu/seawolfdebate/CabinFeverDebates/.
For more information please contact Steve Johnson (786-4391) or Shawn Briscoe (786-4354). You can also learn more about the team at www.uaa.alaska.edu/seawolfdebate/.
