Tournament brings back long tradition of IU debate

Debaters across campus gathered in Ballantine Hall on Friday and Saturday to participate in the first Intra-IU Debate Tournament since the 1960s.

Although IU has a rich history of debate going back to before the 1870s, the program was strong until about the 1960s and declined in prominence until its dormancy from 1993 to 2009, said IU Director of Debate Brian DeLong, a professor in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs.

In fall 2009, now-senior debater Melissa Orizondo paired with another student, now graduated, to bring debate back to IU.

“We went to a lot of regional tournaments,” she said. “We went to nationals and did really well for being a really new team with a pretty small budget and part-time coaches.”

Orizondo said the draw of debate is the opportunity to learn and argue about a variety of topics.

“You broaden your knowledge base so much because you’re learning about all sorts of things,” she said. “I have probably learned more from debate than I have in any class in terms of knowing basic information about different issues and also learning how to think critically through an issue.”

IU Debate, now in its third season, is a nation-traveling team composed of students from different academic backgrounds.

Its debaters engage in policy debate in which students debate a topic from the beginning of the competitive season in September to its end in March.

This year’s topic addresses whether the United States should provide democracy assistance in the Arab Spring countries of Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Tunisia and
Yemen.

While the team had been traveling to tournaments since September, the Intra-IU Tournament gave students across campus the opportunity to try their hands at debate while giving some of the seasoned debaters extra practice.

“The purpose of the Intra-IU Tournament is to provide an opportunity for students on campus to engage in debate with a topic, as well as research and a judge,” said DeLong. 

“The culture of debate is something that should be facilitated at any university,” he said. “I think the opportunity of giving eight speeches over a weekend is something that is profound and something that should be promoted.”

Each team consisting of two student was assigned a topic and given either the affirmative or negative argument.

The teams had a limited amount of time to prepare for the rounds, which consisted of two five-minute speeches to construct an argument and three minutes of cross-examination to address the concerns of its opponent and final remarks.

“The people that would win the Intra-IU tournaments back in, like, 1915 or so would get a $50 reward,” DeLong said. “I mean, $50 now is something that would be great, right? But imagine $50 back then.”

Twelve students competed against each other for IU apparel instead of the traditional cash prize. Of the 12 participants, seven were first-time debaters.

The first round was a learning experience for freshman team Saleh ElHattab and Jonah Barreto, who had no prior experience with debate.

“The first round made us feel like we definitely didn’t want to do it anymore,” ElHattab said. “People talked a lot faster than we expected, and we talked a lot slower than we thought we could. It was pretty embarrassing.”

The final round boiled down to a debate between sophomore debate team member Christian Parroco and his teammate, freshman and first-time debater Hope Kerkhoff, arguing against ElHattab and Barreto.

“The U.S. should support democracy in the Arab world, and the U.S. should enter into dialog with Islamist leaders,” ElHattab said in his opening argument.

“Now, I’d like to refer to a personal anecdote because this summer, I actually went to Egypt and bore witness to the revolution the country is going through.”

In the end, ElHattab and Barreto won the final argument, walking away with IU sweatshirts as their trophies. Barreto attributes their win to his partner’s proximity to the subject.

“I think it’s effective that Saleh went to Egypt, and the topic is pretty close to him,” Barreto said. “So my partner had a pretty good knowledge of it.”

The debate team will travel to North Carolina in the coming week for a tournament at Wake Forest University.

For more information about IU Debate, visitindiana.edu/~iudebate.