The Rutgers contingent at Brandeis gathers after the narrow 3-2 loss in quarterfinals at the huge Brandeis tournament. Left to right: Adam Bomeisl, Henry Phipps, Storey Clayton, Alex Jubb, Ashley Novak, Jason Boyle, Chris Bergman, Phil Davidar, Rachel Moon, Nick Hansen, George Alukal, Kai Rau, Russell Potter, Nisha Kumar, Sean Leonard, Quinn Maingi, and Stine-Oksana Soomai.

The Rutgers University Debate Union (RUDU) ran its break streak to thirteen weekends and padded the lead for 3rd place in the College of the Year (COTY) standings with an octofinal win and quarterfinal appearance for Ashley Novak & Chris Bergman at Brandeis last weekend.

Here are the official accomplishments from Brandeis:
Chris Bergman & Ashley Novak – 7th Team
Ashley Novak – 9th Speaker

Bergman & Novak lost the narrowest quarterfinal decision to a team from Yale. Yale remains cemented in 1st place in the COTY standings with host Brandeis 2nd. However, Rutgers gained 7 more points over Johns Hopkins and Harvard this weekend, extending the lead for 3rd place with one regular-season weekend remaining. Rutgers’ lead over the two schools and the University of Chicago, which has been rising through the ranks in the last month, is all but insurmountable in the last weekend before the National Championships at the University of Maryland.

Rutgers will be sending five full teams to Nationals with its seven qualifications this year, both team records. The final squad will be announced this week, but will certainly consist of qualified debaters Novak, Bergman, Russell Potter, Adam Bomeisl, Quinn Maingi, Alex Jubb, and Sean Leonard.

On Monday afternoon, Nisha Kumar and Sean Leonard debated Alex Jubb and Bhargavi Sriram on the topic of whether it was ethical to ration certain healthcare procedures for some to ensure more complete healthcare access for all. Kumar & Leonard took the Government position that it was ethical, while Jubb & Sriram opposed. The debate was held in the West Lecture Hall of the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. Attended by over fifty UMDNJ students, the debate was lively and spirited and introduced by RUDU alumnus Kevin Parks ’11, a current UMDNJ medical student.

UMDNJ will be merging with Rutgers over the summer to become the Rutgers Medical School. The debate was the first in what will hopefully become a larger series of debates on healthcare policy and biomedical ethics in partnership between Rutgers Med and the Debate Union.

Tournament Director Deepta Janardhan (right) places the knight’s helmet over the head of the 2013 RU Invitational top speaker, Syracuse’s David Kopel. A different person has won top speaker at all thirteen Invitationals, with Maryland speakers winning thrice. Kopel is the first winner from Syracuse.

TD & Amendment Elections will take place on Thursday, April 25th at 9:00 PM in Murray 210.

Who will award the big shiny helmet in 2014?

Tournament Director Candidates:
Alex Jubb
Sean Leonard

Alex Jubb
Hey RUDU! I really want to be your Tournament Director next year! As most of you know, I’ve been Head Runner at the past two tournaments and have put in a ton of work. I think that my experience makes me uniquely qualified to be TD. I am familiar with the planning that needs to occur before the tournament and am comfortable working with the administration. Delegating tasks is also incredibly important. The Head Runner position required me to work with many different people and I think I have a good idea of what people’s strengths are so I can better delegate important tasks. As for the day of the tournament, it is most vital to be able to respond to problems quickly and efficiently. I learned a lot after my first experience as TD and was able to anticipate and avoid many problems this year, which made the tournament run much smoother. I’ll of course answer any specific questions that people may have during elections, but overall I think that I am most qualified and excited to be your Tournament Director.

Sean Leonard
I’m Sean Leonard, and I’m running for the position of Tournament Director next year. I’m currently a Novice in RUDU, moving forward to my second year of debate. I feel as though, while running the Rutgers tournament is a difficult task, I have the right set of skills and enthusiasm to perform effectively as TD.

My dedication to the team has been constant throughout this year. I managed to attend every tournament, and nearly every meeting of the team. In addition to these commitments, I’ve had no hesitation to go above and beyond my responsibilities as a regular team member. After participating in numerous public debates, helping with the camp, as well as helping in tab during our 2013 tournament this spring, I feel as though I’ve made it clear I’ll spare no expense to contribute to the overall benefit of the team as a whole.

Considering the fact that I’m only a Freshmen in debate, the majority of my experience comes from coordinating high school events in the past. However, I have a lot of experience coordinating public events from those circumstances, ranging from fundraisers for various clubs and organizations, to Model United Nations events, to coordinating clubs and teams in general from leadership positions. I’m no stanger to the intricacies of event planning, nor will I be caught unaware by the nuances that can, and have, strung up other school’s tournaments in the past.

Next year’s tournament will be a challenge to everyone on RUDU, considering it will likely be unopposed, and one of the largest of the spring semester. We need someone who is not only willing to put the time in, but can also unify people to work in the most cohesive manner we possible can. I’ve always worked alongside the other members of our team without fault, whether as partners is public events, debate itself, or just as a friend in general. The ability to coordinate people without conflict and without reservation is vital to making sure one of the most complex and comprehensive processes goes off without a hitch.

Overall, I can guarantee that the two most important qualities that result in a successful tournament, dedication and communication, can be fulfilled. And with the help of the rest of RUDU, I’m assured that the upcoming 2014 tournament will be one of the best, and one that has the potential to outdo the examples of each and every other school that year. I can only ask for the honor of being a central part of that.

Thank you.

Proposed Amendments:
EBoard Amendment: Judging Requirements
Llaveshi Amendment: Debate House Use
Phipps Amendment: Free Seed Points for Break Tournaments
Potter Amendment 1: Incapacitation Penalty
Potter Amendment 2: Punting Points
Potter Amendment 3: Free Seed Points for Pro-Ams
Williams Amendment: Novice Buddy Mentorship

EBoard Amendment: Judging Requirements
In the event that a tournament has a judging requirement and will otherwise break up teams at their discretion, we will break up registered teams and have both people on the given team judge by the following criteria:

There will be a policy of “last in, first out”. In other words, the people who sign up first for a given tournament will be given the highest priority to compete. Everyone at the meeting sign-up will be tied for the highest competition priority.

