UT Tyler Debate Ranks Top 20 in Nation

From March 16th to the 18th, 3 teams from the University of Texas at Tyler competed among the top 58 Parliamentary Debate teams in the country at the 2014 National Parliamentary Tournament of Excellence. Dallas Flick and Carver Hodgkiss (UT Tyler HF), Stephen Hullum and Kaleb Drake (UT Tyler HD), and Sam Cook and Kaitlin Bull (UT Tyler BC) competed against the best of the best, ranking among the top 20 in the country.

Debunking Debate- The NPTE

This year, the UT Tyler Parliamentary Debate Team has traveled to six different universities and competed in 9 tournaments, all of which were both challenging or rewarding. All of this effort, however, is to gain momentum for our toughest tournament of the year: The National Parliamentary Tournament of Excellence (NPTE). 

The NPTE is an invitation-only national championship tournament that hosts teams that qualify based on their season-long performances at various tournaments. The point system utilized by the NPTE organization weighs the performance of the teams based on the number of preliminary and elimination debates won or lost at each tournament, as well as bonuses for breaking to elimination rounds, as well as winning the tournament. Seeding from these ranks determines who will be debating in the first round of the tournament (so, for instance, Carver and I already know that we will be debating The University of Utah in the first round of the tournament).

The NPTE Championship Trophy

The NPTE is a traveling tournament, meaning that each year, the event is hosted by a different university. For instance, in 2012 it was held at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington; last year, it was held at The University of Nevada, Reno, in Reno, Nevada; and this year, it is being hosted by Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona. One of the best parts of this tournament is that it varies in location from year to year, providing a great opportunity for the debate teams to travel to locations in the United States they had never been.  

Like previous tournaments, the NPTE will be a topic-area tournament. Like I wrote about in November regarding the Washburn Tournament, a topic-area tournament releases controversy areas and/or resolutions 3-4 weeks prior to the tournament, allowing for teams to adequately prepare for debates, as well as increase the depth and quality of arguments that will be read against other high caliber teams. The difference between the NPTE and previous tournaments is that while they release controversy areas, they also release the exact resolutions that will be used for the tournament. That way, the debaters know exactly what strategic options the other debaters have prior to the tournament. 

Here is a list of the resolutions that will be used:

Africa
1. The United States federal government should fulfill the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali troop and equipment mandate.
2. The United States federal government should significantly increase unexploded ordnance cleanup efforts in Somalia.
3. The United States federal government should significantly increase its provision of disease monitoring and treatment to South Sudan.
4. The United States federal government should engage in significant civil society development projects within Libya.
5. The United States federal government should provide significant air support to aid in the stabilization of South Sudan.
6. The United States federal government should significantly increase access to neonatal and/or prenatal care in the Central African Republic.

Energy
1. The United States federal government should nationalize energy production in the United States.
2. The United States federal government should substantially increase its investment in hydroelectric power infrastructure projects in the United States.
3. The United States Department of Defense should adopt a policy to use exclusively renewable fuels in all military operations.
4. The United States federal government should increase the usage of microgeneration in the United States.
5. The United States federal government should increase its incentives for the development of methane hydrates within its exclusive economic zone. 
6. The United States federal government should substantially increase its investments in syngas infrastructure in the United States.


Pollution
1. The United States federal government should adopt a policy to significantly decrease the use of phosphorus based fertilizers in the United States.
2. The United States federal government should adopt a policy to significantly reduce the amount of herbicides used in forests in the United States.
3. The United States federal government should take regulatory action to decrease the occurrence of water-borne diseases in the United States.
4. The United States federal government should significantly curtail its efforts to control invasive species.
5. The United States federal government should substantially increase environmental regulations on chemical storage facilities in the United States.
6. The United States should ratify and implement the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants.

Northern Arizona University, in Flagstaff, Arizona 

The tournament will begin on March 16th and end on March 18th. It begins with all teams competing in six preliminary rounds, with two judges in each round. Breaking to out rounds requires a certain minimum of ballots, determined by the number of teams at the tournament, how many are to break, and what the field looks like in terms of record throughout the tournament. Two years ago, the number needed to break was 7, and last year, it was 6. While that may seem easy, given that the majority of the teams at the tournament are highly experienced debaters, it makes into quite the challenge.

