Forensic
team debates with innovation
By Brian Brannon
On-line Forty-Niner
Down
the hallowed halls of Northwestern University,
in a classroom set aside for a national
competitive speaking event, a young man
with long red hair and a button-down shirt
steps up to the podium.
Dave Peterson is a junior mechanical engineering
major and member of the Cal State Long Beach
forensic team. His focus is policy debate
and today’s topic is international treaties,
specifically the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights.
The opposing team has made its case to uphold
the death penalty, which the treaty seeks
to overturn. They presented their facts
in a clear, dignified and persuasive manner.
They quoted experts, cited studies and listed
statistics.
Now, it is Peterson’s turn. He plays some
rap music.
The Long Beach State Forensic Team, also
known as the CSULB Speech and Debate Team,
has had a successful string of accomplishments.
Last month, the team defeated UCLA to win
the Winter in the Sun tournament at Cal
State Fullerton. The team then went to Austin,
Tex., for a national intercollegiate tournament
with the goal of placing in the top five.
They came away champions.
Next came a national preview tournament
at Pt. Loma University against 84 other
colleges and universities from across the
nation. Once again, CSULB came home with
gold, earning almost twice as many points
of the second place team, the United States
Air Force Academy.
The team’s willingness to take a bold approach
to the traditional tactics of debate is
one of the secrets of its success. Hip-hop
is just one technique CSULB uses to get
its point across. Poetic, narrative and
philosophical approaches are some of the
other methods the team employs.
But playing rap music, such as songs from
a CD to raise money for the legal defense
fund of death-row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal,
is unique to the Beach. It is a way to focus
the death penalty debate on the people who
are most likely to be affected by it and
a way to acknowledge the rich hip-hop tradition
of Long Beach.
Policy debate coach Toni Nielson, a graduate
assistant and teaching assistant in communication
studies, said the technique helps CSULB
stand out from the crowd.
“We’re okay when critics raise their eyebrows,
because it means we’ve got their attention,”
she said.
The team participates in parliamentary debate,
policy debate and individual events where
students give speeches to persuade or inform.
Over the past few years, CSULB has racked
up an impressive list of competitive victories.
Assistant director of forensics Ann Johnson
attributes the team’s success to Matthew
Taylor, the director of the program. Over
the years, Taylor has worked to recruit
promising community college students into
the program, as well as graduate students
to work with the team as coaches.
“He’s just done an amazing job of attracting
talent to the program, and it’s had a snowball
effect,” Johnson said.
The practice of debate hearkens back to
a group of teachers in ancient Greece known
as the Sophists who boasted they could convince
the multitudes of anything they wished.
Finding the truth was not important to them,
but for a price they would use their abilities
to win any argument.
Though modern collegiate debate teams often
must present both sides of a given topic,
Taylor said the goal of the CSULB Forensic
Team is to teach students to present their
beliefs with accuracy and conviction. “We
think of it as an activity that trains our
students to be better speakers so that they
can take a stance on positions they do believe
in strongly,” she said.
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