SDI Faculty Demonstration Debate and Discussion
The Spartan Debate Institute at Michigan State University held its annual Faculty Demonstration Debate this week in East Lansing. With all four- and five-week students in attendance, the debate featured a showdown between faculty members with a combined five appearances in the semifinals of the National Debate Tournament:
- Kevin Kallmyer, University of Mary Washington ‘10 — 2010 NDT Semifinalist
- Gabe Murillo, Wayne State University ‘07 — 2006 and 2007 NDT Semifinalist, 2007 NDT Top Speaker
- Greta Stahl, Michigan State University ‘04 — 2004 NDT Champion, 2002 NDT Semifinalist
- Carly Wunderlich, Michigan State University ‘10 — 2010 NDT Champion
Kevin and Carly represented the affirmative and argued that the United States should withdraw its combat forces from Afghanistan in order to maintain hegemony and stabilize both Pakistan and Central Asia. Greta and Gabe countered with several arguments but eventually settled in their final rebuttal on a Midterms disadvantage and takeouts to the affirmative case.
The debate was moderated by Will Repko, the coach of the 2010 National Debate Tournament Champions. Repko has now coached three NDT Champions in the last seven years and is widely regarded as one of the nation’s best debate educators—he uses the demonstration debate to discuss a wide range of strategic and tactical issues with the audience.
The video of the debate is divided into two parts and is available below the fold.
Part One: Intro through 2NC CX
Part Two: 2NC CX through 2AR
I like that the audience gets to ask questions–to keep them more engaged during the speeches.
I also like the metaphor that Will draws about the need for a combination of appetizers and entrees in the 1AR.
The exercise of debaters thinking about “moments” and “connections” Will leverages also is one effective way to think about argument credibility.
Interesting demo debate. Thanks for posting…
Were they intentionally slowing down for clarity for the students?
yea, they normally do in camp demo debates
i think its funny how debaters never lose their competitive spirit and greta stahl can still give speeches fairly fast
what does she mean around 53-54 in the second video when she says only a risk of link turns, which is pretty good defense? Obviously, I understand the link turn argument, but how does this translate into good defense? On what?
Clarity/Efficiency makes things seem a lot slower than they really are.
can someone answer my question, por favor? Its post number 5.
@josh
Haven’t viewed the debate, but what you typed seems to be a joke. “Offense is the best (or at least pretty good) Defense.”
Since they are going for link turns without uniqueness, its not offense. What the link turn does do is disprove the thesis of their link argument, hence it is defense.
well, thanks, but whit I dont understand how it seems to be a joke? Do you think I was kidding or that my question was stupid?
Just a misunderstanding. jokes or a person’s intent are hard to interpret online
@Josh
I think what whit means it that the scenario you typed was meant to be a joke.
Yeah, I think Carly was making a joke.
“G-A-B GABE”
lol suneed.
Balz, haha. Oh Gabe.
Also: you can’t see the awesome panda sign we did, disappointing.