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The University of Michigan Debate Team

T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F M I C H I G A N

DEBATE TEAM

http://www.michigandebate.com

A a r o n K a l l • D i r e c t o r o f D e b a t e • a k a l l @ u m i c h . e d u O f f i c e : 7 3 4 - 2 3 9 - 3 9 9 6 • Fa x : 7 3 4 - 7 6 3 - 5 9 0 2 D a v i d H e i d t • A s s i s t a n t D i r e c t o r o f D e b a t e • d a v h e i d t @ u m i c h . e d u

C o n t a c t u s :

http://twitter.com/UMDebateCamp

2013-2014 UM Debate Team Roster .......................................................... 1

2012-2013 UM Debate Team Success ....................................................... 2

UM Success at the National Debate Tournament ................................... 3

2013-2014 UM Debate Coaching Staff ...................................................... 4

2013-2014 UM Debate Team Travel Schedule .......................................... 5

Notable UM Debate Alums ......................................................................... 6

UM Debate Graduate School Placement .................................................. 7

University Record New Leadership Article .............................................. 8

Michigan Today National Debate Tournament Article ............................. 9-11

Michigan Daily Tournament Victory Articles ............................................ 12-14

Michigan Daily Urban Debate Article ........................................................ 15

Michigan Difference Scholarship Article .................................................. 16

University Record Colburn Award Article ................................................ 17

State & Hill Article ...................................................................................... 18

Michigan Daily Debatable Future Article .................................................. 19-22

Michigan News Service Elite Eight Article ............................................... 23

2013-2014 University of Michigan Debate Team Ellis Allen, The Westminster Schools (GA), Class of 2015 Rishee Batra, St. Mark’s School of Texas (TX), Class of 2016 Callie Chappell, Traverse City Central High School (MI), Class of 2017 Cam Colella, St. Ignatius High School (OH), Class of 2016 Aidan Coyle, The Barstow School (MO), Class of 2016 Brian Henderson, Glenbrook South High School (IL), Class of 2016 Kevin Hirn, Whitney Young Magnet High School (IL), Class of 2014 Marc Jacome, Glenbrook South High School (IL), Class of 2016 Danny Kaprielian, Cherry Creek High School (CO), Class of 2017 Ryan Keenan, Juan Diego Catholic High School (UT), Class of 2017 Maria Keller, Canton Central Catholic High School (OH), Class of 2015 Joe Krakoff, Georgetown Day School, (DC), Class of 2016 Mengyao Liu, Pioneer High School (MI), Class of 2014 Dustin Meyers-Levy, Edina High School (MN), Class of 2016 Katja Molinaro, Dayton Oakwood High School (OH), Class of 2017 Will Morgan, The Westminster Schools (GA), Class of 2015 Wilson Mullen, Dayton Oakwood High School (OH), Class of 2017 Alexander Pappas, Glenbrook North High School (IL), Class of 2015 Michael Payne, Traverse City Central High School (MI), Class of 2017

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2012-2013 University of Michigan Debate Team National Rankings Second Place, National Debate Tournament Varsity Rankings- http://www.whitman.edu/debate/ndt Ninth Place, American Debate Association Varsity Rankings- http://www.cedadebate.org/forum/index.php?topic=4705.0 Seventh Place, National Top 25 Coaches’ Poll- http://www.cedadebate.org/forum/index.php?topic=4392.0

2012-2013 University of Michigan Debate Tournament Success

University of Pittsburgh Round Robin, January 26-27, 2013, First Place Illinois State University Tournament, October 12-14, 2012, First Place Appalachian State University Tournament, November 10-12, 2012, First Place University of Kentucky Tournament, October 6-8, 2012, Third Place University of Southern California Tournament, January 3-5, 2013, Third Place University of North Texas Tournament, January 9-11, 2013, Third Place National Debate Tournament, March 29-April 1, 2013, Fifth Place Northwestern University Tournament, February 9-11, 2013, Fifth Place California State University at Fullerton Tournament, January 7-9, 2013, Fifth Place University of Nevada, Las Vegas Tournament, October 20-22, 2012, Fifth Place Vanderbilt University Tournament, October 26-28, 2012, Fifth Place University of Texas at Dallas Tournament, January 5-7, 2013, Fifth Place Harvard University Tournament, October 27-29, 2012, Fifth Place University of Northern Iowa Tournament, September 14-16, 2012, Fifth Place

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NDTElimination Teams

38

NDTSpeaker Awards

22

MichiganDebate

NDTFirst Round Bids

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Bill Davey and Neil Wolf1971 Quarter-Finals