If you have judged at any tournament at any point in the year, then you are guaranteed to not be compelled to split off from your partner and judge for the duration of that year.

Anyone forced to judge rather than compete by this policy will receive 2.5 free seed points.

This policy only applies to breaking up a team to meet a judging requirement, not for a team cap at a place like Nationals, North Ams, etc. The free seed will still apply to that.

This will not be used merely to avoid a judging fee, but only in cases where teams will be broken up by the tournament.

Llaveshi Amendment: Debate House Use
If you are in the Debate house you must be working on debate or have business with one of the coaches. If neither of these things are true, you are liable to be kicked out.

Phipps Amendment: Free Seed Points for Break Tournaments
Tournaments that fall fully within school sanctioned class breaks (i.e. Winter Break and Spring Break), should count for half-points within the free seed formula.

Potter Amendment 1: Incapacitation Penalty
If any debater is found to be incapacitated for any round of debate, barring legitimate reason per coaches’ discretion, to the point of where they are unable to perform to their fullest, 1 point for each missed round shall be deducted from their free seed total.

Potter Amendment 2: Punting Points
If any debater is obliged to punt to another team in order qualify them for Nationals, that debater will be awarded the same number of points in the free seed formula as the debater earned for advancing in the punted round.

Potter Amendment 3: Free Seed Points for Pro-Ams
The Pro-Am tournaments in both Fall and Spring Semesters shall be counted as half-points toward the free seed formula if there are not enough novices to accommodate all the varsity who desire to attend.

Williams Amendment: Novice Buddy Mentorship
There shall be a novice mentor/mentee system in which each incoming novice (or possibly group of novices) are given a varsity member to work with throughout the first semester.

The Rutgers contingent celebrates the close of the year at the Bryn Mawr tournament, hosted by Swarthmore. Left to right: Arbi Llaveshi, Rachel Moon, Kyle Bomeisl, Storey Clayton, Sean Leonard, Alex Jubb, Gabi Cozzolino, Quinn Maingi, Chris Bergman, Henry Phipps, Jason Boyle, Denise Costanzo, Chris Baia, and Ilana Rice (from Columbia University, who debated with Chris Bergman).

The Rutgers University Debate Union (RUDU) placed two teams in the top six at the Byrn Mawr tournament (hosted by Swarthmore), closing the year with the third overall ranking in the American Parliamentary Debate Association (APDA). Rutgers finished more than fifty points in the College of the Year (COTY) rankings ahead of 4th ranked Johns Hopkins University, 5th ranked Harvard University, and 6th ranked University of Chicago.

Here are the official results from Bryn Mawr 2013:
Chris Bergman & Ilana Rice [Columbia] – 3rd Team
Quinn Maingi & Alex Jubb – 6th Team
Denise Costanzo & Daniel Takash [Johns Hopkins] – 5th Novice Team
Sean Leonard – 4th Novice Speaker

With the speaker award, Sean Leonard clinched the 4th overall ranking in the Novice of the Year (NOTY) rankings as well. He joins Quinn Maingi (3rd in 2011-2012) and Ashley Novak (2nd in 2010-2011) as current RUDU members with top five NOTY finishes in their first year on APDA.

Meanwhile, Denise Costanzo broke to novice outrounds in her very first tournament of her APDA career. She and her partner finished 5th overall as a result of the top novice team advancing to varsity quarterfinals, opening up a spot for them in novice semifinals.

Rutgers was the only state school in the top ten of the rankings, with only three other state universities finishing in the top twenty-five. The others were #18 William & Mary, #20 Maryland, and #25 Albany. Rutgers finished ahead of all but one Ivy League school (#1 Yale), eclipsing #5 Harvard, #8 Brown, #9 Columbia, #10 Princeton, #21 Dartmouth, #22 Cornell, and unranked Penn.

Here are the final top twenty-five rankings of APDA for 2012-2013:

The National Championships will be held at the University of Maryland this weekend, Friday through Sunday. Rutgers is sending a school-record five teams to Nationals, with seven individual debaters qualified. Senior Chris Bergman, juniors Ashley Novak, Adam Bomeisl, and Alex Jubb, sophomores Quinn Maingi and Russell Potter, and freshman Sean Leonard will be attending as qualified debaters. They will be joined by senior Nisha Kumar and juniors Gordon Morrisette and Deepta Janardhan in representing Rutgers at Nationals.

The euphoric RUDU contingent after the announcement that Ashley Novak & Chris Bergman were in the break at the National Championships. Rutgers qualified a record seven debaters for the Championships this year, enabling five full teams to attend. Left to right: Storey Clayton, Russell Potter, Henry Phipps, David Reiss, Ashley Novak, Adam Bomeisl, Bhargavi Sriram, Chris Bergman, Deepta Janardhan, Alex Jubb, Rachel Moon, Nisha Kumar, Quinn Maingi, Sean Leonard, Gordon Morrisette, and Chris Baia.

The 3rd-ranked Rutgers University Debate Union (RUDU) took 9th place at the National Championships to close the most successful year in Rutgers debate history.

Ashley Novak & Chris Bergman, in Bergman’s last tournament, posted a 5-1 record in preliminary rounds en route to advancing to the elimination rounds as the sixth seed in the tournament. They dropped on a 2-1 decision in octofinals to the eventual finalists from Syracuse University.

Here are the full accomplishments from Nationals this year for RUDU:
Ashley Novak & Chris Bergman – 9th Team
Quinn Maingi & Alex Jubb – 23rd Team
Ashley Novak – 11th Speaker
Chris Bergman – 24th Speaker
Sean Leonard – 5th Novice Speaker

Leonard received a plaque for his novice speaker finish, capping a year where he finished 4th Novice of the Year (NOTY). Novak just missed a plaque on adjusted speaker points, a high-level tie-breaker. She was tied with both the 10th and 12th speakers before tie-breakers.