UT Tyler will leave for Flagstaff on March 13th, and will return on the 24th, following the second national tournament, the National Parliamentary Debate Association National Tournament. Keep up with results on a round-by-round basis at parlitournament.com, and also keep up with parli news and events at net-benefits.net.

UT Tyler Debate Competes at the Mile High Swing

The University of Utah at
Salt Lake City, Utah

Last weekend, on January 18-20, the UT Tyler Parliamentary Debate team traveled to the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah to compete at the Mile High Swing, a two-tournament weekend hosted by the University of Utah and Texas Tech University.  With over 90 teams in attendance, the tournament is considered to be the most challenging invitational of the competition season, and is a strong predictor for how individual teams perform at the national tournaments in March.

The tournament is called the “Mile High Swing” because it was originally hosted at the University of Denver for a number of years, but then became a traveling tournament. It was been hosted at venues such as Texas Tech University, Western Washington University, Colorado College, and most recently, the University of Utah.

The first tournament in the swing, hosted by Texas Tech University, was a topic area tournament.  Like the tournament held at Washburn University in November, controversy areas were previously announced for competitors to base their arguments around.  These were the areas debated in eleven rounds of competition over a day and a half:

The United States federal government should substantially reduce limitations on civil torts in the United States in one or more of the following areas: statute of limitations on filings, availability of class action lawsuits, caps on damages.

The United States federal government should substantially improve their relationship with the Republic of India in one or more of the following areas: immigration, trade, military sales, and/or minority relations.


The United States should adopt one or more of Robert McChesney’s proposals for mass media reform.


The United States federal government should substantially increase its oversight and/or restrictions on the National Security Administration and/or the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.


The United States federal government should significantly increase regulations on securities and trades in the United States.

UT Tyler entered three teams in this tournament: UT Tyler FH (Dallas Flick and Carver Hodgkiss), UT Tyler DH (Kaleb Drake and Steven Hullum), and UT Tyler BC (Caitlun Bull and Sam Cook).  In the first half of the tournament, BC and DH broke to elimination rounds, both losing in the double octofinal round to Texas Tech University and Northern Arizona University, respectively.  In this tournament, the UT Tyler teams were able to best teams from notable universities such as UC Berkeley, Air Force Academy and the University of the Pacific.

The second half of the tournament was held in the conventional tournament format, with topics that are not previously disclosed, but instead based solely on current issues and events.  The same three teams entered, and all three broke to elimination rounds on the final day of competition.  DH and BC both were bested in the triple octofinal round by McKendree University and Point Loma University, respectively, on a topic regarding ownership recognition of the Senkaku Islands.  FH won that round against the University of Utah, and lost in the double octofinal round to William Jewell College on a topic regarding removing the tax exemption of religious institutions in the United States.  In this half of the tournament, UT Tyler conquered over teams from schools such as the University of Colorado Boulder, University of Puget Sound, and the University of Nevada at Reno.

Northern Arizona University at Flagstaff, Arizona

The next tournament for the entire team will be our national tournament at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona- the National Parliamentary Tournament of Excellence.  Tournament preparation will begin in late February, and the tournament begins on the last weekend of Spring Break.  Keep up with results at parlitournament.com, and check out npte.debateaddict.com to see who will be competing in the tournament.

UT Tyler Debate competes at Washburn University Debate Tournament

Last Friday, November 15^th, at 7:00 AM, the debate team from the University of Texas at Tyler departed for a 4 day trip to Topeka Kansas where they competed at the Top City Classic Invitational Debate Tournament at Washburn University.  The tournament began on Saturday morning at 8:00 AM, with 7 preliminary rounds that day, and continued into Sunday, where there was an additional preliminary round followed by elimination rounds. 

Debunking Debate- Topic Area Tournaments

So far this year, the UT Tyler Parliamentary Debate Team has traveled to three different cities and competed in five tournaments- two at William Jewell College, one at Lewis and Clark College, and two more at Mckendree University.  These were all difficult tournaments where our team produced a high amount of success.  The main commonality between all of these tournaments was that the topics were not known prior to the tournament date.  Tournament preparation involves keeping up with current events and prepping briefs and cases in regards to those events.  However, the next tournament we will be competing in is at Washburn University, which will be a topic area tournament.

