With its offices tucked away on the third floor of Robinson Hall, you might not have heard of the Dartmouth Forensic Union, but the College's policy debate team has quietly gotten off to one of their best starts in a decade.
The Union, which sends pairs of debaters to compete in tournaments held at colleges and universities across the country has achieved several high finishes in recent weeks.
The debaters are coached by Ken Strange, who has been with the team for over 21 years. Strange received the George Ziegemueller Award for Lifetime Achievement in debate coaching last year.
"I can't remember the last time we've done as well at all three of these tournaments," Strange said of the fall's first three competitions -- two of which took place at the University of Kentucky and one at the University of North Iowa.
At the first tournament, held in late September at North Iowa, the team of Alex Berger '02 and Ben Thorpe '04 captured second place in a field of over 80 teams, losing only to Berkeley in the final round.
A week later, the same team again took second place at the Thoroughbred Round Robin, a tournament that featured nine of the top teams in the country.
Most recently, at the annual Henry Clay -- which Berger called "one of the three or four biggest events of the year" -- Berger and Thorpe beat a rival Berkeley team in the final round to win the tournament.
The duo of Hrishikesh Desai '04 and Andrew Leong '03 also did well at the tournament, advancing to the quarterfinals in an event attended by teams from over 100 schools.
Berger attributed the team's success to a combination of factors. "The team is a lot bigger than it has been in past years, and we have a lot of young debaters," Berger said. The team lost only one student, Adam Garen '01, to the previous graduating class, and even he has returned this year to assist Strange in coaching the team.
Preparation and research is, of course, a critical part of the team's success. According to Berger, team members may spend up to six hours each day in preparation during the week before a tournament.
The direction of research is set as early as August, when a debate topic to be used for the duration of the year is announced. The topic for 2001-2002 is federal policy toward Native Americans.
Strange is encouraged by the new freshman members of the team, whom he hoped would improve further with added experience.
"I hope [future tournaments] go well," Strange said. "We have a bunch of fairly good freshman teams, and we just need to keep working and getting better to maintain what's happened so far."