Ashley Novak gestures in her speech in octofinals at the National Championships last weekend.

The awards for Novak and Bergman as a team, Novak as a speaker, and Leonard as a novice speaker were all Rutgers records for the APDA National Championships. Below, at the bottom of this post, is a list of school records set by RUDU on APDA this year.

Chris Bergman delivers his Senior Speech, a farewell to the debate league, on Saturday night before being announced as one of the breaking teams.

Chris Bergman and Bhargavi Sriram also delivered Senior Speeches at the Nationals Banquet on Saturday night shortly before the Rutgers break was announced. Both thanked those who had helped them along the way to their success and friendships in the debate league. Bergman specifically also focused on the importance of taking issues of equity for female and minority debaters seriously.

TEAM RECORDS SET BY RUTGERS IN 2012-2013

Alex Jubb, just elected 2014 Tournament Director, makes a point during a debate round at the National Championships last month.

Alex Jubb was elected to serve as Tournament Director of the 2014 Rutgers Invitational, the 13th annual tournament and the second major unopposed that Rutgers will host for the American Parliamentary Debate Association (APDA) in elections held one week ago. The election was uncontested after Sean Leonard withdrew from the race. She will be the third straight woman to serve as Tournament Director of the Invitational (or co-TD), following in the footsteps of Bhargavi Sriram in 2012 and Deepta Janardhan in 2013.

Additionally, it was an active election session for amendments to the Rutgers University Debate Union (RUDU) bylaws, with five of the proposed seven amendments passing. Below is a list of the amendments that passed. While most of them offer minor tweaks to the Free Seed Formula, the mathematical equation by which determination of who gets the free seed at tournaments and especially Nationals is determined, one of them is a significant change that will impact the coming year. This is the creation of a Novice Buddy System whereby varsity debaters will adopt a novice or novices to shepherd through their first year on RUDU, serving as a point-person for questions and concerns they have, as well as helping them in practice.

Several other teams have long had such a system and a Committee will soon be formed within RUDU to design the implementation of this program to help Rutgers put together another banner novice class in 2013-2014. RUDU has placed a novice in the top five NOTY (Novice of the Year) standings in each of the last three seasons, as well as having several debaters who did not have terribly successful novice years break out in subsequent varsity seasons. The emphasis on training novices and general improvement is one of the main reasons for RUDU’s recent success and rise to the top of the APDA rankings.

Here are the amendments that passed:

EBoard Amendment: Judging Requirements
Phipps Amendment: Free Seed Points for Break Tournaments
Potter Amendment 2: Punting Points
Potter Amendment 3: Free Seed Points for Pro-Ams
Williams Amendment: Novice Buddy Mentorship

EBoard Amendment: Judging Requirements
In the event that a tournament has a judging requirement and will otherwise break up teams at their discretion, we will break up registered teams and have both people on the given team judge by the following criteria:

There will be a policy of “last in, first out”. In other words, the people who sign up first for a given tournament will be given the highest priority to compete. Everyone at the meeting sign-up will be tied for the highest competition priority.

If you have judged at any tournament at any point in the year, then you are guaranteed to not be compelled to split off from your partner and judge for the duration of that year.

Anyone forced to judge rather than compete by this policy will receive 2.5 free seed points.

This policy only applies to breaking up a team to meet a judging requirement, not for a team cap at a place like Nationals, North Ams, etc. The free seed will still apply to that.

This will not be used merely to avoid a judging fee, but only in cases where teams will be broken up by the tournament.

Phipps Amendment: Free Seed Points for Break Tournaments
Tournaments that fall fully within school sanctioned class breaks (i.e. Winter Break and Spring Break), should count for half-points within the free seed formula.

Potter Amendment 2: Punting Points
If any debater is obliged to punt to another team in order qualify them for Nationals, that debater will be awarded the same number of points in the free seed formula as the debater earned for advancing in the punted round.

Potter Amendment 3: Free Seed Points for Pro-Ams
The Pro-Am tournaments in both Fall and Spring Semesters shall be counted as half-points toward the free seed formula if there are not enough novices to accommodate all the varsity who desire to attend.

Williams Amendment: Novice Buddy Mentorship
There shall be a novice mentor/mentee system in which each incoming novice (or possibly group of novices) are given a varsity member to work with throughout the first semester.

The annual closing picture for the RUDU year at the conclusion of the Senior Banquet Tuesday night. Left to right: Kai Rau, Quinn Maingi, Kyle Bomeisl, Nick Hansen, Sean Leonard, Jason Boyle, Nisha Kumar, Leland Perice, Kurt Falk, Rachel Moon, George Alukal, Ashley Novak, Archana Babu, Russell Potter, Chris Bergman, Arbi Llaveshi, Gordon Morrisette, Katerina Dimitrusheva, Alex Jubb, Daimler Vadlamuri, Maxwell Williams, Chris Baia, Bhargavi Sriram, Jamie DiVito, Henry Phipps, Gabi Cozzolino, Storey Clayton, Deepta Janardhan, and Becky Ratero.

The Rutgers University Debate Union (RUDU) closed its most successful season of all-time with the annual Senior Banquet, held this year upstairs in the Livingston Dining Commons. About half of the 56 students who competed in at least one tournament this year attended, celebrating the 3rd College of the Year standing for Rutgers in the American Parliamentary Debate Association (APDA) and the seven graduating seniors who gave their farewell speeches to the club.

Jason Boyle, Katerina Dimitrusheva, Leland Perice, Archana Babu, Bhargavi Sriram, Nisha Kumar, and Chris Bergman gave Senior Speeches in the first half of the three-hour program. Each was introduced by a close friend on the team who regaled the crowd with stories of their early time on the Debate Union and what they felt was meaningful about that person’s contribution to their lives. The respective introducers for the seven seniors were Shireen Hamza, Gabi Cozzolino, Arbi Llaveshi, Daimler Vadlamuri, Deepta Janardhan, Rachel Moon, and Ashley Novak. Many speakers focused on the sense of inclusion and welcomeness on RUDU and what they were able to get out of their time with debate. The last three speakers dispensed advice on what to focus on for those with debating still ahead of them, with Bergman closing on the recommendation that people step out of their ordinary experiences as much as they can.

