Faculty Announced for WDI World Schools Workshop

Rhydian Morgan & Debbie Newman

Alfred Snider & Bojana Skrt

There is still room at the workshop. July 25-August 7 2009. Held at the University of Vermont in Burlington, Vermont, USA.

Contact Janet Nunziata to register -- janet.nunziata@uvm.edu

Bojana Skrt, ZIP Slovenia, Director

As director of the national debate program of Slovenia, Bojana has become one of the most respected debate trainers in the world. She has directed countless teacher and student workshops, and her team has been EFL World Champions at the World Schools Debating Championship three times.

Debbie Newman, UK

Debbie has been debating champion of England and Wales and president of the legendary Cambridge University Union in the UK. She has taught at WDI a number of times. She coached England to the World Schools Debating Championship in Washington in 2008 and to second place at WSDC Athens in 2009.

Rhydian Morgan, UK

Rhydian is a professional communications trainer who has an endless love for debating. He has won numerous tournaments and has also been chief adjudicator at countless tournaments in Europe. He is a returning WDI faculty member, has taught at the Department of State Study of US Institutions program for students from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh in 2008 and is a regular faculty member at the International Debate Academy Slovenia.

Alfred Snider, USA

Has been WDI director, since 1984 director of the Lawrence Debate Union since 1982 and is the Edwin Lawrence Professor of Forensics at the University of Vermont. Has trained debaters in over 28 countries, published over 50 books about debating and for debaters and has won every major award given to debate coaches in the USA. As a student debating for Brown University he finished third at the USA National Debate Tournament and second at the Tournament of Champions.

WDI Reorganization Points to Global Expansion

The world is full of changes, and this is also true for the World Debate Institute. One thing that has not changed is that WDI remains as one of the leading global sources of sophisticated debate instruction.

The World Debate Institute announces a number of changes in the program.

Due to escalating costs and the economic downturn many of the summer programs hosted at the University of Vermont will not take place this year.

However, in Vermont the World Schools Debating Workshop will continue with strong attendance and a celebrated international faculty. July 25-August 7 2009. http://debate.uvm.edu/wdi/

During July WDI will be assisting in the planning and implementation of a high school debate workshop at Piedmont College in Georgia.

There will be some additional smaller debate workshops held in Vermont for university students in August that involve WDI faculty but are not official WDI programs. See http://debate.uvm.edu/edi.htm .

The World Debate Institute will continue to sponsor and hold training events around the world. In some ways it makes more sense to bring the program to the world than to try and bring the world to Vermont (although it is a wonderful place).

WDI will be working with ZIP Slovenia to sponsor the World Schools Debate Academy for high school students to be held in Slovenia 5 July-12 July 2009. http://debate.uvm.edu/wsda.html

WDI is working with the US State Department and the Faculty of Organizational Sciences at Belgrade University in Serbia to hold a university workshop in Serbia 15-22 July 2009. Contact Alfred.snider@uvm.edu for information.

WDI is working with ZIP Slovenia to present the Seventh Annual International Debate Academy Slovenia 21-29 November 2009 to be held in Ormoz, Slovenia. Information can be found at http://debate.uvm.edu/idas.html

WDI is beginning to make plans for a debating workshop to be held in Iraq in cooperation with ZIP Slovenia and local Iraqi partners.

WDI Alumni Wins World Title

It was a great day for Romania and for Dan Cristea. They won the English Second Language world debating title at the 2009 World Universities Debating Championships held in Cork, Ireland at the beginning of January.

Dan attended WDI as a high school student from Romania. "It is really where I got my start with debating, and I will never forget it," he recalled in Cork while talking to WDI director Snider.

Dan now debates for Babes-Bolyai University . He and his partner, Nicoleta Lupea , are also European champions in the same category.

Congratulations to Dan, and glad you got your start here at WDI.

IDAS-WDI Videos Now Available

Faculty from 2008 pose at celebration dinner

Many videos are now available from the International Debate Academy 2008 recently concluded in Slovenia (IDAS). The videos feature a wide variety of subjects in training for the WUDC format from a wide variety of instructors from all over the world.

A complete archive can be found at http://www.uvm.edu/~debate/watch/?M=D where the videos listed as "idas08" are the ones you are interested in. This is a huge archive and may contain many other videos of interest to you.

The videos will be individually released with annotations on the Debate Video website at http://debatevideoblog.blogspot.com/ .

