After hours of debating the United States' obligation to provide democracy assistance to Middle Eastern countries, Zack Elias '14 and Alex Resar '14 advanced to the elimination rounds of the American Forensic Association's National Debate Tournament. The event was held from March 29 to April 2 at Emory University, and the Dartmouth students' success was an impressive feat for sophomore college students, according to debate coach Dylan Quigley.
The pairing of Elias and Resar was one of the top 30 teams out of 78 to advance through the eight preliminary rounds into the elimination rounds at the NDT, Resar said.
"It's a tremendous accomplishment for anyone, but as sophomores it's a very big deal," Quigley said.
Dartmouth Forensic Union director Ken Strange said he expects that Elias and Resar will be one of the top five teams in the nation next year.
Each school is permitted to send two teams to the national tournament, and Joshua Lee '13 and Zach Robinson '14 also attended the NDT, Strange said.
Zach Markovich '15 and Tatsuro Yamamura '15 attended a separate national conference, the Cross Examination Debate Association Nationals at the University of Oklahoma, and they were the only team of two freshmen to compete, according to Strange.
Debate teams spend the year researching and debating a single topic, which is selected for the annual spring NDT. This year, teams considered whether or not the United States federal government should substantially increase its democracy assistance to Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen, according to the NDT website.
DFU members typically arrive on campus three weeks before Fall term begins to participate in intensive preparation for the season, Strange said. Before debaters began compiling their research electronically, team members typically completed each season with five to 10 plastic tubs full of printed material, Strange said.
While researching this year's topic, the teammates each specialized in a North African or Middle Eastern country and were tasked with staying up to date on current events, which involved reading "almost every news article" published about their country, Resar said.
The amount of research that debate team members do in a single year is of similar magnitude to the research done for a graduate degree, Baker said.
The national debate community maintains an online database of teams' arguments, according to Lee. While there are no consequences for declining to post one's citations, it is the "community norm" to do so, and teams who do not participate are viewed as "suspicious," he said.
In addition to conducting individual research, the team also holds weekly meetings and individual sessions practice debates or drills with its coaches to prepare for tournaments, according to Markovich.
Team members develop arguments in consultation with the coaches, Quigley said.
"We help them win debates in the ways they want to win them," he said.
Much of the students' preparation for tournaments also happens informally through "casual arguments" that students have while hanging out or eating lunch in the team's lounge in Robinson Hall, Quigley said.
In addition to the NDT, each team participates in three or four weekend-long tournaments during the Fall and Winter terms, which occasionally forces students to miss their Friday or Monday classes due to travel time, Lee said. Some debate teams employ "scouts" from within their squad to gather information on particular opponents, he said.
Between tournaments, debate partners make adjustments to their arguments, Robinson said. The team's "range of argumentative flexibility" is one of its greatest strengths, Lee said. Certain schools approach arguments through "specific intellectual paradigms," but DFU uses evidence from both the social sciences and the humanities during debates, he said.
Students credit the College for its availability of resources and strong coaching staff, Lee said.
"[Strange] knows pretty much everything there is to know about debate," Resar said.
Students also said that the College provides the financial resources for the team to participate in national competitions.
Many other teams, such as those at Cornell and Columbia Universities, do not have the same financial capacity as Dartmouth and can only travel locally, Lee said.
Many DFU members said that their experience structuring arguments in debate has been helpful in strengthening their writing skills. Lee said that participating in debate has taught him to accept a broad range of ideas and see the "big picture" of an argument.
Markovich also said that debate has taught him to assess arguments "less ideologically" and to "think more critically about [his] own beliefs."
Debate has also connected team members with students with similar interests across the country, they said. Robinson said that debate has given him a community of friends that extends outside of Hanover. Attending debate tournaments and summer camps introduced Robinson to a "really cool community," he said.
DFU came in second place at the NDT in 2008 and last won the tournament in 1993.
