Parliamentary Union opens 2008-09 season with success
The Wabash College Parliamentary Union brought home several awards from the Purdue Boilermaker Speech and Debate Tournament this last weekend (Sept. 12-14, 2008). A total of twenty-two students participated in all or part of the tournament in some fashion, resulting in a fourth place team finish for Wabash College in Individual Events.
The Parliamentary Debate team of Donovan Bisbee' 12 and Victor Nava '09 advanced to the octa-finals, finishing as one of the top sixteen teams from a field of forty-five teams. They also brought home fourth best speaker (Nava) and third best speaker (Bisbee) awards out of a field of ninety-debaters.
In individual speaking events, Rob Bloss '08 finished fourth in Impromptu Speaking and Donovan Bisbee ‘12 finished third in Extemporaneous Speaking. Donovan also won the top Novice Award for Extemporaneous Speaking in his first tournament as a collegiate.
Prof. Timmerman also attended the tournament and served as a judge for debate and individual speaking events.
a final round debate for their opposition on the topic “The United States should normalize relations with Cuba.” Steve Ellis ’09 and Kevin Travis McLaughlin ‘09, the 2007 DSR-TKA champions, finished third. In addition, Gussman was recognized as the top individual speaker in parliamentary debate while McLaughlin finished fifth. This year’s debates focused primarily on United States policies and politics as in addition to the final round topic, debaters were asked to consider topics such as “The U.S. federal government should become more involved in Latin America,” “The U.S. federal government should increase NASA funding,” and “The United States should adopt universal health care.”
Wabash has long been a member of DSR-TKA, the only national forensics honor society. Delta Sigma Rho was formed in 1906 by faculty at a number of Midwestern institutions. Tau Kappa Alpha was born in Indianapolis in 1908, a student society initially formed by Butler, Earlham, DePauw, Notre Dame and Wabash (Wabash was represented at the founding by students Walter H. Linn and Lawrence Devore). In 1963 TKA (denoting “Honor for Merit”) merged with DSR (denoting Oratory is Power). Joining returning DSR-TKA members Robert Bloss and Grant Gussman, this year Kevin Travis McLaughlin was initiated as a new member of the organization (see picture at left). In becoming members students accept an ethical pledge to “encourage in others a high standard of excellence in the use of the spoken word” and “never to speak so as to mislead others or to deny any person or group the rightful liberty to be heard.” Throughout the years, Wabash has won many awards at DSR-TKA, including national championships in debate, persuasive and extemporaneous speaking, and student congress. The DSR-TKA tournament is taking at least a temporary hiatus, to be replaced by an undergraduate research conference with a particular focus on forensics. Wabash will remain a member of the organization.
All five Wabash College students who participated in the tournament earned at least one award, propelling Wabash to a fifth place finish. Leading the way was Parliamentary Union’s Speaker of the House, Grant Gussman ’09, who earned Wabash’s first varsity state championship in a number of years by winning Impromptu speaking. Gussman also finished third in the state in Extemporaneous speaking. Sophomore Victor Nava, Vice President of the Parliamentary Union, returned to Crawfordsville with two fourth place finishes—one in Extemporaneous speaking and the other in Poetry.