By Sheila Ritchie
In fall of 1983 I walked onto ACU campus as a Freshman ready to debate. I had debated in High School and felt like this was a great place for me to continue honing my argumentation skills. Debate in college was much like high school – heavy research, rapid-paced speaking, and lots of travel. It was intense but it was also very rewarding. Each tournament was an academic endeavor that allowed our team to meet like-minded students from all over the nation and learn from the experience.
This year I re-entered the arena of collegiate debate as the new Director of Debate at ACU and found that things had changed a bit. Some areas of Collegiate Debate had taken a decidedly negative tone and did not seem to be the best fit for ACU students. With this assessment, we decided to branch out into a fairly new form of debate called IPDA – International Public Debate Association. It is a form that is designed to welcome thought, dialogue, reason, and research while seeking to preserve the civil discourse that is so very needed in our world today.
This fall we will be traveling to four IPDA tournaments and will likely travel to six more in the spring. Our first tournament was in Baytown, TX at Lee College. We took 7 debaters (IPDA is individual debate, not pairs) and they all did well for their first outing. We had one debater, Brittany Chapa, that advanced to elimination rounds and ultimately placed in the top four competitors in the Novice division. In her Octofinals round, she was paired with the number one seed and beat him to advance to Quarterfinals. Quite a good showing for our first time out.
The rest of this fall semester will be full for the ACU Debate Team. We will travel to TCU, east Texas, and Oregon before the semester ends. We will also participate in an online debate tournament that will allow us to compete without having to travel. In the spring we will continue representing ACU at tournaments in Texas, Louisana, Arkansas, and possibly Tennessee. All along the way we will build community, invest in knowledge, and strive to represent the mission of ACU in the most excellent way possible.
Watch for updates – I expect great things!!