The Monmouth University Debate Team, the Debate Hawks, received five trophies at the Rutgers University Tournament held November 18 to 20. The tournament included 70 teams from 14 universities including NYU, West Point, Boston College, and Fordham University. Monmouth University debaters Alexandria Todd and Dan Roman made it to the final four semifinal rounds after making it through three playoff rounds against teams from Liberty University (VA) and West Virginia University. Todd also took a 3rd place individual speaking award in a division that included over 80 individual debaters.
Monmouth University debaters Brandon Karkovice and Alexandria Matz, and Jennifer Sime and Vincent DeTommaso scored playoff victories against teams from NYU and the New School. Andrew Bell and Mark Cosentino also made it to the playoff rounds, losing on a close 2-1 ballot to a team from Liberty University. The Debate Hawks brought back five trophies from the tournament. Arielle Giordano and Miriam Peguero, Kelly Craig and Jordan Di Giovanni, Olivia Mills and Tyler Breder, Samual Maynor and Joe Dellera, Lianne Kulik and Parker Ritzdorf, Angela Lucas and Brad Landau, and Andrew Bell and Shawna Sullivan also scored impressive victories at the tournament.
Each year, a topic is picked to be debated at every tournament. The topic for this year was Resolved: The United States Federal Government Should Substantially Increase its Democracy Assistance for One or More of the Following: Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen. The Debate Hawks organized and wrote a case on how best to improve democratic assistance for Yemen and debate it when on the affirmative. There were six preliminary rounds, each lasting approximately two hours, and each team argued on the affirmative in three rounds and on the negative for three rounds. Teams that compiled a winning record in the preliminary rounds went on to the playoff rounds on Sunday.
The Debate Hawks would like to thank former debaters and Monmouth alum Richard Moriarty, Grant Lucking, and Arielle Bavarsky for helping to coach the team and for judging at Rutgers this weekend.
For more information, contact Dr. Joseph Patten atjpatten@monmouth.edu.