August 1, 2005
FRIDAY - College Policy Begins, College Parli Arrives
WDI FEATURES WIDELY AVAILABLE COMPUTER LABS DEVOTED TO DEBATE STUDENTS
The College Policy workshop kicked off today with a bang. Students gathered inb the Royall Tlter Theatre for the opening session. This was immediately followed by two hours of background topic lectures by Prof. Snider, who has been to China several times in recent years and was an undergraduate major in Asian Civilization while at Brown. He covered geography, 4000 years of Chinese history with a focus on post revolutionary China, the philosophies of Confucianism andf Chinese Buddhism, government structure, economy, and minority populations. Following lunch Joe Schatz of Binghamton lectured for an hour on China's relations with other nations and then Jackie massey of Oklahoma gave a historical review of China's relations with the USA. All of these, and all other topic lectures, are videotaped so that students can take home versions of them on CD to share, and they will also be archived on the Debate Central website [debate.uvm.edu].
Students then had a social break that also involved a task -- finding a debate partner. When people found partners they came before a tribunal and declared their willingness to debate together. After that, it was off to dinner.
Following dinner all policy students attended a panel discussion on debate ethics where numerous difficult scenarios were presented for open discussion. Following this advanced debaters heard a presentation on non-counterplan theory argumentation while basic and beginner debaters attended a workshop on flowing.
An important part of the College Policy Debate workshop is the NFA LD Debate Workshop. These students, who debate in the NFA LD format (one-on-one policy debate) also will have an Asian topic area so the research will dovetail nicely. This growing format is well-represented by excellent students.
Posted by at 4:43 PM | Comments (22638)
THURSDAY - Intl Continues, College Policy Arrives
WDI OFFERS DISTANCE LEARNING PACKAGES FOR MANY OF ITS PROGRAMS
The International Debate program continued with practice debates and lectures about argument construction and refutation. Reports indicate that the attendees are rapidly improving andf will soon be ready to join American debaters arriving on Friday.
The College Policy attendees arrived today. Many had no problems but some were detained by bad weather while on their way. Their program begins on Friday and the national debate topic will be announced Friday around midday.
Posted by at 4:37 PM | Comments (185)
July 28, 2005
WEDNESDAY -- International Program Begins
Steve Llano judging a high school debate
International students got a chance to familiarize themselves with Burlington, the campus as well as the library. John Meany and Bojana Skrt began a three day program designed to prepare the international students to work with the college parliamentary debaters who arrive on Friday.
The WDI faculty took some richly derserved time off while the staff started gearing up for the arrival of College Policy Debaters on Thursday.
Posted by at 11:24 AM | Comments (369)