The videos are all in the .M4V or Podcast format. They can be watched from within your iTunes player or by opening them from within the Quicktime application. Because they are high quality and relatively large, you might want to download them.

For latest IDAS news go to
http://internationaldebateacademy.blogspot.com/

For Information about IDAS go to
http://debate.uvm.edu/idas.html

WDI Europe Results

IDAS 2008 TOURNAMENT
SEMIFINALS

ROOM 1

1 Univ Ljubljana CIMERMAN-DOBRANIC 2ND OPP
4 Univ Ljubljana JAKOVAC-PLOSTAJNER 1ST GOV ADVANCES
5 Cornell SOLLOWAY-STITELER 1ST OPP
8 Serbia-Croatia JANKULOSKI-BLACE 2ND GOV ADVANCES

JUDGES: FISCHER, LOKE, LLANO

ROOM 2

2 Germany HILDEBRANDT-ASYAMOVA 1ST GOV ADVANCES
3 Vermont CARESS-NATALE 2ND GOV ADVANCES
6 Slovenia ZVEPLAN-CVIKL 2ND OPP
7 Slovenia PODLOGAR-JANZEK

JUDGES: GREENLAND, MORGAN, LANGONE

THBT the United Nations should send a multinational peacekeeping force to Sri Lanka.

FINALS

ROOM 1

1st GOV JANKULOSKI-BLACE
2ND GOV JAKOVAC-PLOSTAJNER
1ST OPP HILDEBRANDT-ASYAMOVA FIRST PLACE
2ND OPP CARESS-NATALE SECOND PLACE

JUDGES: MORGAN, MARUSIC, LOKE, LLANO, GREENLAND

THBT violent action to protect the environment is justified.

SPEAKERS

Position Name Team Total points Average Round 1 Round 2 Round 3 Round 4 Round 5 Round 6
1 Natale Caress-Natale 482 80.33 85 77 83 78 83 76
2 Hildebrandt Hildebrandt-Asyamova 476 79.33 82 82 74 77 83 78
2 (3) Plostajner Jakovac-Plostajner 476 79.33 75 79 81 79 78 84
4 (5) Asaymova Hildebrandt-Asyamova 472 78.66 81 80 76 74 84 77
4 Podlogar Podlogar-Janzek 472 78.66 80 81 79 73 80 79
6 Dobranic Cimerman-Dobranic 470 78.33 78 78 80 82 77 75
6 (7) Caress Caress-Natale 470 78.33 82 76 79 75 82 76
8 (9) Cimerman Cimerman-Dobranic 468 78.00 76 79 78 81 78 76
8 Jakovac Jakovac-Plostajner 468 78.00 65 82 82 78 77 84
8 (10) Zveplan Zveplan-Cvikl 468 78.00 75 76 78 84 78 77

IDAS 08 TOURNAMENT MOTIONS

ROUND ONE
THW make voting compulsory.

ROUND TWO
THW not negotiate with the leaders of Iran.

ROUND THREE
This house would not prosecute battered wives for killing their husbands.

ROUND FOUR
TH would allow the advertising of prescription drugs.

ROUND FIVE
THBT governments should not bailout failing corporations.

ROUND SIX
This House would ban international adoption.

SEMIFINALS
THBT the United Nations should send a multinational peacekeeping force to Sri Lanka.

FINALS
THBT violent action to protect the environment is justified.

Full results at bottom of USA WUDC results page:
http://debate.uvm.edu/usudc/usudctab0809.html

WDI Europe/International Debate Academy Begins

Sam Greenland speaks in the demo debate

Arrivals can be difficult and this one was no exception. All are now here and safe. Now we are about 80 people from 15 countries here for a week before we move to Maribor for the tournament.

Sunday night most people had arrived and a demo debate was featured. The motion was “This house would punish parents for the crimes of their minor children." It was an all-star cast, with Debbie Newman (world champion WSDC coach for England, England-Wales debate champion, former president of Cambridge Union) debating with Sam Greenland (Sydney WUDC semifinalist in 2007, former Hong Kong WSDC coach) were opening proposition, Sam Natale (top speaker, Northeast Universities 2008, University of Vermont) and Lucas Caress (top speaker, Global Youth Debate Conclave, Bangalore 2008, University of Vermont) were closing proposition; Filip Dobranic (twice top EFL speaker at WSDC, University of Ljubljana) and Maja Cimerman (EFL world WSDC champion, University of Ljubljana) were opening opposition, and last but not least Steve Llano (former national champion coach in USA, St. John's University) and Loke Wing Fatt (Singapore, WUDC breaking judge, father of debate in China) as closing opposition. It was a very spirited debate, chaired by Berlin Debating Union's Jens Fischer, and caused a great deal of discussion among he students. The video is coming soon.