Mike Hartmann and Bill Black1972 Quarter-Finals

Jim Speta - Denise Losbough1987 Octa-Finals

Mike Green - Andrew Schrank1987 Octa-Finals

Mike Green - Andrew Schrank1988 Semi-Finals

Jim Speta - Denise Losbough1988 Quarter-Finals

Joe Thompson and Andrew Schrank1989 Finals

David Brownell and Denise Loshbough1989 Quarter-Finals

Colin Kahl and Matt Shors1990 Octa-Finals

Colin Kahl and Matt Shors1991 Finals

Colin Kahl and Matt Shors1992 Quarter-Finals

Matt Shors and Jenni Ouding1993 Octa-Finals

Gorav Jindal and Raj Shah1993 Double-Octas

Gorav Jindal and Raj Shah1994 Double-Octas

Mike Dickler and Scott Hessell1995 Octa-Finals

Mike Dickler and Scott Hessell1996 Semi-Finals

Corey Stoughton and Matt Rice1996 Double-Octas

Scott Hessell and Corey Stoughton1997 Semi-Finals

Jason Hernandez and Tony Nicalo1997 Octa-Finals

Lesley Wexler and Ellen Oberwetter1997 Double-Octas

Corey Stoughton and Lesley Wexler1998 Semi-Finals

Jason Hernandez and Kelly Steele1999 Octa-Finals

Chris Pudelski and Gabe Scannapieco1999 Octa-Finals

Chris Pudelski and Gabe Scannapieco2000 Double-Octas

Adriana Midence - Carl Sammartino2000 Double-Octas

Adriana Midence - Carl Sammartino2001 Quarter-Finals

Adriana Midence - Shaun VanHorn2002 Double-Octas

Jonah Feldman - John Oden2002 Octa-Finals

Jonah Feldman - John Oden2003 Octa-Finals

Adam Farra and Dylan Keenan2007 Double-Octas

Adam Farra and Dylan Keenan2008 Semi-Finals

Edmund Zagorin and Maria Liu2009 Double-Octas

Edmund Zagorin and Maria Liu2010 Double-Octas

Edmund Zagorin and Maria Liu2011 Semi-Finals

Ellis Allen and Maria Liu2012 Double-Octas

Kyle Deming and Alex Pappas2012 Double-Octas

Ellis Allen and Alex Pappas2013 Quarter-Finals

Kyle Deming and Kevin Hirn2013 Octa-Finals

Mike Green1988 - 5th

Andrew Schrank1988 - 6th

Joe Thompson1989 - 5th

Andrew Schrank1989 - 7th

Colin Kahl1991 - 4th

Matt Shors1992 - 6th

Matt Shors1993 - 1st

Scott Hessell1996 - 4th

Mike Dickler1996 - 6th

Scott Hessell1997 - 2nd

Corey Stoughton1997 - 8th

Lesley Wexler1997 - 10th

Lesley Wexler1998 - 3rd

Corey Stoughton1998 - 5th

Jason Hernandez1999 - 12th

Gabe Scannapieco2000 - 17th

Adriana Midence2002 - 2nd

Jonah Feldman2003 - 11th

Dylan Keenan2008 - 13th

Edmund Zagorin2011 - 8th

Ellis Allen2013- 8th

Alex Pappas2013- 10th

Jim Speta - Denise Losbough1987 - 13th

Mike Green - Andrew Schrank 1988 - 3rd

Joe Thompson and Andrew Schrank1989 - 3rd

David Brownell and Denise Loshbough1989 - 5th

Colin Kahl and Matt Shors1991 - 3rd

Matt Shors and Jenni Ouding1993 - 9th

Mike Dickler and Scott Hessell1995 - 14th

Mike Dickler and Scott Hessell1996 - 4th

Scott Hessell and Corey Stoughton1997 - 1st

Corey Stoughton and Lesley Wexler1998 3rd

Jason Hernandez and Kelly Steele1999 - 8th

Chris Pudelski and Gabe Scannapieco1999 - 12th

Chris Pudelski and Gabe Scannapieco2000 - 7th

Adriana Midence and Carl Sammartino 2001 - 13th

Jonah Feldman and John Oden 2003 - 10th

Adam Farra and Dylan Keenan2008 - 8th

Maria Liu and Edmund Zagorin 2011 - 8th

Ellis Allen and Maria Liu 2012- 7th

Ellis Allen and Alex Pappas 2013- 6th

Kyle Deming and Kevin Hirn 2013- 11th

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2013-2014 University of Michigan Debate Team Coaching Staff

Aaron Kall, Director of Debate, [email protected] David Heidt, Assistant Director of Debate, [email protected] Austin Layton, Assistant Debate Coach, [email protected] Assistants:

Josh Clark, [email protected] Erin Collins, [email protected] Parker Cronin, [email protected] Eric Forslund, [email protected] Maria Liu, [email protected] Scott Phillips, [email protected] Whit Whitmore, [email protected]

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2013-2014 University of Michigan Debate Team Travel Schedule

First Semester: Georgia State University Tournament, Atlanta (GA), September 21-23, 2013 Wayne State University Tournament, Detroit (MI), September 28-30, 2013 University of Kentucky Round Robin, Lexington (KY), October 2-3, 2013 University of Kentucky Tournament, Lexington (KY), October 5-7, 2013 University of Nevada, Las Vegas Tournament, Las Vegas (NV), October 19-21, 2013 Harvard University Tournament, Cambridge (MA), October 26-28, 2013 Wake Forest University Tournament, Winston-Salem (NC), November 16-18, 2013 Appalachian State University Tournament, Winston-Salem (NC), November 16-18, 2013 University of Northern Iowa Tournament, Cedar Falls (IA), December 7-9, 2013 Second Semester: University of Southern California Tournament, Los Angeles (CA), January 3-5, 2014 California State University at Fullerton Tournament, Fullerton (CA), January 7-9, 2014 Dartmouth College Round Robin, Hanover (NH), January 25-26, 2014 University of Pittsburgh Round Robin, Pittsburgh (PA), January 25-26, 2014 Indiana University Tournament, Bloomington (IN), January 25-27, 2014 University of Texas Tournament, Austin (TX), February 8-10, 2014 Freshman/Sophomore Nationals, East Lansing (MI), March 1-3, 2014 Cross Examination Debate Association National Tournament, Bloomington (IN), March 21-25, 2014 National Debate Tournament, Atlanta (GA), March 28-March 31, 2014

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Notable University of Michigan Debate Team Alums

Academia- Jeremy Bailenson, Director of Virtual Human Interaction Lab and Professor of Communication at Stanford University, Palo Alto (CA) William Black, Associate Professor of Economics and Law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Kansas City (MO) Robert Hirshon, Professor at the University of Michigan Law School and Former President of the American Bar Association, Ann Arbor (MI) James Speta, Dean of Academic Affairs and Professor of Law at Northwestern University School of Law, Chicago (IL) Business- Michael Braun, Chief Assistant to the CEO at Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation, New York (NY) Dennis Devine, Group Executive Vice President and Director of Retail Banking at Citizens Financial Group, Cleveland (OH) Lee Hess, Chairman of Spectrum Capital Enterprises, Columbus (OH) Phillip Ruedi, Equity Portfolio Manager and Associate Partner at Wellington Management Company, Boston (MA) Government- Alan Helmkamp, Assistant Chief Executive Officer of Wayne County Cabinet Executive Staff, Detroit (MI) Jason Hernandez, Assistant United States Attorney for Southern District of New York, New York (NY) Colin Kahl, Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East, Washington (DC) Kelly Steele, Former Campaign Spokesman for United States Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid Washington (DC) Law- Michael Hartmann, Chief Executive Officer of Miller Canfield, Detroit (MI) Ellen Oberwetter, Partner at Williams & Connolly LLP, Washington (DC) Raj Shah, Partner at DLA Piper, Chicago (IL) Matthew Shors, Deputy General Counsel at UnitedHealth Group Incorporated, Minnetonka (MN) Medicine- Alexa Canady, Appointed as the first female and African-American to a residency in neurosurgery and Pediatric Neurosurgeon at the Sacred Heart Medical Group, Pensacola (FL) Joshua Smith, Dir. of Inpatient Medicine at Saint Joseph Mercy Livingston Family Medicine Residence, Brighton (MI)