Senior Bhargavi Sriram closed her speech with passing on Farhan Ali’s “beepy timer” to Deepta Janardhan. The ceremonial award is given by a graduating senior on the team to a non-senior to honor their perseverance and dedication to the team. She also gave the Senior Gift, a new tradition this year, on behalf of the seniors, which was a camera for recording practice rounds and competitive rounds for use by the team. Coach Storey Clayton closed the speeches with a brief statement thanking the team for their hard work and dedication and reminding them to not forget how far the team has come in a short number of years, thanks to the contributions of every last person on the squad.

The night continued with a game of “RUDU Feud!”, a take on Family Feud about various attributes of members of the Rutgers team. The game was run by Deepta Janardhan and Henry Phipps. The night then concluded with Henry Phipps’ slideshow of the year, set to music, and the annual iconic team photo, seen above.

Below is a list of the members of RUDU and their status heading into next year. All made significant contributions to the club this year in its most successful and storied year in the history of debate at Rutgers.

Graduating Seniors
Chris Bergman
Nisha Kumar
Bhargavi Sriram
Jason Boyle
Leland Perice
Basil Alomary
Katerina Dimitrusheva
Archana Babu

Returning Varsity
Quinn Maingi
Alex Jubb
Adam Bomeisl
Ashley Novak
Russell Potter
Rachel Moon
Arbi Llaveshi
Deepta Janardhan
Henry Phipps
Gordon Morrisette
Maxwell Williams
Kurt Falk
Shireen Hamza
Isaac Woodward
Sarthi Tuli
Asher Wasserman
Daimler Vadlamuri

Rising Varsity
Sean Leonard
Kai Rau
Stine-Oksana Soomai
Raynee Morris
Kira Kaur
Shreyas Jaganmohan
Gabi Cozzolino
Sahil Bambulkar
George Alukal
Meryem Uzumcu
Jamie DiVito
Phil Davidar
Ed Bibiano
Riti Khamgaonkar
Zeshan Khan

Returning Novices
Becky Ratero
Chris Bradshaw
Nick Hansen
Vaishali Gauba
Denise Costanzo
Brian Olivares
Daniel Park
Ian Wasdin
Justina Otero
Oscar Abella
Pei Huang
Sangjin Paik
Shweta Mahajan
Suhyun Kim

The Novice Retreat pictures from late August in 2011 (top) and 2012 (bottom).

The Rutgers University Debate Union (RUDU) will be holding two Novice Retreats in the School of Communication and Information (SC&I) as summer comes to a close. This will be the third year in a row that SC&I has hosted these intensive, fun introductions to APDA-style debate for prospective Debate Union novices.

Those interested in joining RUDU for the upcoming season can choose from one of two sessions, one just before the opening of housing, and one just after. The sessions are as follows:

Retreat I: Wednesday, August 28th – Friday, August 30th, 10 AM – 5 PM each day
Retreat II: Sunday, September 1st & Monday, September 2nd, 10 AM – 5 PM each day

SC&I can be found at 4 Huntington Street on the College Avenue Campus in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Free parking is available for the first Retreat for those wishing to commute from home.

While it is by no means mandatory to attend a Retreat in order to join RUDU in the upcoming season, it will be the best time to learn the craft of parliamentary debate before the demands of the season and the school year begin. RUDU always accepts new members and offers training for those looking to improve their public speaking skills and compete with the very best in the nation. RUDU finished the 2012-2013 season ranked third in the country, behind only Yale and Brandeis.

For more information or to sign up for a Retreat, please contact Coach Storey Clayton at storey.clayton@rutgers.edu.

The last afternoon attendees of the largest Novice Retreat in RUDU history, along with the remaining staffers. Many people had other orientations or moved in on Day Three, so were unable to be a part of the official picture. Left to right: Maxwell Williams, Ali Ismail, Karla Velasquez, Chris Baia, Ashley Novak, Morgan Lau, Gordon Morrisette, Pardip Kaur, Asha Kapengut, Joe Casais, Quinn Maingi, Sierra Gratale, Ryan McCotter, Rachel Moon, Lin Lan, Deepta Janardhan, John Kral, Amanda Fins, Shant Mirzoyan, Jeremy Scardino, Marcos Gonzalez, Sean Leonard, Akhmad Ernazarov, Suraj Oza, Justin Liu, and Storey Clayton. (Not pictured: Atif Ahmad, Neil Bhavsar, Rosalie Carvalho, Michelle Choi, Regan Clarke, Brooke Dekolf, Sweta Devarajan, Victoria Disla, Jared Durgasingh, Toni Gingerelli, Mitchell Healy, Van Huynh, Alex Jubb, Jen Kim, Nisha Kumar, Rudy Loka, Joyce Macaraeg, Prasad Prayaga, Rang Ramji, Scott Richmond, Donalene Roberts, Jeremy Savarin, Vidhaath Sripathi, Eric Sun, Maegan Sunaz, Sophia Sung, Saba Udaipurwala, and Alexandra Vasconez.)

The Rutgers University Debate Union (RUDU) held its largest ever Novice Retreat over the last three days at the School of Communication and Information (SC&I) on the College Avenue Campus in New Brunswick. From Wednesday, August 28th through today, 43 new recruits to the Debate Union gathered with two coaches and nine varsity debaters for an intensive and fun training, including workshops, games, demonstration rounds, and lots of practice.

The first Retreat to have more than 30 attendees, this one had over forty people show up on the first day and nearly that many return for the second. The third day was a bit smaller, as many new novices had to move in or attend campus orientations today.

RUDU has been holding Novice Retreats of some kind for five years, but this is the third year of multi-day events hosted by SC&I, who co-sponsors the Debate Union. The second Novice Retreat this year is a two-day event on Sunday and Monday and will have a much smaller, but no less dedicated enrollment.