Each day has the same schedule. There is an 8:45 AM organizational meeting at breakfast, followed by a series of lectures divided by experience level. After one hour there is a brief break before we meet again for an hour of drills on the subject of the lectures to help turn theoretical materials into behavior and habit. Then a motion is given and everyone has a debate with a long critique. There is a lunch break followed by a digestion break before the afternoon's activities take place. There are two one-hour period for elective classes. During each of these periods between five and seven different topics are offered, and students can choose which they would like to go to. I will send along a list of enacted electives later. After the second elective of the afternoon another motion is announced and with another debate and a long critique before dinner.

The first practice debate motions were:
1-THW pay a salary to stay-at-home parents
2-TH would create separate units for gays in the military.
3-THBT supporting Georgia's NATO bid is more important than maintaining good relations with Russia.
4-THBT the capitalist experiment has failed.
5-THW criminalize Holocaust denial.

Evenings have had a considerable social component. On Monday night the Country Exhibition took place where students brought items, foods, beverages and other things from their country on display and shared them with everyone. This was a robust affair of international fraternity and lasted well into the night. On Tuesday evening the traditional Slovenian "Kitsch Party" took place. Students swapped clothing and dressed outrageously for the party. It raged for quite a while before the judging took place. Sam(antha) Ricker of the University of Vermont was the winner, looking quite good in ponytails and wearing Helena Felc's pajamas. Second place was Don(na) Bracciodieta of St. John's, who had nice cleavage. Pictures will be coming along soon.

Having been at all six International Debate Academy sessions, I would say that the experience level and excellence of the teams is growing immensely here and all over Europe and the world.

Stay tuned for more from Ormoz.

WDI Student Ten Years Later

From Kate Aishton:

Tuna,

I'm sure you don't remember me, but I attended WDI's high school program in the summers of 1997 and 1999. After bouncing around the country for a while, I'm a 1L at Georgetown in D.C. Honestly, before this week I hadn't thought about high school debate in a while (beyond occasional light conversations of nerd-solidarity with students).

I was fortunate enough to get a spot in Georgetown's great "alternative curriculum," a program that focuses the first year of law school on critical analysis of the law with an historical and theoretical bent. My fellow students are all incredibly bright and motivated, and, but for one or two out of 80, far-left-leaning. Campaigning and poll-monitoring with them over the last months has renewed my faith in my generation, and I'm proud to know them.

However, our central legal theory class makes WDI's impact on my life ring clear. I keep hearing my friends, smart and arriving from a wide array of backgrounds, struggle as we move away from familiar Classical Liberalism and comforting Realism and into Critical Legal Studies. It took a couple weeks of working through this theory and its various feminist and race-focused strains to remember why I felt so comfortable: sitting on the floor outside the auditorium at UVM, struggling to cut cards and hash out the details of a Critical Pedegogy plan with the other students in my lab.

I asked around, and this isn't average, even for debaters. There are many of us at my school, and I'm the only one I've met who worked on issues of this depth rather than combing the economist for crime figures. The exposure has given me comfort with discussing race and gender, rights and needs, that allows me to hold a substantiative discussion with our professor while the rest of the class struggles to outline basic principles for the final. In other words, it's made my education a pleasure rather than a chore.

So thank you (and in turn, all the lab leaders and teachers whose names I've forgotten). I hope the students you had this summer will write you more versions of this letter in another ten years.

Best,
Kate

Two-Time WDI Scholar Places Third at Harvard

Brian Rubaie (left) and Andrew Baker

Brian Rubaie has twice been a policy debate scholar at WDI and is one of the most popular studens ever to fill that role. We document here his perormance at the recent tournament at Harvard University.

http://www.utdallas.edu/news/2008/11/06-002.php

Team Battles to Third Place in Harvard Debates

Nov. 6, 2008
UT Dallas debate team members Brian Rubaie and Andrew Baker took third place at Harvard University’s annual Intercollegiate Debate Tournament Monday night in Cambridge, Mass.