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Graduate Placement of Michigan Debate Alums- Last two Decades

Jeremy Bailenson, UM Class of 1994, PhD and Masters at Northwestern University Peter Baldwin, UM Class of 1995, MBA at University of Michigan Business School Matthew Cannon, UM Class of 2001, UC Berkeley School of Law Jonah Feldman, UM Class of 2003, Masters at University of Texas Julio Gurdian, UM Class of 2000, Northwestern University Law School Jason Hernandez, UM Class of 2000, Columbia Law School Scott Hessell, UM Class of 1997, University of Chicago Law School Colin Kahl, UM Class of 1993, PhD at Columbia University Dylan Keenan, UM Class of 2008, Yale Law School Jeremy Kreisberg, UM Class of 2011, Harvard Law School Derrick Lam, UM Class of 2005, George Washington University Law School Adriana Midence, UM Class of 2002, Emory University School of Law Ellen Oberwetter, UM Class of 1997, University of Texas School of Law Laura Pisarello, UM Class of 2007, Emory University School of Law and New York University School of Law Brandon Ponichter, UM Class of 1997, Harvard Law School Christopher Pudelski, UM Class of 2000, Northwestern University Law School Matt Rice, UM Class of 1998, Stanford Law School Philip Ruedi, UM Class of 1993, University of Chicago Booth School of Business Daniel Samson, UM Class of 2001, University of Virginia School of Law Gabriel Scannapieco, UM Class of 2000, Harvard Law School Rina Shah, UM Class of 1999, MBA at Harvard Business School Matt Shors, UM Class of 1993, Stanford Law School Matt Sienkiewicz, UM Class of 2011, Columbia Law School Joshua Smith, UM Class of 1997, University of Michigan Medical School Ameet Soni, UM Class of 2004, PhD at University of Wisconsin Corey Stoughton, UM Class of 1998, Harvard Law School Lesley Wexler, UM Class of 1998, University of Chicago Law School

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PAGE 1 of 3

Edmund Zagorin and Maria Liu preparing for a debate. The duo has been U-M'stop debate team for the past three years, but 2011 was their year to contendfor the national championship. (Photo courtesy Maria Liu.)

Open for debateBY JULIE HALPERTMay 11, 2011

IT’S a balmy Sunday on the first day of spring, but a dozen students, members of the University of Michigan debate team, are oblivious to the sunny skies. They're sitting in a small, windowless room at the Michigan Union, practicing for a upcoming national tournament in Dallas. While her teammate holds the stop watch, Maria Liu, a 19-year-old junior, steps to the makeshift podium to practice her argument: the U.S. should increase its immigration of foreign nurses to respond to a nursing shortage. Liu lays out a logical, well-reasoned argument, impeccable in its structure, stuffed with facts…and nearly impossible to understand. Not because of its complexity, but because she's speaking faster than an auctioneer, blurting out torrents of words, occasionally gasping for breath.

Welcome to the world of competitive debate.

It's an intense endeavor requiring hours of preparation, a compendious memory, a nimble mind—and a killer instinct. Debaters work in teams of two; each debate season focuses on a common subject—for 2010-11 it was immigration reform and visas—and teams must be ready to argue, basically at random, an "affirmative" or "negative" position on that subject. They make their case in a nine minute constructive speech followed by a three minute cross-examination period and six minute rebuttal. Judges assess their arguments and declare a winner accordingly.

If your opponent speaks faster, and makes twice as many arguments, you'll be at a disadvantage, so debaters speak at speeds of roughly 600 words per minute. The judges, says University of Michigan head debate coach Aaron Kall, are former college debaters versed in this style. "Their ears are trained to hear a higher rate of speed, so it's not foreign to them," he says.

The University of Michigan debate team is considered a perennial power, but a national championship has always eluded them. This year, though, was shaping up to be Michigan's best chance to seize the title. Liu and fifth year senior Edmund Zagorin, 23, were "one of the best teams around," said Jarrod Atchison, a director of debate at Wake Forest University, who judged them in a dozen debates. They had been Michigan's top pair for the past three years, winning an amazing 20 debates—a feat achieved by fewer than 20 teams since 1946.

Atchison said they "demonstrate that to be extremely successful you need to be able to research, comprehend, and argue against a wide variety of positions." He said it was often difficult for opponents to predict their strategy or pin them down.

Now their talent had been seasoned by experience. Liu was a junior and Zagorin a fifth-year senior. The upcoming tournament in Dallas would be Zagorin's last, and perhaps U-M's best shot at the title for some time.

"We weren't favored to win,"said Kall, "but I thought we could."

Zagorin had been a top high school debater at Georgetown Day School, but college competition proved to be a far more "intense experience." He said the amount of required research per debater "equals that which is done on a Master's thesis." But he has thrived under the pressure. This year he was one of just two people selected for the American Debate Team.

Zagorin lives debate round-the-clock, co-habiting with five other teammates who understand each other's demanding schedules. A master researcher, he says he typically spends 15 to 20 hours a week preparing for a major tournament.

A debater "can learn how to research and in a matter of days or weeks become the equivalent of most experts in terms of knowledge," he says. He's intensely focused when he speaks, like someone absorbed in prayer, and in his passion he will occasionally allow an outburst of profanity—ridiculing an opponent's point, for instance, as "bull__." Zagorin says unlike competitive sports, where you can lose points for swearing, judges generally tolerate it. It's "a great way to add emphasis to the thrust of an argument," so that it better stands out. He adds that since it's so much of an average college student's daily speech, there isn't an obligation to self-censor.

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PAGE 2 of 3

When Zagorin was paired with Liu, she had just graduated high school after skipping a year, so she had substantially less experience, though Kall was impressed with her potential after seeing her in action at a U-M debate camp. Kall says through her hard work, she quickly advanced and the two developed a complimentary rhythm. "Her talent lies in technical policy arguments and I do more wide-ranging research that's a little less organized," Zagorin says.

"We're polar opposites," says Liu. "We work well in that sense."

Their first big challenge this season came in a high-stakes tournament in Athens, Georgia, in January. The two were favored to win—against teams from Harvard, Wake Forest and the University of Texas-Dallas—but despite their strength, no team from U-M had won a national-level debate in a decade. This was the team's first opportunity to notch a major victory.