As per usual, this year’s new novice class seemed to enjoy the debate games and drills the best, including the ever-popular Two-Minute Drill. A great deal of improvement was seen among all attendees from the first day to the last.

This year’s Retreat graduates will be competing as part of perhaps the most exciting and skilled incarnation of a Rutgers debate team in history. Ranked third in the country last year, RUDU stands poised to contend for one of the top two spots in the American Parliamentary Debate Association (APDA) standings this season. The 28-weekend season begins in one week at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.

Murray Hall on Voorhees Mall on the College Avenue Campus in New Brunswick. The first meeting of the year is in room 210.

The Rutgers University Debate Union (RUDU) will kick off what looks to be the most successful season in its history with a meeting tonight at 9:00 PM in Murray Hall 210. Murray Hall is on Voorhees Mall on the College Avenue Campus in New Brunswick. You can see the location on a campus map here.

RUDU meets twice weekly throughout the school year on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 9:00 PM. Meetings consist of team business, signing up for tournaments, practice rounds, and sometimes drills. Tonight’s meeting will have special information for new debaters, including an overview of parliamentary debate and the opportunity to see a demonstration round. New members are encouraged to attend tonight to get the training aimed at new debaters, but people can start attending meetings at any point during the season.

The 2013-2014 season opens at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore with a tournament that will involve around 80 teams from all over the American Parliamentary Debate Association (APDA) circuit. The second tournament will be at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. Sign-ups for both of these tournaments will be taken at tonight’s meeting.

RUDU finished last year ranked third in the nation, behind only Yale and Brandeis and ahead of Harvard, Princeton, and Columbia. This year, the team expects to contend for one of the top three spots, possibly moving up with the fewest graduating seniors who qualified for Nationals last year among the top three schools. Six of the seven national qualifiers at RUDU last season are back for this year.

There are debate tournaments every weekend through early December (with the exception of Thanksgiving) and all next term from mid-January to the National Championships in late April. Rutgers debaters may attend as many or as few tournaments as they like, depending on their schedule.

With the new season underway, we are taking the opportunity to archive last year’s accomplishments for posterity in this post. The AWARDS tab above will feature this year’s awards from now on…

The annual closing picture for the RUDU year at the conclusion of the Senior Banquet in 2013. Left to right: Kai Rau, Quinn Maingi, Kyle Bomeisl, Nick Hansen, Sean Leonard, Jason Boyle, Nisha Kumar, Leland Perice, Kurt Falk, Rachel Moon, George Alukal, Ashley Novak, Archana Babu, Russell Potter, Chris Bergman, Arbi Llaveshi, Gordon Morrisette, Katerina Dimitrusheva, Alex Jubb, Daimler Vadlamuri, Maxwell Williams, Chris Baia, Bhargavi Sriram, Jamie DiVito, Henry Phipps, Gabi Cozzolino, Storey Clayton, Deepta Janardhan, and Becky Ratero.

Awards and Rankings – Rutgers University Debate Union 2012-2013

2012-2013 Annual Rankings

College of the Year (COTY)
Rutgers University: 3rd overall

Team of the Year (TOTY)
Adam Bomeisl & Russell Potter: 16th team (tie)
Quinn Maingi & Alex Jubb: 30th team
Chris Bergman & Quinn Maingi: 34th team (tie)
Ashley Novak & Gordon Morrisette: 38th team (tie)
Kurt Falk & Alex Jubb: 38th team (tie)
Chris Bergman & Sean Leonard: 45th team (tie)
Chris Bergman & Ashley Novak: 62nd team (tie)
Ashley Novak & Russell Potter: 75th team (tie)
Chris Bergman & Gordon Morrisette: 96th team (tie)
Alex Jubb & Henry Phipps: 96th team (tie)
Henry Phipps & Deepta Janardhan: 114th team (tie)
Arbi Llaveshi & Bhargavi Sriram: 134th team (tie)
Nisha Kumar & Sean Leonard: 134th team (tie)
Ashley Novak & Kurt Falk: 134th team (tie)

Speaker of the Year (SOTY)
Ashley Novak: 18th speaker
Sean Leonard: 32nd speaker (tie)
Chris Bergman: 36th speaker (tie)
Quinn Maingi: 40th speaker
Russell Potter: 50th speaker (tie)
Alex Jubb: 65th speaker (tie)
Henry Phipps: 65th speaker (tie)
Kurt Falk: 69th speaker
Adam Bomeisl: 70th speaker

Novice of the Year (NOTY)
Sean Leonard: 4th novice (tie)
Sahil Bambulkar: 43rd novice (tie)

Debaters Qualified for National Championships
Rutgers University: 7 (tied for 3rd)
(Ashley Novak, Adam Bomeisl, Russell Potter, Chris Bergman, Quinn Maingi, Alex Jubb, and Sean Leonard)

APDA’s full standings for this year can be found here.

2013 National Championships

Team Results
Ashley Novak & Chris Bergman – 9th Team
Quinn Maingi & Alex Jubb – 23rd Team

Speaker Results
Ashley Novak – 11th Speaker
Chris Bergman – 24th Speaker

Novice Speaker Results
Sean Leonard – 5th Novice Speaker

APDA’s full National Championship results can be found here.

