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| I have many co-curricular interests. Why should I pursue Debate? Parliamentary Debate, with its emphasis on impromptu speaking, helps you to develop excellent communication skills and teaches you to think on your feet. Debate also greatly enhances your appreciation of contemporary political and socio-economic issues. It provides you with a forum to analyse these issues and present your perspectives. Debate Tournaments enable you to visit a host of colleges and universities (UVA, Yale, and Columbia to name a few) and to interact with the students there. We do everything we can to ensure that anyone who wants to can attend as many tournaments as they please. The team bears all the registration, and accommodation costs. And, finally, we genuinely believe that Debate is a lot of fun - it can be one of the most enjoyable parts of your undergraduate experience. I've never debated before and don't have much experience in public speaking. Can I still join? Absolutely! Prior experience is not a prerequisite for doing well or learning to debate. There have been many members of the team, who came in without any experience and turned out to be excellent debators. Our training sessions, practice rounds and frequent traveling will give you plenty of opportunities to practice and improve. What's the time commitment like? Whatever you choose. You are free to decide on the level and extent of your involvement. There are short meetings once or twice a week, which we encourage all members to attend. Beside this, there are tournaments nearly every weekends; you are free to attend as many (or as few) as you want. Are there any dues? What about the costs? None, Zilch, Zero. To make debate as accessible as possible, we make economic barriers next to none. When traveling, UMBC Debate pays for all tournament registration and accomidation fees as well as any travel that requires plane or train fare. Memebers will be expected to pitch in for gas when driving to a tournament, however dependent upon SGA allocation most of these costs are eventually reimbursed. Besides that members will want a few bucks to cover meals when not completely provided by the hosting tournament or in case the team decides to go out to dinner together on the way home from a distant tournament on Saturday evening. What are tournaments like? Do I need to prepare a lot? A tournament consists of five general rounds, semifinals, and finals. The best thing about Parliamentary Debate is that you don't have to spend hours preparing for it. You are given a resolution in General Assembly a short period of time before each round, based on which you and your partner prepare a case. With UMBC schedules being as they are, this is one aspect of Debate that we're sure you'll appreciate. For more information on traveling to tournaments, please see the tournaments page. How much time does a tournament take? Be prepared to leave on Friday morning of the scheduled weekend, and to return on Saturday evening. Team members are excused from Friday afternoon classes by UMBC policy. How does tournament signup work? There are two ways to sign up: 1) attend the weekly team meetings (preferred method), 2) or send the president an e-mail by wendsday 6 PM with a good explanation why you missed the weekley meeting (Members Only). Generally, we need to know by the Wed. or Thur. right before the weekend of the tournament in order to accomodate you, but so long as the delegation hasn't left UMBC yet, it may still be worth a shot trying to go. If you sign-up to go, and it turns out that you can't make it, we appreciate notice ASAP. For most tournaments, we are able to accomodate everyone who wants to go. For certain ones, however, there are more people interested in going than we have space for. In such cases, it is to your advantage to sign-up promptly and ensure that you can go well ahead of time. Please note that for tournaments that are expensive to travel to, like Stanford or the World Championships, there is a strict priority system by experience, skill and dedication. In general, those who are committed to UMBC Debate for three or four yours travel to Worlds at least once. If you are going to a tournament, by UMBC policy, you have a valid excuse for missing classes or having exams rescheduled. A word of warning. Do not abuse this policy or it can come back to haunt you when you need to ask a favor of the professor whose friday afternoon class you've skipped every weeek the entire semester. Do we do anything besides constantly debate at these tournaments? Of course! There is a lot of fun to be had at every debate tournament. Between rounds, tournaments usually have silly contests and activities for those interested. Also, every Friday night, the host team holds a party where debaters can meet men and women from all over the country. Each tournament is usually attended by most major universities, and meeting other college students is one of the best things about debate. Occasionally, at especially unique locations such as San Francisco, Athens or New York, the team will stay for an extra night to enjoy the area. Time Commitment ? Parliamentary debate at UMBC allows each member to participate as little or as much as he/she likes. Absolute minimum: for each tournament you choose to attend, you will be commiting Friday afternoon through Saturday evening (we are usually back around dinnertime Saturday). The usual schedule within that time frame is three rounds of debate, a party, sleep, two more rounds, a banquet, and then semifinals, finals, and awards. You can attend one tournament a semester, or ten. There are no limits set by the team in either direction. The team expects its members to attend a weekly half-hour meeting, and to participate in a practice debate (running about an hour) before attending each tournament. Any additional time - drills and discussion with your partner, research on interesting ca ses - is purely at your discretion. Some people spend no preparation time and do quite well...but obviously the more time you spend, the better you're likely to do. Who Hosts Tournaments? We are a member of A.P.D.A., the American Parliamentary Debate Association. It consists of a number of colleges and universities throughout the East Coast Region (and many member schools in other areas). Most member schools (including UMBC), host a tournament during the year, actually we host two. There are other associations with similar formats in the Midwest, West, and throughout the world. We debate mainly within the A.P.D.A. circuit, which means we attend tournaments as far north as Amherst and as far south as UVA. We also usually send teams to the Stanford tournament in March, the World Championships in January , Nationals in April, and North Americans in February. UMBC teams have also traveled to tournaments in the Midwest, Canada, Scotland, and Australia. What's So Great About Debate Anyway ? Different people get different things out of Parli, so the answer to this question could be a lengthy essay. In brief: Parli is student run, with no faculty supervisors or authority figures of any kind. The Amherst team is a democratic one -- each member's voice is encouraged and taken seriously. Beyond politics, a number of interesting people from schools all over are members of A.P.D.A. and attend tournaments. Each tournament hosts a party (sometimes the traditional college kegger, sometimes at a nightclub or other venue) where you can get to know not just debaters, but often other individuals from the host school. Parli debate hones public speaking and logical refutation skills; most of us have noticed significant improvement after a couple years of the activity. |
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