The Bard Debate Union began the 2012-2013 season with a BANG this past weekend at the University of Rochester Debate Tournament. 17 students traveled with coaches, Ruth Zisman and David Register, to compete at the tournament. And compete we did! In the end, the team brought home 6 total awards! The parliamentary debate team of Shaya French ’15 and Ian Busher ’13 advanced to elimination rounds and concluded the tournament as quarterfinalists, tied for 5th place. It should also be noted that parliamentary team of Hanze Song ’15 and Lenny Simon ’13 had an excellent tournament, missing the elimination rounds by just one point. The policy teams of Sam Jaffe-Goldstein ’13 and Anna Daniszewski ’15 and John Jeworski ’15 and Max Taylor-Milner ’15 also made an impressive showing. Despite taking a big jump from the novice division to varsity division this year, both teams advanced to elimination rounds, competing in very close quarterfinal rounds and concluding the tournament tied for 5th place. Additionally Bard received 3 speaker awards this weekend: Max Taylor-Milner was named 9th speaker, Sam Jaffe-Goldstein was 7th, and John Jeworski was named 2nd overall speaker at the tournament. Four novice debaters also attended the tournament (Nick Luongo ’16, Diana Ruggiero ’16, Theo Lowrey ’16, and Samantha Sacks ’16) so we congratulate them for successfully surviving their first debate tournament! Special thanks also to student debate coach, Michael Luxemburg, for his tireless work with the policy teams and to student judges, Lee Gensler ’14, Stephanie Presch ’15, Ariana Stultz ’15, and Yelena Alashkevich ’15 for their work this weekend! Go Bard Debate!