2012-2013 Tournament Awards

Tournament Champions
Quinn Maingi & Alex Jubb – University of Albany 2013
Adam Bomeisl & Russell Potter – Vassar College 2012

Tournament Finalists
Chris Bergman & Quinn Maingi – University of Maryland (College Park) 2012
Kurt Falk & Alex Jubb – University of Maryland Baltimore County 2012

Tournament Semifinalists
Ashley Novak & Gordon Morrisette – 3rd, Harvard University 2012
Ashley Novak & Reid Bagwell [Columbia] – 3rd, Dartmouth College 2012
Chris Bergman & Sean Leonard – 3rd, College of William and Mary (II) 2013
Chris Bergman & Ilana Rice [Columbia] – 3rd, Byrn Mawr College 2013
Ashley Novak & Sean Leonard – 4th, American University (Pro-Am) 2012
Chris Bergman & Sean Leonard – 4th, Franklin and Marshall College 2013
Chris Bergman & David Reiss – 7th, Brandeis Inter-Varsity 2012 (BP style 4-team format)

Tournament Quarterfinalists
Kurt Falk & Alex Jubb – 5th, College of William & Mary (I) 2012
Adam Bomeisl & Russell Potter – 6th, University of Maryland (College Park) 2012
Chris Bergman & Ashley Novak – 6th, George Washington University (II) 2013
Henry Phipps & Deepta Janardhan – 6th, University of Albany 2013
Nisha Kumar & Sean Leonard – 6th, Vassar College 2012
Quinn Maingi & Alex Jubb – 6th, Byrn Mawr College 2013
Chris Bergman & Ashley Novak – 7th, Brandeis University 2013
Ashley Novak & Gordon Morrisette – 7th, University of Maryland (College Park) 2012
Adam Bomeisl & Russell Potter – 7th, The College of New Jersey 2013
Adam Bomeisl & Russell Potter – 7th, University of Pittsburgh 2012
Ashley Novak & Russell Potter – 8th, Princeton University 2013
Adam Bomeisl & Russell Potter – 8th, George Washington University (I) 2012
Chris Bergman & Gordon Morrisette – 8th, Dartmouth College 2012
Adam Bomeisl & Russell Potter – 8th, University of Albany 2013
Ashley Novak & Kurt Falk – 8th, Vassar College 2012
Arbi Llaveshi & Bhargavi Sriram – 8th, University of Pittsburgh 2012
Alex Jubb & Henry Phipps – West Point 2013 (incorrectly denied break by tabulation error)

Tournament Octofinalists
Chris Bergman & Quinn Maingi – 9th, Swarthmore College 2013
Adam Bomeisl & Russell Potter – 9th, George Washington University (II) 2013
Chris Bergman & Quinn Maingi – 11th, Princeton University 2013
Quinn Maingi & Arbi Llaveshi – 11th, George Washington University (II) 2013
Ashley Novak & Gordon Morrisette – 12th, North American Championships 2013
Ashley Novak & Gordon Morrisette – 12th, Columbia University 2012
Chris Bergman & Quinn Maingi – 14th, Harvard University 2012
Chris Bergman & Quinn Maingi – 14th, Columbia University 2012
Sean Leonard & Dan Cobos [GW] – 14th, New York University 2013
Chris Bergman & Quinn Maingi – 15th, North American Championships 2013
Adam Bomeisl & Kyle Bomeisl – 15th, Princeton University 2013
Ashley Novak & Sean Leonard – 16th, Boston University 2013

Tournament Top Ten Teams
Kurt Falk & Alex Jubb – 9th, University of Maryland (College Park) 2012
Chris Bergman & Quinn Maingi – 9th, Vassar College 2012
Ashley Novak & Henry Phipps – 10th, University of Connecticut 2013
Kurt Falk & Alex Jubb – 10th, University of Pittsburgh 2012
Arbi Llaveshi & Rachel Moon – 10th, Vassar College 2012

Tournament Top Speakers
Quinn Maingi – University of Albany 2013
Sean Leonard – Vassar College 2012

Tournament Top Ten Speakers
Ashley Novak – 2nd, American University (Pro-Am) 2012
Ashley Novak – 2nd, University of Maryland (College Park) 2012
Ashley Novak – 3rd, Columbia University 2012
Chris Bergman – 3rd, University of Maryland Baltimore County 2012
Ashley Novak – 4th, North American Championships 2013
Chris Bergman – 4th, Franklin and Marshall College 2013
Alex Jubb – 4th, University of Maryland Baltimore County 2012
Henry Phipps – 4th, University of Albany 2013
Russell Potter – 4th, Vassar College 2012
Ashley Novak – 5th, Harvard University 2012
Sean Leonard – 5th, Franklin and Marshall College 2013
Kurt Falk – 5th, College of William & Mary (I) 2012
Adam Bomeisl – 5th, University of Albany 2013
Russell Potter – 6th, The College of New Jersey 2013
Ashley Novak – 6th, Vassar College 2012
Adam Bomeisl – 6th, University of Pittsburgh 2012
Chris Bergman – 6th, Brandeis Inter-Varsity 2012 (BP style 4-team format)
Ashley Novak – 7th, George Washington University (II) 2013
Russell Potter – 7th, University of Albany 2013
Chris Bergman – 8th, University of Maryland (College Park) 2012
Chris Bergman – 9th, Princeton University 2013
Ashley Novak – 9th, Brandeis University 2013
David Reiss – 9th, Brandeis Inter-Varsity 2012 (BP style 4-team format)
Quinn Maingi – 10th, Harvard University 2012
Gordon Morrisette – 10th, University of Maryland (College Park) 2012
Chris Bergman – 10th, Swarthmore College 2013
Quinn Maingi – 10th, The College of New Jersey 2013
Chris Bergman – 10th, West Point 2013
Ashley Novak – 10th, University of Connecticut 2013
Alex Jubb – 10th, College of William & Mary (I) 2012
Arbi Llaveshi – 10th, Vassar College 2012

Tournament Novice Champions
Sean Leonard & Meryem Uzumcu – University of Pittsburgh 2012

Tournament Novice Finalists
Sean Leonard & Meryem Uzumcu – Johns Hopkins University 2012
Sean Leonard & Sahil Bambulkar – College of William & Mary (I) 2012

Tournament Novice Semifinalists
Gabi Cozzolino & Becky Ratero – 4th, University of Connecticut 2013
Stine-Oksana Soomai & George Alukal – 5th, New York University 2013 [top two teams broke to varsity outrounds]
Denise Costanzo & Daniel Takash [Johns Hopkins] – 5th, Byrn Mawr College 2013

Tournament Novice Quarterfinalists
Sean Leonard & Raynee Morris – 7th, George Washington University (I) 2012

