King’s Debate travels to the Netherlands

During winter break, Audrey Cooper (‘18) and Grayson Logue (‘18) traveled to the Netherlands, home of tulip festivals, canal skating, and the International Court of Justice, to compete at the World Universities Debating Championship hosted at the Hague. Over 750 students from around the globe spent a week discussing topics including the distribution of wealth in sports leagues, gender-based affirmative action, South Korean nuclear weapons, and unregulated urban development strategies. Coach Josiah Peterson also represented The King’s Debate Society (KDS) as a judge.

Cooper and Logue are the first team of juniors that KDS has sent to the World Championship, and over the course of nine preliminary rounds, they debated against students from more than 12 countries, beating teams from Greece, Spain, England, and Japan, among others.  “I’m proud of Audrey and Grayson’s performance attending their first World Championship,” said coach Peterson. “Most students don’t see comparative success at Worlds until their second or third competition.  I’m excited that King’s has such a strong bench of talent that we may be entering a period when we are able to send the same team to this competition more than once.”

“I’m especially grateful that we had the opportunity to meet and talk with so many debaters from other countries during the competition,” said Cooper. “We had conversations about everything from Holocaust denial with students from Germany, to the nature of political protests with a team from Venezuela. Hearing the Venezuelan debaters tell us about the protests on their campus, and share about their friends who have been imprisoned for expressing political opinions really put things into perspective for me. We don’t go to all this effort to debate because we want to check the box on some academic achievement. Learning how to articulate your ideas and advocate for truth is a high-stakes activity. The skills that we all gain here are critical to influencing institutions and ultimately changing society for the better.”

Peterson observed, “It’s always interesting to judge at the World Championship because debaters can’t take as many assumptions for granted when dealing with a mixed panel of international judges.  For example, a Korean student’s ideas about urban development may differ from a Colombian judge’s, or a Singaporean’s perspective on the role of government may differ from a Dutch person’s.  Regionally balanced judge panels check against provincialism and lazy argumentation.  That’s why it’s so important that King’s competes in the most internationally competitive debate league, gaining access to the global marketplace of ideas.”

After the tournament, the team toured the The Peace Palace, home of the United Nations International Court of Justice and the Permanent Court of Arbitration. Coach Peterson also had the opportunity to visit the ten Boom House (aka “the Hiding Place”) in Haarlem where King’s house namesake Corrie Ten Boom smuggled and hid supplies and Jews for the Dutch resistance during World War II.

King’s Debate has a full schedule for the rest of 2017, sending teams to the Novice National Championship, Eastern Regional Championship, Pan-American Championship in California, and the U.S. University Debate Championship in Colorado. King’s will also host its sixth annual Empire Debates tournament at the Broadway campus on March 25-26, 2017.

For more than 75 years, The King’s College has educated young leaders to integrate their faith, ethics, and morality seamlessly into their lives and careers. The only traditional Christian liberal arts college or university located in the heart of New York City, King’s prepares students for principled leadership around the world. Visit tkc.edu for more information or request a personalized visit by calling 888-969-7200