Topic area tournaments are unique, as they allow for a higher level of preparation for the debaters involved.  Rather than knowing the topic only 20 minutes in advance of the round, these tournaments release the topics, or the controversy areas, two to three weeks prior to the first round of debate.  This is beneficial to the quality of the debate, primarily the specific of the arguments presented for evaluation by the judge.  Rather than basing your arguments from the information garnered in the twenty minutes before the round, there is a longer period to develop the debater’s position for the round.

For the Washburn tournament, five controversy areas will generate thirteen debate topics.

We get to debate about space!

• The USFG should substantially decrease its military presence in and/or military assistance to South East Asia countries.
• The USFG should make one or more significant concession(s) to the Islamic Republic of Iran.
• The USFG should decrease prison overcrowding by ending Mandatory Minimum sentencing or increasing prison furlough programs.
• The United Nations should substantially increase funding to the Peaceful Use of Outer Space Committee for space exploration and/or asteroid defense.
• The Federal Government of Germany should substantially alter its position on the European Union and/or Eurozone by: pulling its support for a Financial Transaction Tax, supporting the introduction of EuroBonds, or pulling out of the Eurozone.

South East Asia, the
area of discussion for the US military policy

These topics will test the debater’s ability to formulate arguments over a litany of topic areas, such as economics in Europe, military policy in Southeast Asia, and the current prison system and its faults in the United States. 

After the Washburn tournament, there will be two more important topic area tournaments through the rest of the season: the Mile High Classic at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, and the National Parliamentary Tournament of Excellence at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona.  The latter tournament is the most difficult tournament of the season, and as one of our national tournaments, it’s one of the most important. 

For more information about topic area tournaments, as well as the format of upcoming tournaments, check out net-benefits.net, the main discussion forum for the NPDA/NPTE Parliamentary Debate circuit.   Also, don’t forget about parlitournament.com, the main source of tournament results for the rest of the season.   

UT Tyler Debate Teams Rank among the nation’s best

Rankings were recently released of the top Parliamentary Debate Teams in the nation, and the University of Texas at Tyler had 2 teams very highly ranked.  Samuel Cook and Caitlin Bull were ranked 9^th, and Dallas Flick and Carver Hodgkiss were ranked 11^th!

UT Tyler Debate Travels to McKendree University

On October 18-20^th, the UT Tyler Parliamentary Debate Team traveled to McKendree University for the Sixth Annual Bearcat Classic and Richard Hunsaker Invitational Debate Tournaments.  Located in Lebanon, Illinois (30 minutes east of St. Louis), McKendree University has been a regular tournament for UT Tyler for over four years, and it carries a consistent level of competition and excitement for our debate teams.

Historically, the McKendree swing tournament consists of the most competitive parliamentary debate teams from the Midwest, and has often been an indicator for who performs well at both of our national tournaments (National Parliamentary Tournament of Excellence and the National Parliamentary Debate Association Tournament).  While the quantity of teams is lower than most tournaments (roughly 33 teams in both halves), the quality of competition is high, as a large portion of the teams have placed in the top twenty of nationals in the past two years.

The first half of the tournament, the Bearcat Classic, had 33 teams from 7 different universities and colleges, and consisted of five preliminary rounds and five elimination rounds.  UT Tyler entered three teams in the tournament: UT Tyler FH (Dallas Flick and Carver Hodgkiss), UT Tyler BC (Kaitlyn Bull and Sam Cook), and UT Tyler HM (Steven Hullum and Taylor Manatsa).  After prelims, UT Tyler FH went 4-1 and was 6^th seed going into elimination rounds, BC went 5-0 and was 1^st seed in elimination rounds, and UT Tyler HM went 2-3 and did not break to elimination rounds.  However, they did compete in the JV breakout rounds for the JV debaters who did not break into out rounds, and finished in second place.  After elimination rounds, FH finished in octofinals, while BC finished in quarterfinals.

In the second half of the tournament, the Hunsaker Invitational, the same three teams competed against the same level of competition.  All three teams broke to out rounds in the second half, with FH going 3-2 and earning the 9^th seed, BC going 5-0 and earning 1^st seed, and HM going 3-2 and earning 16^th seed.  In out rounds, HM finished in partial octofinals, FH finished in quarterfinals, and BC lost in finals to Washburn University to earn second place in the tournament. 