Tournament Top Ten Novice Teams
Kira Kaur & Sahil Bambulkar – 5th, Johns Hopkins University 2012
Sean Leonard & Raynee Morris – 5th, Princeton University 2013
Gabi Cozzolino & Katerina Dimitrusheva – 8th, Boston University 2013
Sean Leonard & Sahil Bambulkar – 9th, Swarthmore College Novice 2012

Tournament Top Novice Speakers
Sean Leonard – Franklin and Marshall College 2013
Sean Leonard – Vassar College 2012
Sean Leonard – Swarthmore College Novice 2012

Tournament Top Ten Novice Speakers
Sean Leonard – 2nd, George Washington University (I) 2012
Sean Leonard – 2nd, Dartmouth College 2012
Sean Leonard – 2nd, University of Pittsburgh 2012
Sean Leonard – 2nd, College of William and Mary (II) 2013
Sahil Bambulkar – 3rd, American University (Pro-Am) 2012
Sean Leonard – 3rd, West Point 2013
Sean Leonard – 3rd, College of William & Mary (I) 2012
Sean Leonard – 4th, New York University 2013
Sean Leonard – 4th, Byrn Mawr College 2013
Sean Leonard – 4th, Brandeis Inter-Varsity 2012 (BP style 4-team format)
Sean Leonard – 5th, Johns Hopkins University 2012
Sean Leonard – 5th, Boston University 2013
Sean Leonard – 5th, Swarthmore College 2013
Sean Leonard – 7th, North American Championships 2013
Sean Leonard – 7th, Harvard University 2012
Sean Leonard – 7th, George Washington University (II) 2013
Raynee Morris – 8th, The College of New Jersey 2013
Gabi Cozzolino – 8th, University of Connecticut 2013
Stine-Oksana Soomai – 8th, New York University 2013
Sean Leonard – 9th, University of Maryland (College Park) 2012
Katerina Dimitrusheva – 10th, College of William and Mary (II) 2013

APDA’s full tournament results for this year can be found here.

Previous Years:
2010-2011
2011-2012

The contingent of Rutgers debaters gathered with their awards at the end of the first tournament of the year. Left to right: Sean Leonard, Storey Clayton, Alex Jubb, Chris Bergman, Raynee Morris, Arbi Llaveshi, Henry Phipps, Jamie DiVito, Quinn Maingi, Daimler Vadlamuri, Gordon Morrisette, Becky Ratero, Zach Sinkiewicz, Lin Lan, Russell Potter, George Alukal, Vidhaath Sripathi, Sweta Devarajan, Ashley Novak, Rachel Moon, Pardip Kaur, Joe Casais, Maxwell Williams, Nick Hansen, Kai Rau, Atif Ahmad, and Gabi Cozzolino.

The Rutgers University Debate Union (RUDU) opened the 2013-2014 season re-earning its 3rd ranking in the country with its 15th straight weekend in the varsity elimination rounds. It was the first-ever varsity “break” (advancing to elimination rounds) for RUDU at the Johns Hopkins University tournament as two Rutgers teams made the top eight cut-off and one more finished just out, at ninth.

As one of only two schools to place two teams in the break and the only school with three of the top ten teams, RUDU established what looks to be its best season ever in fine style at the season’s earliest tournament. The varsity team achievements were joined by two varsity speaker awards, three novice speaker awards, and Rutgers’ fourth straight year of breaking to novice elimination rounds at Hopkins.

Here is the long list of accomplishments RUDU notched in Baltimore:
Ashley Novak & Russell Potter – 3rd Team
Quinn Maingi & Alex Jubb – 6th Team
Gordon Morrisette & Arbi Llaveshi – 9th Team
Ashley Novak – 5th Speaker
Quinn Maingi – 8th Speaker
Nick Hansen & Becky Ratero – 4th Novice Team
Sweta Devarajan – 2nd Novice Speaker
Nick Hansen – 4th Novice Speaker
Vidhaath Sripathi – 7th Novice Speaker

With the finish, Novak and Potter, a new partnership of experienced Rutgers veterans, are now tied for third in the prestigious Team of the Year (TOTY) standings on the American Parliamentary Debate Association (APDA) circuit. Teammates Maingi and Jubb, whom they defeated in a “civil war” round in quarterfinals, stand tied for fifth in TOTY. Rutgers as a team is ranked 3rd in the College of the Year (COTY) rankings, behind Brandeis (1st) and Yale (2nd), and tied with Harvard. Rutgers finished last year ranked 3rd, also behind Yale and Brandeis. Those two teams faced in the final round at Johns Hopkins on Saturday after Brandeis took a close 2-1 decision over Novak and Potter in the semifinal.

Meanwhile, RUDU performed quite ably in the novice division, with Hansen and Ratero losing a narrow 2-1 semifinal to a team from American University. Devarajan won the highest novice speaker award for a Rutgers debater at the Hopkins tournament since Chris Andrews and Ashley Novak finished 2nd and 3rd there in 2010. That was the only other year that Rutgers had three novice speakers in the top ten in those standings. This all bodes quite well for the novice class looking to maintain Rutgers’ recent history of success in the Novice of the Year (NOTY) standings. Those rankings are not tracked until October.

Rutgers will look to maintain or improve upon its third ranking in APDA this coming weekend at the College of William and Mary’s annual fall tournament. RUDU has made the varsity elimination rounds at five of the last six tournaments at William & Mary.

The classic Washington Hall steps host the end-of-tourney photo of RUDU after another successful tournament. Left to right: Adam Bomeisl, Ali Ismail, Quinn Maingi, Sean Leonard, Storey Clayton, Rachel Moon, Henry Phipps, Arbi Llaveshi, Russell Potter, Alex Jubb, Nick Hansen, Joe Casais, Donalene Roberts, Maxwell Williams, Atif Ahmad, Lin Lan, Dariene Sy, Vidhaath Sripathi, Victoria Disla, Suraj Oza, Chris Baia, and Kai Rau.

