Join the Cal Poly Debate Team

From Debate Team Director John F. Patrick:

Our Debate Team is the longest standing competitive team at Cal Poly. The program has historically followed the trends in academic debating, beginning with direct challenge scrimmages and progressing through various tournament circuit debate styles as their relevance has waxed and waned. Today, while we still compete in tournament circuit events, the Cal Poly Debate Team is now focused on Civic Debate Conference events.

These events treat collegiate debaters as legitimate scholars whose research merits being shared not just between debaters, but with the wider academic and professional communities that are in need of debates. We are also very excited to have expanded our program to include a Spanish Language Division that is truly bilingual, with students debating in both Spanish and English.

An example of Cal Poly students debating against French military officers for diplomats and policy experts at the French Embassy in Washington D.C. for the 2019 Lafayette Debates can be found at https://tinyurl.com/yawtdgz7

Academic debating generally correlates to ongoing professional success after graduation, with our debaters reporting that their involvement with debate distinguished them from their peers on the job market and in their applications to graduate studies. Students majoring in political science, identity and cultural studies, history, philosophy, sociology, psychology, economics, business, sociology, engineering and the sciences have found that our events intersect with their areas of interest and expose them to a wider range of ideas outside their ares of study than if they had not joined the team.

If you are interested in how the Cal Poly debate team can ground and energize your academic experience, please reach out to our program directors, John Patrick (jopatric@calpoly.edu) and Chris Skiles (cskiles@calpoly.edu).