Cal Poly Debate Team Champions in Hawaiian Tournaments

The Cal Poly Debate Team has returned from their tournaments in Hawaii, held Feb. 14 and 16, with several wins. Cal Poly debaters Bryan Pride and Ryan Curtain were named champions of both Hawaii Pacific University's Hawaii Cup Debate Tournament and the University of Hawaii's Pan-Pacific Universities Debate Tournament. Alongside these successes, Cal Poly debaters Minnal Kunnan and Andre’ Fontana earned semifinalist awards at both events. These wins position the Cal Poly Debate Team as a formidable participant in the World Parliamentary Debate Format.

Pride and Curtain won the final round of the Hawaii Cup by arguing that performance scholarships do enhance higher education by promoting diversity of thought and priorities across educational settings, in comparison to systems in which educational funding is redistributed based only on need. They subsequently won the Pan-Pacific Championship final by arguing that educators dealing with controversial subjects that surround traumatic events have a responsibility to ensure that students who may have suffered related traumatic experiences have opportunities to remove such subjects from the agenda rather than removing themselves from the forum.

These victories are just two in a string of successes since the Cal Poly Debate Team adopted the World Debate Format. Since switching formats, the debate team has won the Loyola Marymount Invitational, and placed as finalists at both the UC Davis Intervarsity Tournament and the Pan American Championship, which is hosted by the University of Miami.

National and international debate competitions offer students the opportunity to test their ideas against the ideas of other top debaters. Students are exposed to a variety of perspectives that they might not otherwise be exposed to. Cal Poly debaters bring these experiences back to campus classrooms.