Debate team enjoys successful season
ESU Media Relations
Originally published 01:47 p.m., May 29, 2008
Updated 01:47 p.m., May 29, 2008
As the semester winds down, Emporia State University’s debate team is looking back on a season filled with success and accomplishment while eagerly looking forward to next year.
For the first time in three years, ESU qualified a team to the National Debate Tournament, the most elite debate tournament of every season. The team of Kurt Fifelski, a sophomore political science major from Wayland, Mich., and Kelly Thompson, a senior speech communication education major from Alma, qualified based on the strength of a long list of wins against top-ranked opponents.
At the NDT in Los Angeles, Fifelski and Thompson finished as the 58th overall team in the country. “It is hard to say how many debate teams compete in the whole country,” said Samuel Maurer, Director of Debate at ESU, “but a conservative estimate would be about 750. For Kelly and Kurt to finish 58th at the most competitive tournament of the season is quite an honor.”
The Hornet team’s ranking of 58th overall may not do it justice, however. There are two national championships in college debate. The Cross-Examination Debate Association also hosts a national championship where ESU FT (the team of Fifelski and Thompson) finished 33rd overall. The tournament at Wichita State University had 185 teams including most of the best teams in the country.
“We were elated with how the season went,” said James Taylor, assistant debate coach. “We were consistently beating regional rivals, like Kansas State and Texas-Austin, and nationally competitive heavy-hitters.”
But competitive success is only a small part of the team’s accomplishments this year. ESU Debate puts a high premium on academic success and it has paid-off this year with stellar academic performance and honors by team members.
Debate is time consuming if one wants to compete at the national level. Students spend about one and a half months on the road every season. They practice and research for hours and hours every week. Yet members of the ESU debate team have still maintained a squad GPA of well over a 3.00.
Furthermore, team captain Kelly Thompson was voted a First-Team Scholastic All-American. “This is truly an elite honor,” Maurer said, “and you can tell by who was standing up there with Kelly — the best debaters in the country from Dartmouth, Harvard, Emory, and UC Berkeley.”
This is the second season in a row that an ESU debater has received top honors as a Scholastic All-American. Last year, Tiara Naputi was honored as a Scholastic All-American and is now working toward her Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Austin.
The other half of ESU FT, Fifelski also had a great year academically. On top of maintaining a good GPA, Fifelski was published in Berkeley”s Journal of Undergraduate Studies. The paper, an application of post-modern security studies to U.S. foreign policy toward Iran, was based on extensive research Fifelski had done on this year’s debate topic.
LaToya Green, a freshman communication major on the ESU debate team, was elected the president of the Black Student Union at ESU. “It is fairly rare for this position to be awarded to a frosh so I’m very excited about this,” Green said. Green is active in several ESU student organizations.
“LaToya is very promising,” Taylor said. “Her marquee win this year was against Kansas State’s top team of Beth Mendenhall and Kyle Zarazan.” The team of LaToya Green and Jeremy Beach defeated KSU MZ at the district tournament, pulverizing their hopes of receiving a bid to the NDT through the non-at-large process.
The ESU debate team also was active on campus, hosting several events. ESU Debate hosted the British and Japanese international debate teams, held a debate workshop for Kansas high school students, hosted an alumni reunion in January, and, as they do every year, hosted the George R. R. Pflaum Debate Tournament which drew hundreds of participants and coaches.
The debate season is over now. Yet the team is still working on next season’s topic. Fifelski alone has read six books in the last three weeks, in addition to studying for finals. Many other members will do the same.
“We”re looking forward to next year,” said Maurer. “This has been a great season for us in every aspect of the program. But we want to keep raising the bar, so we will try to have an even better season next year.”