Debate club ends 25-year silence

After 25 years of silence, the Debate Club at UCF is back and ready to reinstate itself as a nationally distinguished team.

On Feb. 12-14, UCF's new group of debaters will gather  in the Nicholson School of Communication with 21 other teams in the inaugural Jeff Butler "Ready, Aim, and Duck" invitational to defend their stances on this year's issue, which pertains to the number of immigrant or temporary-work visas, family-based visas and human trafficking-based visas.

The new team, formed by director of debate and instructor in the NSC, Sydne Kasle, will debate against teams from the University of Florida and the University of Miami, among others.

"Resurrecting a program is much different from starting a program," said Kasle, who reformed the team last fall. "This school has a rich and highly respectable history in the world of intercollegiate debate and it is very important that we honor the history as we move into the next era."

Kasle was introduced to the world of debate in 1986 (the same year UCF's team was discontinued) at Wayne State in Detroit, Mich., after she enrolled in an argumentation class, where she found she had a knack for debate. From there, she went on to coach several intercollegiate debate teams at universities such as Florida State, Syracuse and Minnesota's Winona State.

Now she hopes to reinstate UCF as one of the top intercollegiate debate teams in the country at this weekend's invitational, named in honor of Jeff Butler, who was one of the school's first debate leaders.

Butler, who is now an associate professor in the NSC, is glad that the debate program has been brought back.

"UCF was once nationally prominent in competitive debate," Butler said. "Reinstating a prominent debate program provides invaluable opportunities to our students, the university and the community."

Butler formed the team in 1970 when UCF was still known as Florida Technological University. UCF faced off against schools such as Harvard, Dartmouth, Cornell, Oxford and Cambridge.  The team also hosted the Soviet National Debate Team at the height of the Cold War era.

The team won countless awards and made appearances in several championships at the national level, in addition to being ranked No. 1 in the state of Florida for five years in a row.

This weekend's competition will consist of several rounds spread out over the two-day period, followed by an awards ceremony. Students will compete in a two-on-two policy debate in front of a panel of judges.

Competitors will be divided into three levels of skill: open, junior varsity and novice.

There will be a total of eight speeches per round as well as a cross-examination round. The four constructive speeches focus on the initial building of a team's case dependent upon their negative or affirmative stance. In between the constructive speeches is a cross-examination round, where teams have the opportunity to question their opponents on their stance.

The last four speeches are called the rebuttal speeches that focus on which team can uphold their case with the strongest argument.

Junior molecular biology and microbiology major Christina Vitolo and freshman political science major Emily Johns will be representing UCF in the junior varsity category.

Johns has been actively competing in debates for seven years in the National Christian Forensics and Communications Association, an organization that governs home school debate, and was thrilled to discover that UCF had revived its team.

"I love the competition," said Johns, who considers herself to be a very competitive person. "It's academic; it's keeping us involved and up-to-date on current events. It's a fine art that you can pursue to challenge yourself. It's a lot of fun."

Kasle said that if debaters aren't sleeping, they're probably researching. Johns agreed.

"What don't we do to prepare for the debates?" said Johns, who said he spends 25 to 30 hours a week researching for the competition. "It takes a lot of getting to know your topic, getting to know the people you're going up against."