The University of Kansas team finished first and Northwestern University’s team finished in second place. UT Dallas tied with the University of California-Berkeley for third place. Eighty teams from across the country competed at the Harvard tournament.

“This is undoubtedly the best that any UT Dallas debate team has ever done at a major national tournament,” said Chris Burk, director of the University’s debate team. “The success at the Harvard tournament places the UT Dallas debate team among the top teams in the country.”

The Harvard tournament is one of a hand full of “major” tournament-style debates during the regular debate season. The three-day tournament consisted of eight preliminary rounds on Saturday and Sunday, with the top 16 teams advancing to an elimination bracket on Monday.

Rubaie, a junior criminology major, and Baker, a sophomore political science major and Collegium V honors student, defeated the top partnership from reigning national champions Towson University in the quarterfinals. UT Dallas was the only Texas university to have teams reach the top 16.

“This is a huge step forward for Rubaie and Baker, and our entire debate program,” said Burk. “We competed well against the most prestigious and historically successful programs in the country.”

Burk and Scott Herndon, associate director of debate, coached Rubaie and Baker at the Harvard tournament.

The UT Dallas debate program began as a student-driven team about 12 years ago. Debate duo Rubaie and Baker and other members of the UT Dallas squad will compete at the Wake Forest University tournament Nov. 15-17 to conclude the fall tournament schedule. UT Dallas will host its own intercollegiate debate tournament Jan. 10-12.

WDI Session in Europe Now Full

The World Debate Institute affiliated program the International debate Academy Slovenia is now full. We have every room in the Hotel Ormoz full and even some additional spaces. Thanks to everyone who has shown such great support for the program. We are at our limit for the instructional part of the program. We are proud that so many have recognized us as the premier Worlds format training program on the globe.

But there is still an opportunity for you to join us and be part of what we are doing. There are lots of spots open for the tournament component of the program. The tournament will be a full service event hosted at the Faculty of Law in Maribor, Slovenia. The program will begin afternoon of 28 and continue until 30 November 2008. Join us for a vigorous and economical tournament. We will offer housing, meals and complete tournament entry fees for 50 Euros per person.

We offer great judging, featuring our remarkable faculty, including:

• Loke Wing Fatt, Singapore: Well known Asian debate trainer, WUDC breaking judge, honorary professorship North-Eastern University China, SAID Singapore, 4th IDAS.
• Jens Fischer, Germany: Berlin Debating Union, Chief Adjudicator at Europeans, 3rd IDAS.
• Sam Greenland, UK/Hong Kong/Australia: WUDC semifinalist for Sydney, Hong Kong world schools coach, 3rd IDAS.
• Steve Llano, USA: Professor at St. John’s University NY, NE USA Director of the Year, USA National Champion coach, 3rd IDAS.
• Branka Marusic, Croatia: President Europeans Council, IDAS Finalist, 2nd IDAS.
• Rhydian Morgan, UK: Chief Adjudicator and Finals judge at numerous tournaments, Welsh Debating Federation, World Debate Institute faculty 2008, 2nd IDAS.
• Debbie Newman, UK: Past president of Cambridge Union, England & Wales National Champion, former Director of Centre for Speech & Debate at English-Speaking Union, England World Schools coach and WSDC world champion coach.
• Alfred Snider, USA: Professor at University of Vermont, Director World Debate Institute, USA USA Coach of the Year, six recent debate textbooks, 6th IDAS.
• Bojana Skrt, Slovenia: Director ZIP, thrice WSDC EFL Champion coach, 6th IDAS.

Book your spot at the tournament now. There are cheap flights to Graz, Austria via Ryanair and other options, with an easy train connection to Maribor.

For more information contact Bojana Skrt at bojana.skrt@siol.net. Bojana can help you with travel arrangements.

The form to apply for the tournament is at http://debate.uvm.edu/idastourn.doc

The general website is at http://debate.uvm.edu/idas.html

See you in Maribor at the tournament!

WDI Announces 2009 Dates

2008 t-shirt back

Here are the dates for the 2009 World Debate Institute programs at the University of Vermont.

High School

• World Schools Debate Workshop July 25 - Aug 7
  

College

• National College Policy July 25 - Aug 7
  
• College Parliamentary Debate Workshop May 18 - 22
  
• College Parliamentary Debate Workshop Aug 1 - Aug 7
  

Teachers, Coaches

• Debate Coaching Workshop July 25 - 31
  
• Parliamentary Debate Workshop Aug 1 - Aug 7