But after winning their debates on the first day, Liu spent that Saturday night vomiting after contracting food poisoning from a hamburger. Bedridden and dehydrated, she was too sick to debate the second day, and Zagorin debated solo, winning all his matches. But if Liu didn't rally and debate on the third day, they would have to forfeit the tournament.

Liu had until Sunday at 10:00 p.m. to make her decision. "I was concerned for her," Zagorin said, "and I was worried that we were going to have to drop out of the tournament." Coach Kall spent the day hoping desperately that she would pull through. "That was one of our best chances of the year to win a tournament in the last several years," he said. "And it would be wasted if they had to withdraw."

"I know Edmund needed me," Liu said. Resting in her hotel room, she said, "I drank a ton of vitamin water, ate saltine crackers and got energy." But the team waited in limbo until two minutes before the deadline. Finally Liu told Kall she was feeling better and could debate in the morning.

Their last match-up was against Harvard. The Harvard team made the affirmative argument, proposing a visa policy-reform plan that they said propped up U.S. influence in the Middle East, and that this was important to prevent Russian influence within the Middle East.

Zagorin and Liu proffered a surprising and creative negative argument: that expanding Russia's sphere of influence was good—and that attempts to restrict Russia's sphere of influence would make Russia angry and more likely to attempt to destabilize the world. David Heidt, assistant director of Michigan debate, said that argument was fresh and hadn't been made previously by another team, so Harvard wasn't expecting it, and therefore was less prepared to respond.

"We had a good strategy that we thought Harvard would not anticipate, and this gave us a fairly strong competitive edge," said Heidt. Kall couldn't wait around for the verdict, since he needed to fly back to Ann Arbor with the rest of the students, so Heidt stayed behind to hear the decision, which wasn't read until 10:00 that night, a half hour after the debate concluded. Then Heidt heard words that were music to his ears: "The decision is 3-0 for Michigan." Liu and Zagorin had won the tournament, their biggest victory together. Heidt immediately texted Kall the news, which he read while on the plane.

"With all the obstacles to overcome, to finish the way we did was very satisfying," says Kall. Said Liu: "It was definitely worth it to persevere and debate through the sickness."

If that match in Georgia had been a big "regular season" game, the stakes were even higher at the national championship in Dallas.

Michigan's first match-up was daunting: Emory University had been ranked number one for the past two years. Zagorin and Liu had beaten other teams in the tournament, but they had never debated Emory. When Liu heard Emory would be their first opponent, she was so nervous she had to listen to soothing tunes on her iPod to calm herself.

They started out with an advantage, winning the coin flip that allowed them to choose to argue affirmative or negative. Liu said the affirmative side often has the advantage, since they can present an argument that their opponents aren't ready for, and the affirmative has had time to prepare and research the argument more fully. Winning the coin flip let Zagorin and Liu do just this: they launched a new affirmative argument they'd been practicing the week before in the Michigan Union. In past competitions, they had argued that more highly-skilled immigrants in the fields of business, science and technology should be allowed in the country. But in this debate they shifted the topic, contending that more nurses should be let in the country due to the nursing shortage and the aging crisis in the U.S.

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PAGE 3 of 3

The entire Michigan debate team poses with their semi-finalist trophy at the National Debate Tournament. (Photo courtesy of Maria Liu)

The new angle, Kall said, caught the Emory team off guard. Even so, the opponents recovered and made a strong start of their own. Under enormous pressure, Kall said, Zagorin stepped up to deliver his rebuttal. It was "one of the best speeches I've seen him give in his career," Kall said. Again, the Emory debaters counter-punched; U-M needed Liu to deliver. "Maria's last speech needed to be close to perfect and it was," Kall said.

The debate was so close that, after an hour of deliberations, the debate director finally ordered the judges to reach a decision. They awarded the win to Michigan; Zagorin and Liu advanced to the semi-finals to debate Northwestern.

This time, U-M lost the coin toss and was forced to take the negative position. Then Northwestern pulled the same sort of surprise that Liu and Zagorin had used to win their earlier debate with Emory: a new affirmative that the Wolverines weren't prepared for, a complicated technical argument about certain kinds of visas.

Liu and Zagorin responded with a daring gambit. Their "negative" was a topicality argument: that Northwestern's affirmative position didn't fall under the assigned debate topic. Arguing that an argument is off topic "is always risky," Kall said. "It's an all or nothing approach."

But Kall and the team felt that Northwestern had successfully seized the initiative, and the odds of this debate weren't in their favor. The risk seemed worth it.

A half hour after the debate ended, the judges announced the results. Zagorin and Liu had lost, placing third overall out of 75 teams. The chance for a national title had evaded U-M once again.

Liu's emotions got the best of her, and she started crying. More than disappointment over the defeat," she said, "I was sad to see our partnership end."

Still, Zagorin was pleased with the third place finish. "I was sad that it was over and I was happy at how good it had been," he said. Zagorin also took home an eighth place persuasive speaker award—out of 160 students.

Over the season, U-M had beaten teams from such schools as Harvard, Emory, and the University of California at Berkeley. Though Kall had pinned his hopes on a national title, "I was very proud of their efforts, " he said. This was the eighth time that the team made it to the "final four," and the second time in four years. Only two other teams, Wake Forest and Northwestern, have made the semi-finals as often.

Zagorin graduated this spring, and he will serve as an assistant debate coach even as he works to launch a media production company called Giant Eel Productions with other graduating seniors. He said the problem-solving required in getting the venture off the ground is a skill he learned in debating. Though he's excited by this new chapter in his life, it will be tough to leave debating, which provided him "one of the most amazing intellectual and social experiences" in his life.

Liu will find out who her new partner is this summer. Kall says she'll remain one of the country's top debaters, though it's unclear if she'll be as successful when her partner is less experienced than Zagorin. But losing only two seniors on his team, he's optimistic about next year's prospects. And he insists that U-M will be back next year: a national title "remains our number one goal," he says.

Julie Halpert is the co-author of Making Up With Mom. She is a freelance journalist with more than two decades of experiencewriting for national publications, including The New York Times, Newsweek, The Washington Post, Self and Parents. She has alsoreported on the air for public radio. She teaches a journalism class in U-M's Program in the Environment.