The next tournament for the UT Tyler Debate Team will be the Top City Classic at Washburn University, located in Topeka, Kansas.  To keep up with tournament results from past and upcoming tournaments, check out Parli Tournament for live updates, and check out npte.debateaddict.com to see rankings for debate teams nationwide.

UT Tyler Forensics goes to Portland, Oregon!

UT Tyler FH vs. Lewis and Clark MH

On Friday, October 4th, at 5:00 AM, the University of Texas at Tyler Debate Team pulled out of the parking lot and began a 2 hour drive to the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, where a plane would then fly them almost 4 hours to attend the 2013 Steve Hunt Classic - a speech and debate tournament that would feature more than 40 universities from all across the country.

UT Tyler Parliamentary Debate Team- William Jewell College Season Opener

On September 20-22nd, the UT Tyler Parliamentary Debate Team traveled to Liberty, Missouri for the William Jewell College Season Opener.  It was a “swing,” meaning that there are two separate tournaments in one weekend.  With over 50 teams entered from 18 different colleges and universities, UT Tyler had a very strong showing with the four different teams entered in both tournaments. 

UT Tyler FH v. Univ. of Pacific HR

The first half of the Jewell opener, the Gina Lane Classic, named after the former Director of Forensics at Jewell and current board member in the National Parliamentary Tournament of Excellence.  UT Tyler entered three teams in this half: UT Tyler FH (Dallas Flick and Carver Hodgkiss), UT Tyler BC (Kaitlyn Bull and Sam Cook), and UT Tyler HM (Stephen Hullum and Taylor Manatsa).  The format for this tournament includes five preliminary rounds, and then elimination rounds for teams with winning records in the preliminary rounds.  UT Tyler FH and UT Tyler CB had 4-1 records in the preliminary rounds, earning them spots in elimination rounds, and a bye through the partial octofinals round.  UT Tyler HM went 1-4 in the preliminary rounds, which meant they would not compete in elimination rounds, but they still competed very well.  In elimination rounds, UT Tyler BC lost in their octofinals round to the top team from Washburn University.  UT Tyler FH lost in quarterfinals to the top team from Mckendree University.  Kaitlyn Bull was the 18^th top speaker in the first half of the tournament, and I was the 17^th top speaker.  Overall, it was a very strong season opener for UT Tyler.

UT Tyler EH (right side) v. Long Beach HM

The second half of the Jewell opener, the Georgia Bowman Tournament, had the same format as the Gina Lane Classic, and UT Tyler entered three teams in the Open Tournament, and one student in the JV Tournament.  In open, UT Tyler FH, UT Tyler BC, and UT Tyler EH (JH Engelbrecht and Steven Hullum) competed.  In the JV tournament, Taylor Manatsa debated with another novice from William Jewell University, Josi Plyman.  In the preliminary rounds, UT Tyler FH went 3-2, allowing for entry in the elimination rounds.  UT Tyler BC and EH both went 2-3, keeping them out of the elimination rounds, but they still performed very well in the second half.  Finally, in JV, UTT/WJC MP went 3-2, allowing them to compete in the JV elimination rounds.

In elimination rounds for the second half, UT Tyler FH won the partial octofinals round, and then lost in octofinals to the top Mckendree team.  For the JV tournament, UTT/WJC MP lost in the semifinal round to Texas Tech.  For junior varsity debaters, Taylor Manatsa was the 10^th top speaker for the second half.  For the open debaters, Carver Hodgkiss was the 20^th speaker, and I was the 10^th top speaker.  UT Tyler had a strong second half, and overall the William Jewell College Season Opener was a huge success!  If you want more information about the tournament or specific details on how other teams performed check out the tournament pages: Gina Lane Classic, Georgia Bowman Tournament.

The next tournament for UT Tyler takes place at Lewis and Clark College on October 12^th, and it will be a very challenging tournament.  Keep up with the UT Tyler Student Blog to find the results for the tournament!  Also, for live updates for the tournament, check out www.parlitournament.com and keep up with UT Tyler’s progress!

