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BY HANNAH PURKEY

In print | April 3, 2008

Both the varsity and novice debate teams of Swarthmore’s Amos J. Peaslee Debate Society were successful in the Skidmore College Invitational. The varsity team of Chris Sawyer ’10 and Cyrus Stoller ’10 beat Harvard and Brandeis to win the tournament, and the novice team of Chenge Mahomva ’11 and Carlo Felizardo ’11 placed second.

Sawyer was chosen as the fourth varsity speaker, and for the novice team Mahomva placed as the third top speaker and Felizardo placed fifth.

“did really well in this tournament,” Felizardo said. “I think it was our best performance yet.”

According to Sawyer, the strong success of both teams was encouraging considering Swarthmore has a young team with no upperclassmen.

“Both the varsity and novice teams were good,” he said. “It shows we have good people coming up through the ranks.”

The team debates in the American Parliamentary debate circuit, which features two teams of two debaters each with a total of six speeches of varying length on a resolution that the affirmative team usually chooses, according to the American Parliamentary Debate Association’s Web site. The Association features weekly debates, most of which are attended by at least one team of Swarthmore debaters, according to Sawyer.

Although the team is young, it has had experience in both the American circuit and the world debate circuit.

“We did well in a lot of the international tournaments,” Stoller said. “But it’s a different style of debate. America has its own style whereas the rest of the world uses a different one, so we don’t have quite as much experience.”

The team traveled to Thailand for a tournament over winter break as well as to Oxford for a tournament in November, according to Stoller.

Travel for international debates is made possible by the endowment the team was left in 1969 from Amos Peaslee, a Swarthmore debate alum after whom the team is named.

The team has been trying to host more debates for students to be introduced to debate and the Swarthmore team.

“We are trying to bring a little bit more debate to campus, so people can see what we do,” Stoller said.

The team always welcomes new debaters and is looking for judges for the tournaments it hosts. “It’s a great way to hear some interesting arguments and see some high quality debate,” Stoller said. “We even have prizes for the best judges.”

The biggest tournament in the team’s future is the American Parliamentary Nationals on April 11-12 at MIT, where Stoller and Sawyer will be competing and many other debate members will be coming as judges.

“It’s going to be a much tougher field so we will give it our best shot,” Sawyer said. “There is no telling how it’s going to go, but it should be fun.”

In addition, the team hosted a tournament between themselves and the University of Pennsylvania last night in Science Center 199, though the results of that tournament (the “Quaker Showdown”) were not available at press time. The motion to be debated at the tournament was whether or not “good things come to those who wait.”

For students who are interested in debating or would like to watch, the team has meetings on Monday and Thursdays at 8:00 p.m. in Tarble 306 and holds a British Parliamentary round every Wednesday at 10 p.m. in Kohlberg 228.

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