COPYRIGHT © 2007-11 THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

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University Debate Team beats HarvardBy Kimberly PageauFor the Daily On January 25th, 2011

Despite several hurdles, the University’s Debate Team recently placed among the top college debate teams in the country.

Last week, the University of Michigan Debate Team defeated Harvard University’s debate team at the University of Georgia Tournament, tak-ing first place in what Aaron Kall, the director of the University’s team, said is “one of the most significant debate wins in a decade.”

Though the team faced challenges such as a top debater falling ill and a grueling schedule, LSA senior Edmund Zagorin and Public Policy junior Maria Liu, both on the debate team, rose to the occasion to defeat Harvard in a 3-0 victory. During the debate, Liu became sick with food poisoning, but persevered nonetheless.

“For them to bear down and fight those obstacles for the win was great, and I’m very happy to see that,” Kall said.

LSA Junior Omega Skeean, a member of the debate team, said while the group has experienced difficulties over the past few years, it is now on a positive trajectory. She added that Kall has done a lot of administrative work to improve the team’s relationship with the University.

In the tournament, Liu and Zagorin’s topic of debate was the expansion of immigration visas worldwide.

“We talked about things like employment visas to increase U.S. competition (and) visas for translators in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Liu said.

Skeean commended the effort that Liu and Zagorin put into the competition, as well as the work of the team as a whole.

“I was extremely happy for Edmund and Maria, and they deserve any success they get,” Skeean said.

Whit Whitmore and Nick Miller, assistant coaches for the University’s Debate Team, also contributed to the success of the team, Skeean said.

“They’re there everyday to help us practice, doing things with us like speaking drills,” Skeean said.

Engineering freshman Akum Gill said the team began practicing in August 2010. Though they thrive in a competitive environment, all the debate team members agree that they’re like a family.

“It’s a great, strong dynamic just like any other sports team that spends a lot of time together and working together,” Kall said.

Kall said the debate team’s competitiveness is just like a sports team. With 13 or 14 competitions a year, Kall said debate has about the same number of competitions as a college football team. Members also compete against other Big Ten universities like Northwestern University and Michigan State University.

Looking toward the future, Kall said the team hopes to recruit more talent.

“Our long-term goals are to improve the program,” he said. “Edmund, our top debater, is graduating. We need to find the next Edmund, or the next Denard Robinson, in debate.”

Kall said University administrators are also working to recruit top debating students to the school and to the team. To achieve this goal, the team has a summer program for high school students, and members of the debate team are in the process of setting up scholarships for the best high school debaters.

The team also hopes to establish a scholarship fund with contributions from the extensive network of debate team alumni, Kall said.

“A lot of our competitors give them away as well, and we want to compete for the best students,” he said.

Kall added that last week’s win will help the recruitment process.

“When (recruits) see the success and tournament victory, it shows that Michigan is a place that they can debate at the highest level,” he said.12

January 29, 2012 - 5:26pm

'U' debate team wins competition at IU

BY ALEXANDRA MONDALEK

After heading to Bloomington, Indiana, the University’s Debate Team won the 2012 Hoosier Invitational Tournament hosted by Indiana University on Jan. 23.

The three-day tournament brought some of the nation’s most competitive universities, including Northwestern University, Michigan State University, the University of Minnesota, the University of Iowa and Vanderbilt University, to the podium.

Aaron Kall, director of the University’s debate program and the Michigan Debate Institutes, said the win was most likely the University Debate Team’s most significant tournament victory since winning the University of Georgia tournament last year.

“The tournament victory was a tremendous achievement and I felt proud of all the hard work and preparation done by the debaters and coaches,” Kall said. “The team worked extremely hard in advance of the tournament and it’s great to see this rewarded.”

Kall said the Debate Team’s biggest goal is to win the National Debate Tournament in March. The team won third place at last year’s event.

Kall said the Indiana tournament victory would help propel the team to the top of the National Debate Tournament Varsity Rankings.

Looking to the future, Kall said the team wants to continue to recruit the top high school debaters in the country. Merit scholarships awarded by LSA and the generosity of debate alums were both said to be reasons for high recruitment rates.

“We want to build upon the momentum from last year’s top recruiting class and ‘re-double’ these outreach efforts,” Kall said.

LSA Sophomore Yao Yao Liu said she thought she grew as a debater as a result of the event.

“The UM Debate coaches listened to a countless amount of my practice speeches throughout this year, which was monumentally helpful in facilitating my growth as a debater and definitely contributed to the Indiana tournament victory,” said Liu.

LSA Sophomore Kevin Hirn said synergy and planning were responsible for the team’s victory.

“The combination of teamwork and preparation enabled us to win the Indiana tournament,” Hirn said. “It felt awesome to win my first college tournament as a Michigan debater.”

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FEBRUARY 4, 2013 - 1:51AM

University debate team wins big in PittsburghBY CHELSEA HOEDL

The University of Michigan Debate Team won the 2013 University of Pittsburgh

Tournament held in late January .

The University sent two teams, both of which made it to the finals. This allowed the

University ’s delegation to win by default.

Business sophomore Ellis Allen, LSA sophomore Alexander Pappas and LSA junior Kevin Hirn

and LSA senior Kyle Deming debated against top-ranked teams from across the country .

Though the teams prepared themselves to spar with any of the possible opponents, there were

a couple of teams in particular they had their eyes set on to defeat.

“We had to be prepared for everyone in our division but we spent a lot of time doing research

on the team from Georgetown and the team from Harvard,” Allen said.

Preparation and practice for these tournaments takes 30 to 40 hours a week, he said.

This year’s topic for debate was the U.S. federal government’s role in energy production.

“Policy debate is very research-intensive so there’s a lot of time gathering information,

finding library resources on the topic you’re debating and then organizing that so you can

use it in the round when you won’t have as much prep time,” Allen said. “Then there is also a

lot of day-to-day work, being on top of your speaking and having the team practices.”

The University 's team is also ranked number two in the country in the National Debate

Tournament Varsity Rankings. They are second to Northwestern University , against whom

they will debate in their next tournament.

Allen said the University ’s team owes its number-two ranking to a dramatic improvement in

performance over the past three years.

“We’ve had bigger recruiting classes than the team has ever had and as a result of that, when

we go to these invitational tournaments, there will be several Michigan teams in

competition,” Allen said. “If all of them do pretty well it sets a strong foundation for the entire

squad.”