Debunking Debate: an explanation of what we do during the weekends

Dallas and I debating a team from Pacific University

Often times, when I tell people that I am a member of the debate team at UT Tyler, they assume that I dress up like a presidential candidate, stand behind a podium, and waive my fist passionately about a topic of importance.  However, this is not even close to what we do. Pretty soon, you are going to start seeing posts from both Dallas and myself about the tournaments that we are attending, and I figured that you would like some explanation of what we do.

Here at the University of Texas at Tyler, we compete in what is called Parliamentary Debate.  It is a form of debate in which two teams (one affirming the topic and one negating the topic) of two people engage in a discussion of a topic that is announced 20 minutes prior to the time of the debate round.  The majority of the time, the topic, or the resolution, is in the form of a policy action that a certain actor should take.  A resolution would look something like this: “The United States should take actions to significantly improve relations with Japan.”

After a resolution is announced, each team is given 20 minutes to prepare their positions.  Most of the time, our positions have already been prepared and it is just a matter of writing down all of our arguments before the 20 minutes expires.  Normally, the debate team spends several hours a day, and every weekend writing and preparing our arguments for resolutions that we think may be at a particular tournament. 

Each round lasts approximately 45 minutes, and each team gives 3 speeches, receiving an equal division of speaking time.  The first affirmative speech is allocated 7 minutes to present a “case,” which includes a statement of policy intent and a discussion of advantages to taking the policy action aforementioned. 

The next speech is given by the negative team.  The first negative is allocated 8 minutes to discuss potential disadvantages to passing the policy action from the affirmative as well as making arguments against the case that was read by the first affirmative.

Next, the second affirmative speaker has 8 minutes to answer all of the argumentation brought up by the first negative speaker.  This includes answering all of the disadvantages as well as going argument by argument, or line by line, on the arguments made against the affirmative case.

The next speech is given by the negative, and is another 8 minute speech.  The role of this speech is to condense the negative arguments into a select few in order to make it extremely easy for the judge to vote for the negative. 

This next speech is the first and only negative rebuttal.  It is only 4 minutes in length, and the role of this speech is to provide a narrative as to why the judge should vote for the negative.  Whereas the previous speech sort of does housecleaning and does more on winning the debate argument by argument, this rebuttal is to ensure that the judge receives a proper narrative as to what the disadvantages and fallacies of the affirmative case are.

The next speech is also the final speech in the round, and it is the affirmative rebuttal.  The purpose, much like that of the negative rebuttal, is to provide a narrative as to why the judge should vote for the affirmative, while also pointing out where the affirmative is winning argument by argument.  The only difference is that this speech is 5 minutes, rather than 4.

Hopefully you now have a little better idea of what it is that we do, so that when you read Dallas's upcoming blog about our first tournament, then you can understand what exactly we were doing during our tournament, and what it looked like.

If you are interested in any additional information, then I am going to provide you a couple of additional links.  First, if you are interested in looking at the tournaments that we competed in and would like to watch our progress, then click here.  To navigate that page, you simply click first on the name of the tournament, and then you click on each round you would like to see the result of.  You can also see the resolution for each round, if you are interested.  For Dallas and I, look for "UT Tyler FH." 

If you are interested in national rankings of teams, then click here.  Postings of rankings will not be up yet, but we should see them fairly soon, so keep a look out! Again, our team name is "UT Tyler FH."

Finally, if you are interested in seeing what an actual round looks like and what tournaments feel like, then feel free to watch the video below.  Be warned, it does contain some use of adult language.  Although the video is about the Kansas Debate Team, our team at UT Tyler has the same passion for what we do and the same work ethic.  To watch the video, click here.

I have also been toying with the idea of making this sort of a series where I discuss numerous different aspects of debate, like the speaking style of debate and what the community is like.  If that sounds like something you would be interested in, then let me know in the comments!

UT Tyler Debate 2013-2014 Season Preview

At this point Carver has already given you some details about how we started the year with our debate team at the Kansas City Parliamentary Debate Cooperative.  We even gave you a preview of the awesome food that we are fortunate enough to indulge on while we travel.  Thankfully, this was only the beginning for this debate season, one that spans from the beginning of July to the end of March.  Let me explain what the highlights of this year will be, based on my past two years of experience from this team.