By Jena Robinson, Special to the On-line Forty-Niner
April 17, 1997
This semester has resulted in national recognition for the Cal State Long Beach debate team. Members recently returned from speech competitions throughout the United States with awards for their skill in public speaking and debate.
Approximately 75 squad members compete each semester.
Twenty-five of these members, who have chosen to make speech and debate their main focus, compose the core competitive squad, said Matt Taylor, director of forensics and speech communications lecturer at CSULB.
The team consists of members from a wide variety of majors throughout the university, such as political science, history and the natural sciences.
"The mission of the debate team is to introduce students to academic and competitive forensics," said Taylor.
"Being on the debate team is a way to take practical knowledge and put it into experience. The outlets that forensics give people are so varied that it attracts all majors, as opposed to just speech communication."
According to Taylor, competitions are comprised of two elements: debate and individual public speaking.
Members choose to compete in one of these categories for national and regional titles in separate tournaments.
Each debate team or individual is assigned a graduate student to coach and help organize material for competition.
Taylor said select members of the debate team most recently competed against 200 teams from 80 universities at the Cross Examination Debate Association National Tournament in Wichita, Kan.
Other members who chose an individual public speaking emphasis competed in one of 11 categories against approximately 100 people in the National Individual Event Tournament in Arlington, Texas, Taylor said.
The topic for the Cross Examination Debate Association National Tournament was environmental pollution.
Each university proposed a regulation that it thought the government should consider in order to reduce pollution.
The CSULB debate team chose to speak about the necessary reduction of lead contamination in the radiator-repair industry, Taylor said.
Stacy Zack and Angela Aguayo are members of one team that represented CSULB at the Cross Examination Debate Association National Tournament.
According to Taylor, Zack received the All American Debate Award, which recognizes debate excellence, performance and success.
Aguayo received the Academic All American Debate Award, which honors students' outstanding grades and debate performance.
Thirty people from the across the United States were chosen for each of these awards.
Taylor said that Zack also received the Carl Bovero Award, which recognizes outstanding regional competitors who have donated time and effort to the community.
Nina Reich and Kevin Johnson are members of another debate team that represented CSULB at the Cross Examination Debate Association National Tournament.
This team won four out of eight competitions in the preliminary round.
They were one win away from competing in the elimination round for the national title.