The team is preparing for its upcoming tournament at Northwestern on Feb. 9 by holding

practice debates and staying on top of their research, Allen said.

Team director Aaron Kall said the debaters will spend almost the entirety of their days

leading up to the event preparing.

“They attend all their class(es) but then immediately head back to work and prepare with

our coaching staff,” Kall said.

Kall continued: “After the positive outcome at Pittsburg, that’s going to give our debaters a

lot of confidence to win the debate at Northwestern. They are currently the number one

program, but I think we’ll have an excellent chance.”

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FEBRUARY 15, 2012 - 2:27AM

Campus Club: Detroit Urban Debate EducationBY CHELSEA HOEDL

While debate in the form of heated classroom discussions and formal competitions are a major

component of University life, Detroit Urban Debate Education — a student club and certified

non-profit organization — seeks to expand educational and debate opportunities for Detroit

high-school students.

The club travels weekly to high schools to teach students the fundamentals of formulating

and executing an argument. According to LSA junior Miray Karabulut, the club’s assistant

director, members act as assistant coaches by developing lesson plans, giv ing lectures,

creating interactive exercises, performing speed drills and teaching research techniques.

Karabulut said most members have a background in debate, however those without prior

experience are encouraged to take a suggested sociology course to learn the basics. She

stressed the importance of debate for all students.

LSA sophomore David Seidman, a club member, echoed Karabulut’s sentiments and said

being able to effectively articulate arguments is a valuable skill to have at both the high

school and college level.

“We want to make sure that every one of these kids that wants to go to college has the means

to succeed in terms of both presenting a strong application, but also, once they ’re in college,

having the ability to build on the education they have from high school,” Seidman said.

Karabulut said coaching the students has been a memorable experience and that she was

surprised by how receptive the students in Detroit were to learning more about debate.

“I expected the kids to be stubborn and opposed to the activ ities, but what I found was that the

kids in Detroit who I was teaching were very engaged, very interested, very into learning,”

Karabulut said.

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Champion debater Ellis Allen of Sandy Springs, Ga.,is one of two freshmen to receive inauguralMichigan Debate scholarships.

Scholarships Attract Top Debate RecruitsSpringtime on the high schooldebate circuit can be intense. Theyear’s top high schoolchampionship, the NationalTournament of Champions (TOC)at the University of Kentucky,coincides with high school seniorsdeclaring their college choices.

No one felt the confluence of theseevents more keenly in April thanEllis Allen, of Sandy Springs, Ga.“Two things that were veryimportant to me were going downat the same time,” Allen said.About three days before makinghistory by winning his secondconsecutive TOC, Allen announcedMichigan as his college choice.

“A debater of this caliber only comes along every 25 years or so,” said MichiganDebate Director Aaron Kall. The last debater to win two national high school debatechampionships in a row, in 1984 and 1985, likewise came to Michigan: debate alumnusMichael J. Green (AB ’89), now an assistant professor of philosophy at PomonaCollege.

What attracted Allen to Michigan? “The idea of spending four years somewhere uniqueand fun appealed to me,” Allen said, “and money was a major tiebreaker.” Allen learnedin April that Michigan would offer him a debate scholarship, established earlier thatmonth. He subsequently learned that he had also been selected to receive a merit-based Penny and Roe Stamps Scholarship.

“To be competitive with other schools, we needed to be able to offer scholarships,” saidKall. With debate alumnus Lee Hess (AB ’68), Kall had convened a committee byphone, and in a remarkably short period of time, the committee had created theMichigan Alumni Debate Scholarship fund. They granted scholarships to Allen and toAlexander Pappas of Northbrook, Ill., who placed third at the national TOC.

“Here was an opportunity to make Michigan the dominant debate team in the UnitedStates,” Hess said.

Indeed, Michigan now has “the No. 1 incoming class of recruits in the country,” Kallsaid, based on “how well our incoming class did at the TOC: Michigan Debate recruitswere four of the 16 quarterfinalists.”

The committee includes Hess, Kall and former debate coach, retired LSA professor andonetime Alumni Association associate director Bill Colburn, along with Michigan Debatealumni Peter Baldwin (AB ’95, MBA ’02), Michael Dickler (AB ’96, JD ’99), JohnLawson (AB ’74, JD ’83), Adriana Midence (AB ’02), and Matt Shors (AB ’93).Numerous donors contributed to the effort.

To help attract tomorrow’s top debaters, you can support the fund atwww.giving.umich.edu/give/mdebateLast updated on August 9, 2011

U-M Debate Team

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NEWS FOR FACULTY AND STAFF CONTACT | PAST ISSUESWEEK OF APRIL 18, 2011

IN BRIEF

ACCOLADES

OBITUARIES

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POLICE BEAT

LETTERS

STAFF SPOTLIGHT

Kim Smith, clinical nurse II,East Ann Arbor Health andGeriatric Center, on installingrain collecting systems: “Theexpression on people’s faceswhen you are giving them thegift of water … has beenpriceless.”

EVENTS

“Crystalloid Columns” fromLife in Ceramics: FiveContemporary Korean Artists,presented through June 13 inthe Taubman Health CenterNorth Lobby, Floor 1, by Giftsof Art.

VIEW EVENTSSUBMIT EVENTS

Debate team wins William Colburn Award

Aaron Kall, (left) director of debate, congratulates U-M Debate Team members MariaLiu and Edmund Zagorin as 2011 recipients of the William Colburn Award. The award,presented April 7 during the 32nd Michigan Leadership Awards Ceremony at theMichigan Union, honors the legacy of Colburn, former director of debate at U-M in the1960s and 1970s. Colburn was a professor in LSA and the School of BusinessAdministration. He also was associate director of the Alumni Association from 1984-95. Photo by Eric Bronson, U-M Photo Services.

Campuses, units celebrate SpringCommencement 2011

This year's U-M Spring Commencement will feature thecommissioning of ROTC cadets and pre-ceremony studententertainment — both introduced at last year’s historiccommencement featuring the U.S. president.

National champion solar car team introduces2011’s Quantum

With its sleek 2011 car Quantum now built and ready fortesting, U-M’s No. 1 solar car team in America is preparing totake on the world. The reigning champions of the NorthAmerican Solar Challenge will compete in the 1,800-mileWorld Solar Challenge across the Australian outback inOctober. The U-M team, which has been around for two

decades, has won the continental race six times and finished third in the globalcontest four times.

