Speech and Debate Union finishes with success

By Lydia Laythe Staff Writer laythe16@up.edu

After a successful year, UP's Speech and Debate Union is climbing the national ranks, with sophomore Katie Wilson placing in the top 10 percent at a national tournament earlier this month.

The Speech and Debate Union competed in Pi Kappa Delta's National Tournament in St. Louis, Mo. against 89 other teams. Seniors Valerie Schiller and Beau Woodward, junior John Russell and Wilson competed individually in the International Public Debate event. Wilson finished in the top eight of more than 400 and the top 10 percent.

The UP team debates as part of the Individual Public Debate Association (IPDA). Debaters are only given 30 minutes to research and prepare arguments on an assigned topic before debating.

Wilson said the open preparation format emphasizes the importance of using teammates as resources.

"You have to have a really good team dynamic," Wilson said. "You're allowed the help of your team and the internet, so you don't have to know everything about everything."

Wilson said the 30 minutes spent preparing can become tense with so many people trying to prepare arguments.

"It is really helpful to have everyone around," said Wilson, a political science major. "I'd say that 60 percent of our team is majoring in philosophy or political science or communications, but we also have engineers and bio and environmental science majors. It's a really good advantage that the University of Portland has because we aren't just political science people."

Woodward said team success relies on individual team members earning points toward the team total.

"Our competitions are normally set up kind of like track," Woodward said. "We are all competing as individuals, but we score points as a team."

Woodward said the strong personalities on the team can create tension.

"It gets heated every once in a while, but we still like each other," Woodward said. "But we do approach it as kind of mercenaries. Like if we have any disagreements, we know that it just lives within that area."

Wilson said debaters are stubborn by nature, which contributes to the conflict in situations.

"It's hard to convince a debater that they're wrong on anything," Wilson said. "I've lost a lot of debate rounds, but I've never been wrong."

Wilson said the positive team dynamic comes from time spent together outside of debate practices.

"Last semester we went hiking together," Wilson said, "which ended up not being that awesome, because none of us are athletic except for like two people on our team."

Wilson said the interactions outside practice are essential to building trust.

"If I don't know that much about [something], but I have to talk about it, you basically just have to trust that your team is giving you is good information and good arguments," Wilson said.

Brian Simmons, communications professor and co-director of the Speech and Debate Union, said many factors make this year's team successful.

"The University naturally attracts students that are highly intelligent, and many of them have the kind of personalities and skill sets that lend themselves to success in debate," Simmons said. "The fact that they get along with each other as well as they do only adds to that success."

Simmons said the team's strength is rooted in the students' passion for debate.

"Each member is there completely voluntarily," Simmons said. "They don't receive any scholarship money or any other significant compensation for what they do. So that means that all the work that they put in, they do because they enjoy participating and they perceive they get something out of it."