Seawolf Debaters take the world by storm

They've performed well all season and suspected they might make a solid showing at the World Universities Debating Championships, but even the members of the Seawolf Debate team that traveled to the University of Botswana over the holiday break didn't expect to turn in the record-breaking performance they chalked up at the 2011 World Championships.

The Seawolf Debate squad ended the tournament with the top seeded team from the U.S., the top ranked individual speaker from America and accumulated more points as a squad than any UAA contingent ever to attend the tournament.

"Worlds," as it's known informally, is the oldest, largest and most prestigious annual international debating tournament. Now in its 31st year, the tournament has more than 300 debating teams representing colleges and universities from around the world. This year's tournament featured 320 student teams representing 160 universities from more than 40 countries. The United States entered the most teams from a single nation, with 69 teams from 26 universities, including Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, MIT and Cornell.

Competition in intercollegiate debating is not segregated by divisions like the familiar NCAA structure of intercollegiate sports in the U.S. Dominated by debating powerhouses like Cambridge, Oxford, the University of Sydney and Yale, Worlds offers a truly open playing field: UAA's students had to compete against -- and beat -- students from the most respected institutions in the world.

The Seawolves took on tough motions covering political, philosophical and cultural issues, with specific topics ranging from whether the South African Development Council should include a political dimension to whether national sports teams should be comprised of participants that reflect the ethnic makeup of the nation they represent. Topics for the debates change round by round, with students learning the exact wording of the topic and the position they will be expected to argue only 20 minutes prior to the start of the round. In preparation, the Seawolves spend hours and hours each week following national and international news, familiarizing themselves with a wide range of topics and scrimmaging in practice debates.

The tournament is separated into two phases: nine preliminary rounds in which all teams entered compete and are seeded based on their performance and a single-elimination phase in which only the top 32 teams in the competition get a shot at the World Championship. Given the number of teams entered in this year's competition, only one in 10 teams had a chance to "break" into the elimination phase.

Only five American teams made the break: two from Yale, one from the University of Vermont and two from UAA. This is the first time that UAA has advanced two teams to the elimination phase of the tournament. Of the two UAA teams, the top Alaska team -- made up of Akis Gialopsos (senior, International Relations) and Amie Stanley (junior, Political Science) were the top seeded American team, breaking 16th out of the 320 teams after the nine preliminary rounds. This was the highest break ever for a UAA team at the World Championships and a position that established them as the top breaking team from the U.S. The other Alaska team to advance to the elimination rounds -- made of up Amy Parrent (sophomore, Political Science) and Brett Frazer (junior, Biology) -- advanced into the elimination rounds in the 22nd seed. This was particularly impressive, since this was Frazer's and Parrent's first trip to Worlds.

While both of UAA's teams put up a strong fight in the first elimination round, both were knocked out by incredibly strong teams from Monash University (of Australia-and the eventual winner of the Championship), King's Inn (an Irish law school) and Oxford.

The crowning achievement of the tournament, though, was that Akis Gialopsos was ranked the 27th individual speaker out of the 640 students entered in the competition, marking him as the top speaker from the U.S. and in the top 4 percent of speakers at the tournament.

Last year's competition, hosted by Koç University of Turkey, had the Seawolves setting a team record of 65 team points, more than any previous contingent from Alaska. This year's team beat that record by acquiring 66 team points, enough to place them 11th among the 160 schools.

Perhaps most meaningful is that all four of the students who performed so well -- and for that matter, all eight of the students who represented UAA at the World Championships -- are Alaskans. Gialopsos attended Dimond High; Stanley graduated from Chugiak High; Frazer is an alumnus of Service High and Parrent came to UAA from Sitka High School. Other UAA students competing in the event were Colin Haughey (a junior in Philosophy and a graduate of Service High), Michaela Hernandez (senior, Philosophy and East High alumna), Drew Cason (junior, Environment and Society and West High graduate) and Wiley Cason (sophomore in Political Science and West High alumnus).

The Seawolves are optimistic that their performance will improve their overall world rankings as published by the World Universities Debating website. They currently are 12th in the world and tied for second in the U.S. with Harvard, behind only Yale. The updated rankings typically are published in late January.

From here, the Seawolf Debate program begins to concentrate on local events, with a slate of programs scheduled for the spring semester. They'll open with the Cabin Fever Debates, UAA's intramural debating competition, on Jan. 25. In mid-February, the team hosts the Alaska State High School Drama, Debate and Forensic competition on campus. Finally, the Irish national champion debating team will include UAA in a stop on their tour of the U.S. on March 24-26.

For more information, please contact Steve Johnson, Director of Debating at (907) 786-4391 or Shawn Briscoe, Debate Coach at (907) 786-4354.