Political scientist Inglehart wins Johan SkyttePrize

U-M political scientist Ronald Inglehart and Harvard Universitycolleague Pippa Norris have been awarded the 2011 JohanSkytte Prize in political science, officials at Sweden’s Uppsala

Betty Ford honored at funeralin Grand Rapids

Former first lady Betty Ford washonored at a funeral Thursday inGrand Rapids. Several from theuniversity attended to pay theirrespects.

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Ford School Spotlight SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

The Ford School welcomed development econ-omist Jeffrey D. Sachs, director of the Earth Institute and author of The End of Poverty, to give a 2010 Citigroup Foundation Lecture.

GOOD POINT

Ford School BA student Maria Liu (right) and her partner, Edmund Zagorin (red sweater), led the U-M debate team to a first-place finish, de-feating Harvard 3-0 at a tournament in Georgia. Pictured with teammates Kyle Deming and Bala Sekaran.

&From Our Corner to the Four Corners of the Globe

The Magazine of The gerald r. ford Schoolof Public Policy

Spring 2011

18

LSA sophomore William Morganspeaks during the Owen L. Coon

Memorial Debates in Evanston, Ill onFebruary 10. (Austen Hufford/Daily)

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A debatable future

By AUSTEN HUFFORD, Digital News EditorPublished March 26, 2013

EVANSTON, Ill. — In a terraced lecture hall at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School ofManagement, Business sophomore Ellis Allen looks around the room at his teammate LSAsophomore Alex Pappas and their two competitors from Concordia College. They’re competing inthe first round of the Owen L. Coon Memorial Debates last February. Allen — wearing a lavenderbutton down, khaki pants and sneakers — seems relaxed and lighthearted. He smiles and casuallyasks the room “Ready?”

He looks at his laptop, takes a deep breath and starts histimer.

Allen begins speaking at a furious rate, his mannercompletely changed: He’s intense and stressed. Some wordsare heard —“anthropological,” “economy,” “prices,”— but hisdiction is so fast that his sentences are literallyincomprehensible to the average ears. His head shakes backand forth as his eyes move across the laptop screen. He takesonly ragged, gasping breaths. Everyone else frantically takesnotes, straining to hear every word. For the next nineminutes he continues like this until four timers go off withinmilliseconds of each other. He stops.

This is collegiate debate.

The Reward

Even though it dates back to 1890, the University DebateTeam has never won a national championship. Thecompetitors, the coaches and University administrators wantthis to change. Their goal is for one of the University’s threedebate pairs to win the 67th National Debate Tournamentbeing held at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah the

weekend of March 30.

After 123 years, the 2013 tournament may finally be the team’s chance to win it all. The team as awhole is ranked second in the latest national debate tournament varsity rankings and has twopairings in the top 16. The University is one of six colleges to have three pairs go to the nationaltournament.

Aaron Kall, director of the University’s debate team, said winning the national championship is the“end goal” every year.

“We want nothing more than to be able to say that we were the first debate team to win the national


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championship for the University of Michigan,“ Kall said.

The debate team was a student club from the mid-1980s until 2002 when it was brought underUniversity Student Affairs. Since then it has expanded both in size and achievement. It now hasabout 24 students and three full-time coaches. The team is entirely self-funded through a summerhigh-school debate camp and alumni donations.

Laura Blake Jones, the University's associate vice president for student affairs and dean of students,believes the team will soon achieve their goal.

“In March, while we might be cheering our basketball team in terms of a national competition, wecould also be cheering the debate team as they look at perhaps winning a national championship,”Jones said. “I can feel it. If it’s not this year it will be sometime soon; we certainly got the talent onthe team, and our time is coming.”

Unlike the clearly defined rules of basketball, collegiate debate is filled with more traditions andcustoms than inscribed regulations.

The Rules

Collegiate debates are fought between four people — two per team from each school — and last up totwo hours. Each person is given nine minutes for a “constructive” speech, three minutes for thecompeting team’s questions and six minutes for a rebuttal speech. Teams are also given a shortamount of “prep time,” during which both teams are allowed to pause the debate in order toprepare.

For each school year, a large overarching resolution about federal government policy is chosen tobe the subject of the year’s debates. For the 2012 to 2013 school year, students are debating onwhether or not the federal government should encourage various types of energy production.

The topic of specific debates, however, is determined completely by the team going first. Theyusually present an argument — an “affirmative” in debate lingo — on a specific aspect of the broadresolution. For example, this year’s teams have called for more offshore drilling on the East Coastor subsidies favoring a specific type of nuclear energy. Regardless of the first team’s topic, theopposing team must debate against it.

Choosing the topic for each debate is one the most important strategic decision of a debate pair.Some pairs use the same affirmative for the entire competitive season while others change it upevery tournament or even every debate. Topics are decided depending on the opponents’ strengths,new original research or even the judge’s supposed preference.

The team going first generally informs their opponents about the debate topic up to an hour beforeit, leaving just enough time to quickly go over already collected research. This is not a rule, andsometimes — especially in the case of a newly created topic — teams may not inform thecompetition until the debate starts.

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A debatable future


Except for the strict time limits, there are few other formal rules, Kevin Hirn, LSA junior and debateteam member said. During a debate itself, teams are expected to freely share presented evidence.This is not a rule; it’s a custom that is never broken for fear of offending an omnipotent judge andbecoming the ridicule of the debate community.

Similarly, competitors can say and argue almost anything intheir allotted time; it is up to the opposing side to discreditthe statements. Copious amounts of research are paramountto compete in collegiate debate in order to fight thisphenomenon.

The Research

For the University’s team, having a lot of high-qualityresearch is viewed as the key to their national ambitions.

“In some sense, your last debate of the year starts in thepreseason because so much of the process for debate now isbased on policy research and preparation that you do longbefore the tournament actually starts,” Allen said.

The most active debaters frequently spend hours a dayresearching, practicing and theorizing. Many are givenresearch assignments during weekly debate meetings orspend time just reading up on the latest research.

Book excerpts, scientific journals and government studiesare all cited during debates, but they’re also commonlychallenged by the opponents for being misleading or biased.Having good quality evidence is essential for preventing the

challenging side from discrediting it, Kall said.

Time is always the limiting factor for debate preparation because the amount of research isessentially limitless.

