UO Forensics

While most University of Oregon students were stressing about exams during the final weeks of spring term, Alan Tauber and Heidi Ford, both political science majors, were under a different kind of stress. As the clock ticked down, the pair had to formulate arguments against jury nullification, battling for supremacy against some of the best parliamentary debate teams in the nation at the National Parliamentary Tournament of Excellence, held at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. At the end of the final, grueling forty-minute debate, Tauber and Ford emerged victorious. "This team’s well-honed debating skills, experience, hard work, and natural talent made them clearly the best in the nation," says David Frank, director of the Robert D. Clark Honors College and of the UO academic forensics program. Only the top forty-eight parliamentary debate teams in the nation qualify for the NPTE, which brings together both the National Parliamentary Debate Association and the American Parliamentary Debate Association. The UO team has been ranked in the top ten nationally all year, and entered the NPTE ranked sixth. Parliamentary debate resembles the British model of parliament, in which one two-student team argues in favor of a resolution and the opposing two-student team argues against it. Teams must simultaneously present their side while undermining the opposition’s argument. The majority of debate is extemporaneous -- one of the biggest challenges of debate is learning to formulate arguments on one’s feet. The UO Forensics Program, which began in 1876, has remained popular and strong through the decades. The parliamentary debate program was founded in 1998, and a year later, Tauber and his then-partner Michael Nguyen finished in the top sixteen at the National Debate Championship.

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