The Traveler

Issue date: 2/23/09 Section: News

Media Credit: Bailey McBride Brittany Hayes, Johnny Biggs, sponsor Eric Funkhouser, Sean Richards, Barbara Clinksclales, Marry Mann, Melven Lawrence and Stephen Minke celebrate their win of the Mardi Gras Classic trophy.

Imagine an Arkansas athletic team that has beaten Alabama, LSU, Oklahoma, Wisconsin and Marquette and is considered to be the class of the Southeastern Conference. Now imagine that team worrying about not being able to go to the national tournament next year - not for lack of talent but because they cannot afford to travel to the tournament. Welcome to the world of the Arkansas debate team.

"Since I've been here, we've swept the SEC every year," said Barbara Clinkscales, captain of the debate team. "I'm pretty sure we're in the top of the point standings now, but we won't know until the end of the year."

Coming off a third place finish at the Louisiana State University Mardi Gras Invitational, the debate team is enjoying a lot of success this year, Clinkscales said. At the LSU tournament, Arkansas defeated LSU, Alabama and Louisiana-Monroe, Clinkscales said. Three different teams advanced to the elimination rounds in three different categories, said Professor Eric Funkhouser, sponsor of the debate team, in an e-mail interview. The elimination rounds begin after six or eight rounds of preliminary debates, after which the eight teams with the best records debate against each other in a single elimination tournament, Funkhouser said.

"For each tournament, our goal is to have at least one team advance to the elimination rounds," Funkhouser said.

There are two types of debate, NPDA style and IPDA style, Clinkscales said. In NPDA style, two teams of two people are given a resolution such as "this house would increase taxes," Clinkscales said. One team is assigned the government side and would argue for the resolution, while the other side is assigned the negative side and would argue against the resolution, Clinkscales said. Teams win debates based on who had the better arguments, who brought up the most advantages to their own case, who brought up the most disadvantages for the other case and who were the better speakers, Clinkscales said. IPDA style debates are one-on-one debates where the resolutions are more straightforward, she said.

Continued...

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