In the weeks approaching a big tournament like Coon Memorial, some of the most dedicateddebaters do all of their homework on Mondays in order to devote the rest of the week to debateresearch.

In the four-hour ride to Northwestern, the three vans transporting the team made sure to haveportable WiFi hotspots to keep research going on the road.

The Internet and portable tech has caused debate research to change in recent years. Evidence is no


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21

longer carried around in large bins or physically shared between team members. Instead, it is storedin large Microsoft Word files that are broken down by topic and is viewed and edited by all the teammembers.

With a simple mouse click, evidence collected by the University’s entire team can now bediscovered and used quickly during debates.

Before a section of a debate starts, USB flash drives with the evidence to be used in that section areexchanged between teams. Recently, teams, including the University’s, have started uploading allevidence used to a debate website at the end of tournaments. The vast majority of evidencecollected is never used during an actual debate. Kall said the University uploads its researchbecause it creates higher-quality debates and helps new programs ‘catch up’ with the better ones.

Because of the amount of research in today’s debates, competitors have sped up their rate ofdiscourse, University debate alum Neil Wolf said.

The Rate

Wolf said the high rate of diction — which he witnessed for the first time during the Northwesterndebate — is much faster than when he debated in the 1970's.

“I think the high rate of speech is a natural outgrowth of ... the infusion of information technology,”Wolf said. “So, although I don’t understand much of what they are saying, they do, and that’s all thatmatters.”

Most University debaters think the high rate, which can be in excess of 400 words per minute, isbeneficial given their time constraints.

Debaters frequently wake up early to practice speaking drills, such as reading a book from back-to-front aloud with a pen in the mouth, so that their vocal cords are ready to go for the early-morningtournaments.

The speed, though incomprehensible to a layperson, is mostly understandable, debaters claim, byother debaters and the judge. They view it as just a normal part of debate.

The Results

Back at Northwestern, the speaking stops after about two hours, and the judge takes 15 minutes todecide the winner.

He gives the win to Allen and Pappas. Though they are satisfied with their win, they are alreadypreparing for the three debates later that day and four the next.

Though they eventually lost in the quarterfinals, the team’s performance solidified Michigan’s topranking for the national debate tournament because of the competition’s prestige.

Fast forward to March 27: six University students, along with 10 coaches and alumni assistants, flyout to Utah to prepare for the start of Friday’s national tournament. Along with the students alreadymentioned, LSA freshman Cam Colella, LSA sophomore William Morgan, LSA senior Kyle Demingand LSA junior Kevin Hirn will also compete.

For Pappas and Allen, who are going into the tournament with a top-10 ranking, expectations arehigh.

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A debatable future


Except for the strict time limits, there are few other formal rules, Kevin Hirn, LSA junior and debateteam member said. During a debate itself, teams are expected to freely share presented evidence.This is not a rule; it’s a custom that is never broken for fear of offending an omnipotent judge andbecoming the ridicule of the debate community.

Similarly, competitors can say and argue almost anything intheir allotted time; it is up to the opposing side to discreditthe statements. Copious amounts of research are paramountto compete in collegiate debate in order to fight thisphenomenon.

The Research

For the University’s team, having a lot of high-qualityresearch is viewed as the key to their national ambitions.

“In some sense, your last debate of the year starts in thepreseason because so much of the process for debate now isbased on policy research and preparation that you do longbefore the tournament actually starts,” Allen said.

The most active debaters frequently spend hours a dayresearching, practicing and theorizing. Many are givenresearch assignments during weekly debate meetings orspend time just reading up on the latest research.

Book excerpts, scientific journals and government studiesare all cited during debates, but they’re also commonlychallenged by the opponents for being misleading or biased.Having good quality evidence is essential for preventing the

challenging side from discrediting it, Kall said.

Time is always the limiting factor for debate preparation because the amount of research isessentially limitless.

In the weeks approaching a big tournament like Coon Memorial, some of the most dedicateddebaters do all of their homework on Mondays in order to devote the rest of the week to debateresearch.

In the four-hour ride to Northwestern, the three vans transporting the team made sure to haveportable WiFi hotspots to keep research going on the road.

The Internet and portable tech has caused debate research to change in recent years. Evidence is no


MOST READ



renovations4. Murphy, Vanslooten deliver in 5-2

victory over Loyola-Chicago5. Shrouded in switches, the defensive line

shines

ON THE BLOGS






NEWSSearch

BROWSE THE ARCHIVES

MD






22

Español | खबर� िहंदी म� | 密歇根大学 | Português

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No debate about it: U-M team finds success in 'Elite Eight'

Published on Apr 04, 2013

Contact Jared Wadley

ANN ARBOR—The University of Michigan's men's basketball team is reaping national praise for its upcoming Final

Four appearance, but another U-M team recently achieved its own success by making it into the "Elite Eight."

The U-M Debate Team of Ellis Allen and Alexander Pappas, both sophomores, won fifth place in the quarterfinals at

the 67th annual 2013 National Debate Tournament in Ogden, Utah. Allen was the eighth-best speaker in the

tournament and Pappas won the 10th-place speaker award.

"This was a tremendous accomplishment by the team, and we look forward to them going farther in the

tournament next year," said Aaron Kall, who directs the debate team.

The tournament, held March 29-April 1, featured 78 teams of two debaters.

Another U-M team—senior Kyle Deming and junior Kevin Hirn—reached the "Sweet Sixteen." Deming also

received the 15th annual William J. Taylor internship, which offers a stint at the Center for Strategic and

International Studies in Washington, D.C. The last time a U-M debater won this prestigious internship happened in

1998.

The debate team, which is part of the Division of Student Affairs, started in 1890. It first qualified in 1971 for the

National Debate Tournament and has since made 30 appearances. The team has won second place twice (1989,

1991), third place six times (1988, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2008, 2011) and fifth place seven times (1971, 1972,

1988, 1989, 1992, 2001, 2013). It has reached the elimination rounds (top 32) at the tournament for the last

seven years in a row (2007-2013).

This year's debate topic: the federal government should substantially reduce restrictions on and/or substantially

increase financial incentives for energy production in the United States of one or more of the following: coal, crude

oil, natural gas, nuclear power, solar power and wind power.

For more information about the program, visit www.michigandebate.com

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The University of Michigan Debate Team - · PDF fileThe University of Michigan Debate Team. ... 2013-2014 University of Michigan Debate Team ... Jim Speta - Denise Losbough