Seawolves advance to quarterfinals, take home speaker honors at Huber Debates

Members of the Seawolf Debate Program just returned from the University of Vermont's Huber Debates competition, hosted in Burlington, Vt., Nov. 2 and 3. The competition featured 100 teams competing from schools across the U.S. and Canada. Six students represented UAA in the competition.

The debaters tackled topics ranging from whether U.S. aid to South American countries should be conditional upon coca eradication efforts to whether states without written constitutions are preferable to those with. After six preliminary rounds, two of the three Seawolf teams qualified for the quarterfinal round and one of those teams, Hannah Foreman and Andrew Kerosky, was seeded third out of all teams based on their preliminary record.

Both UAA teams in the quarterfinals (Foreman and Kerosky, Brittany Bennett and Jonathon Taylor) were assigned to the affirmative side of the motion, "Palestinian political organizations should advocate for full Israeli citizenship rather than a separate state." Though the Seawolves made their best case for the change in policy, the judges ultimately rejected the proposals in both rounds. Despite not advancing past quarterfinals, the Seawolves' talents were recognized when Kerosky took sixth individual speaker out of the more than 200 students competing at the event and Taylor received the third best novice speaker honor.

The Seawolves next send a contingent to the Oxford and Cambridge IVs. These events, some of the oldest and most prestigious debating tournaments in existence, represent the toughest competition the Seawolves will face before heading to the World Universities Debating Championships in December.

For more information, please contact Steve Johnson at (907) 786-4391.

November Archive