Spencer Siegel has been debating for seven years, making him more than qualified to run the AU Debate Team as their president. As an active member of the team, Spencer spends close to 60 hours each week practicing for tournaments, researching topics, and traveling to tournaments, which are held on 10 weekends each semester.  

The American Parliamentary Debate Association, which the AU Team is a part of, does not host the typical debates found in high school; the debate is off-topic and not set beforehand. Meaning that instead of debating the principles of feminism or the death penalty, a question would be phrased, “Should Dorothy have killed the witch?” A lot of research is needed for the argument for or against a given topic as well as for the team’s own topics.  

Even though the AU Debate Team is young, they are consistently advancing to the elimination round, the final of 5 preliminary rounds. The team even had the honor to host a tournament mid-November 2008 which brought participants from 15 schools in the league, which includes New York University, Vassar, and John Hopkins. When a school hosts, they do not compete as all of the logistics and judging of a tournament falls to the students of the hosting institution.  

Bottom line, the AU Debate Team is doing well and has much success in their future. Plans are already underway for hosting another tournament soon. While the preliminary rounds may not be as fun, Spencer encouraged anyone interested to attend any of the elimination debates.

For more information, please visit audebate.org.