Projects and Programs

The WDC provides three major categories of support to schools and debate teams in the area: incentives, infrastructure, and promotional support. We believe that strengthening incentives for students to participate in debate, building infrastructure for schools and students to run successful debate teams, and promoting debate as an activity are the three pillars of creating a sustainable debate community in Washington State.

Incentives

The WDC currently provides a number of incentives for students to participate in high school debate, including opportunities to meet successful professionals who were former debaters, scholarships for college, scholarship to attend debate institutes, and tournament settings in which students can interact and form friendships.

Future incentives will include start-up grants to new high school and college debate programs, expanded scholarship programs, and internship and grant programs for coaching Washington high school debate programs.

Infrastructure

The WDC employs a broad definition of infrastructure that includes building a strong community of supporters of debate, ensuring the availability of resources, and building teams at individual schools. Operating from the premise that strong regional programs, at both the high school and college levels, are necessary to the sustainability of debate, we encourage the development of new programs under the mentorship of existing programs.

Currently, the WDC provides infrastructural support to debate programs in the state by facilitating new program development, identifying and placing coaches, offering low-cost debate workshops, building educational, fun, and healthy tournament environments, contacting and organizing supporters of debate, and facilitating interactions between established and new programs in the state. This year, the WDC placed coaches at Ingraham High School and Ballard High School, hosted a successful novice workshop at the University of Washington, held the annual Becky Galentine Memorial Round Robin at the University of Washington, organized several alumni events, and encouraged existing high school and college programs to support up and coming debate programs in the state.

Future support for debate infrastructure will expand existing programs and improve access to research resources, establish mentorship programs for high school students, and encourage the use of debate as a means of civic engagement.

Promotional support

Promotional support includes fostering knowledge about debate, encouraging a positive view of debate as an activity, and garnering support for debate and debate programs in the state. In order to promote debate, the WDC maintains an updated website, Facebook page, Twitter feed, and mailing list, reaches out to local and state news media, hosts a number of alumni events, including the annual Spring Fling, held in May, and holds workshops for coaches and students throughout Seattle.

Future promotional events will expand existing programs, especially networking in the broader Washington community, a debate film festival, public debate events, and informational campaigns about debate.

Current Programming

The WDC regularly reports current programming, events, and news. Please read our Blog and Latest News for information about upcoming tournaments, workshops, and promotional events. And, if you have any suggestions, questions, or comments please email us at info@washingtondebate.org. We would love to hear from you!