Debate Tournament a Success

A near-record number of teams attended this weekend's Parliamentary Debate Tournament at Harvard, as a duo from Yale topped a field of 178 to win the inter-collegiate championship.

The Harvard debate team hosts the tournament every year, but members said they had not expected such a large turnout for 1993.

"This year we expected 170 teams but ended up with 178. It's a very competitive tournament...to win [it] is a big honor," said Adam J. Cohen '95.

Participants praised the event as well-organized and smoothly run and even gave the Harvard team a standing ovation.

"It was one of the best tournaments ever," according to tournament director Annie Yang '95. Yang said several members of the Yale team had told her that "this was the first organizing school they had seen get a standing ovation."

Cohen attributed the tournament's success to its punctuality as well as the quality of its judges. "There weren't a lot of inexperienced judges making stupid mistakes," he said.

And some of the participants said the event was not just an opportunity to debate.

"It's nice to win...but it's the people--you make a lot of really good friends," said Nicole Goldstein, a sophomore at Wesleyan.

Cohen said the Debating Society is currently discussing plans to create an outreach program to visit area schools and provide "something that kids sometimes don't see in school--two sides of an issue."