Erica Maurice
Staff Writer
The University of La Verne debate team hosted the World Universities Peace Invitational Debate tournament on Saturday and Sunday.
The winners of the tournament were Harriet Randolph and Stephen Beadon from the United States Air Force Academy.
The La Verne team of Decker and French placed second, with Thomas Allison and Jonathan Singleton placing third.
La Verne debaters Samuel French and Carl Decker earned speaker points, placing fourth and fifth overall respectively.
“Many of these schools are very competitive,” debate coach John Patrick said.
Teams included ULV, Claremont-McKenna College, UC Davis, Irvine Valley College, Cal State Fullerton, University of Southern California, Loyola Marymount University and USAFA.
This debate allowed the winners to be eligible to attend the WUPID tournament in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
The team hosting also gets eligibility to go to the tournament. The tournament consisted of eight rounds split between the two days.
Since the La Verne debate team is ranked as one of the top 50 universities and colleges eligible to participate in Malaysia, they did not need to host or win this tournament.
“It went well, we had a great turn out,” junior Will Silberman, whose job was director of the tab, said.
The director of the tab places the participating teams in rooms and keeps score of each speaker in the tournament.
“It was a great turn out, in my experience, ULV tournaments tend to be small,” senior political science and speech communications major, Aaron Colby said. “I’ve been surprised at the large and ultimately good showing.”
“We have some strong competition so it has been a great tournament,” senior debater Ava Jahanvash said.
Topics in this debate ranged from banning gay conversion to abolishing voter I.D. laws for voting.
“This is a great opportunity, having the chance to go to Malaysia, even though we probably won’t go,” said USAFA coach Jinna Iberri-Shea.
ULV had already competed against some of these teams in the U.S. Open.
“This is a great way to go head to head with them again,” Patrick said.
“It was a great way to get to know debaters from around the country,” said Colby.
“A great way to practice our debating skills in a safe environment, for the most part.”
Erica Maurice can be reached at erica.maurice@laverne.edu.
Correction
An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified one of the debaters in the photo. The incorrect name has been removed. The Campus Times regrets the error.
