On September 25, 2009 Trinity Debate went to Houston to lead a seminar workshop on case building for Houston Urban Debate League (check out the pictures in our photo galleries).  Eleven students of all grade levels, majors, and experience levels participated in the event.  Baker Duncan debate scholarship students along with students who had never seen a policy debate round came to volunteer.  Around 250 underprivileged students came to the seminar at Furr Senior High School.  They all met in the auditorium of the high school for a brief overview of the day and the schedule and introductions from the Trinity Debate Team.  After that they broke up into smaller groups and members of Trinity Debate led one of the seminar groups.  We spent the rest of the day working directly with these students to prepare them for their first tournament. 

The students were great and super excited about debate and glad to have the extra help.  Most of their coaches are teachers or former debaters who only know a little about debate, so it was a really good experience for them to be able to work with debaters who are currently competing on the colligate debate circuit.  The volunteers with less experience in policy debate were able to assist in interacting with the students and being positive.  They were able to help them with confidence and basic public speaking skills as well as just being enthusiast and uplifting to make the experience fun.  So many thanks to all of the people who were able to make this experience possible: Jarrod Atchison, Andrew Hansen, Lupita Puentes, Nick Honegger, Mitch Hagney, Nathan Dupont, Jacob Uzman, Jake Muncy, Jena Daggett, Krystal Rountree, Sarah Clemons, Emily Hall, and Sabrina Frank.

The Urban Debate League is a wonderful organization to assist with.  Urban Debate League is currently in 18 cities across the country.  Policy debate which the students in Urban Debate League help them to acquire literacy, critical thinking, research skills, communication, confidence, public speaking abilities, organization, and argumentation skills.  Debate also helps many of these students get accepted into college as well as help them to receive scholarship and financial aid money to be able to afford college.  The debate community also provides a strong support system and community of people to help these students to achieve.  Former debaters are disproportionately represented among leaders in the media, the business word, the law, the academy, and the government. Nearly two out of three Members of the 104th U.S. Congress (1996-97) were former debaters.

 This trip will hopefully also help to show the national headquarters of the Urban Debate League that there is a support system in place from students and professors of Trinity University if there were to be an Urban Debate League in San Antonio.  Because of the benefits of Urban Debate League, it would be wonderful if the program were to be able to be in San Antonio as well.  Please contact me if you have any interest in volunteering with the Houston Urban Debate League or in being a part of the campaign for having an Urban Debate League in San Antonio.

Thanks!

Lauren Williams