With their first tournament looming in the distance, the debate  team spent August preparing members for the season.  Debate club, sponsored by Julie Love, has grown in members, and the leaders are focused on teaching the new members and preparing them for future seasons.

“I’m hoping that between the captains and the other varsity members we’ll be able to train Debate 2’s to move effectively and to be able to get that research skill that’s necessary to be at varsity level of debate.” captain Conner Dimatteo said, “I’m just hoping that we are all mentoring and collaborating effectively, so there’s not a single one of us that feels left out.”

Last year, the debate students were separated by level, a rule that has been changed for this season.  Combining the new members with the veteran debaters is a new directive from the club in their emphasis of leadership this year.  With their numbers nearly doubling, Debate club expects the rising members to embrace the community mindset, and to mentor their peers.

realized that it took away a lot of the mentor-ship that this program emphasizes, so it would cause incoming debaters to lack that mentor-ship ability,” captain Andrew Corrado said.

Debate looks to qualify for nationals this year, but “foster [the] talent” in their younger members which help them bridge the gap of members between themselves and other schools with much bigger clubs. National tournaments are held at Yale, Berkeley and Harvard.

Debate will have their fall gathering on Saturday Sept. 10, where they will train their judges and on Sept. 24 they will have their first tournament.