(Back row: Derek Ziegler, Colin Quinn, Hunter McCullough, Brian Kersch;
Front row: Collin Roark, Shelby Pryor [President])

Colleagues, Friends and Family,

I am happy to report that the UNT Debate Team has had another successful weekend this time competing at the Shirley Classic Debate Tournament at Wake Forest University. The tournament featured 130 teams from over 70 universities, which included Harvard University, University of Texas at Austin, Dartmouth University, Northwestern University, Georgetown University, and many more. University of North Texas teams defeated teams from Dartmouth University, Whitman College, University of Texas at Austin, Trinity University, as well as others.

The UNT debate team of Brian Kersch (Senior, Communication Studies) and Shelby Pryor (Senior, Political Science) advanced to the elimination rounds (top 32 teams) as the 21st ranked team. The team of Hunter McCullough (Senior, Political Science) and Colin Quinn (Junior, Communication Studies) finished as the 33rd ranked team missing elimination rounds by .3 speaker points.

In the elimination rounds Kersch and Pryor defeated Trinity University in the round of 32 and then lost to West Georgia (tournament Finalist) on a close 2-1 decision to place in the Sweet Sixteen.

Although there are many formats for collegiate debates, by far the most research intensive, well documented, and rigorous format is competitive policy debate. Students are required to do thousands of pages of research on top of their regular coursework to compete at the top levels. Competitive academic policy debate is governed by two national organizations, the National Debate Tournament (NDT) and the Cross-Examination Debate Association (CEDA). Each organization sanctions its own regions, comparable to athletic conferences, and there regional and national standings each organization maintains. These standings can be viewed by going to www.tabroom.com and clicking on the links for the the NDT Point standings or the CEDA point standings. Each are in the lower-right-hand box. A full list of all awards a school has run this season can be obtained from the same page by clicking on the link labeled 'Show awards by school.

The UNT debaters and coaches would like to thank everyone that supported us this weekend. GO MEAN GREEN, CAW!

With Green Pride,
Shelby Pryor (Debate President)

For more information about the debate program at North Texas (Univ.), contact:
Brian Lain, blain@unt.edu, 940-565-4534; or Louie Petit, louiepetit@gmail.com, 417-459-0350.