Rachel Moon broke to elimination rounds for the first time in her career at William and Mary and the Rutgers University Debate Union (RUDU) ran their break-weekend streak to sixteen with two teams in the quarterfinals. Meanwhile, Rutgers also had the 9th and 10th teams, both just missing the break, giving RUDU 40% of the top ten teams at a tournament for the first time ever. RUDU also broke to novice semifinals for the second time in as many weekends and the overall performance was sufficient for Rutgers to pass Harvard in the national rankings two weeks into the season.

Here is the full list of awards won by Rutgers at William & Mary:
Russell Potter & Arbi Llaveshi – 6th Team
Henry Phipps & Rachel Moon – 8th Team
Quinn Maingi & Alex Jubb – 9th Team
Sean Leonard & Adam Bomeisl – 10th Team
Russell Potter – 9th Speaker
Vidhaath Sripathi & Suraj Oza – 3rd Novice Team
Nick Hansen & Lin Lan – 5th Novice Team

The breaks for Potter/Llaveshi and Phipps/Moon were the first ever for each of these partnerships, who now find themselves among four Rutgers pairings ranked in the top fifteen in the American Parliamentary Debate Association (APDA) Team of the Year (TOTY) rankings. Moon broke for the first time ever, varsity or novice, in the second tournament of her fourth semester of debate. While RUDU passed Harvard in the APDA College of the Year (COTY) rankings, both schools were passed by #3 George Washington University and #4 Johns Hopkins University, who had a team each in finals at William & Mary. Rutgers now stands ranked fifth behind those schools, #1 Brandeis, and #2 Yale. The rankings tend to fluctuate fairly wildly early in the season as they are based on cumulative achievements and each tournament makes for significant changes early on.

The third tournament of the year for Rutgers will be held this weekend at Columbia University and RUDU plans to send its largest contingent yet. The promising novice class will seek to make it three straight weekends in the elimination rounds for first-year debaters. Already four separate novices have made the break. Meanwhile, seven varsity debaters from Rutgers have made elimination rounds already and three more who qualified for Nationals last year have been in the top ten. No other university has put more debaters in the break at tournaments this year; only Yale also has seven.

Rutgers is just two points behind Hopkins in the rankings and eight points ahead of #6 Harvard. The top ten is rounded out by #7 Maryland, #8 Princeton, #9 Swarthmore, and a tie at #10 between Brown and Amherst.

The Daily Targum, Rutgers’ student newspaper, printed an article about RUDU’s early successes on Friday. The article can be read here, though it should be noted that Yale, not Princeton, is ahead of Rutgers, and the headline is thus slightly incorrect.

RUDU will be holding its first public debate of the year on the Rutgers campus, at 8:00 PM on Wednesday the 18th in Tillett 254 (Livingston Campus). The topic will be whether the United States should close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay and the debate will be followed by a faculty panel of three Political Science professors.

One of the largest contingents of RUDU debaters, coaches, and judges ever at one tournament pose for the team photo after octofinals. Left to right: Chris Bergman, Chris Baia, Arbi Llaveshi, Becky Ratero, Dariene Sy, Jamie DiVito, Ashley Novak, Ali Ismail, Rachel Cusumano, Storey Clayton, Henry Phipps, Alex Jubb, Sean Leonard, Leland Perice, Gabi Cozzolino, Russell Potter, Nick Hansen, Rachel Moon, George Alukal, Kira Kaur, Lin Lan, Daimler Vadlamuri, Joe Casais, Amanda Fins, Zach Sinkiewicz, Adam Bomeisl, Maegan Sunaz, Josh Pomerantz, Marcos Gonzalez, Prasad Prayaga, Pardip Kaur, Quinn Maingi, Sam Foresti, Grisam Shah, Ruqaiyah Shehabuddin, and Gordon Morrisette. (Not pictured: Patrick Chen, Will Cheng, and Stine-Oksana Soomai.)

The Rutgers University Debate Union (RUDU) ran its streak of weekends in the varsity elimination rounds to seventeen at Columbia this past weekend with an octofinals appearance for Ashley Novak and Russell Potter. RUDU also made it three-for-three this year in the novice break as Nick Hansen and Becky Ratero made the novice quarterfinals. Many more teams finished with winning records and Rutgers maintained a high ranking in the overall American Parliamentary Debate Association (APDA) standings, at 6th. Harvard, who Rutgers passed last weekend, won the Columbia tournament and passed Rutgers once more.

Here are the official awards won by RUDU at Columbia:
Ashley Novak & Russell Potter – 11th Team
Nick Hansen & Becky Ratero – 8th Novice Team
Nick Hansen – 8th Novice Speaker

The tournament was the largest of the year so far and featured an enormous contingent of Rutgers debaters, many of them novices getting their first competitive experience in college debate. Many of the varsity matched some of their highest individual speaking performances in their careers as well, while a couple of close decisions kept them out of the break. Novak & Potter dropped in octofinals to the eventual tournament semifinalists from Swarthmore, who moved up to 7th in the national rankings, still a good 12 points behind Rutgers. The rankings tend to fluctuate greatly early in the season since each tournament makes a large difference. Rutgers remains 2 points behind #5 Johns Hopkins and 10 behind #4 George Washington in the overall standings. Yale, Harvard, and Brandeis round out the top 5, counting up.

This weekend, the team will travel to Swarthmore for the annual novice-only tournament, which does not factor into the national rankings but does offer novices a unique opportunity to compete only against other first-year debaters. Last year, Rutgers took the top seed in in-rounds and top speaker at that tournament.

The newest RUDU members at Swat Novice 2013, alongside their varsity advisers and coach. Left to right: Leland Perice, Dariene Sy, Sean Leonard, Maegan Sunaz, Jen Kim, Sweta Devarajan, Lin Lan, Adam Bomeisl, Zach Sinkiewicz, Ben Jasper, Alan Gou, Storey Clayton, Denise Costanzo, John Kral, Donalene Roberts, Zack Doudak, Nick Hansen, Victoria Disla, Suraj Oza, Marcos Gonzalez, Arbi Llaveshi, Brendon Brito, and Ali Ismail. (Not pictured: Vivek Shah.)

The Rutgers University Debate Union (RUDU) had a debater reach semifinals of the Swarthmore College Novice Tournament for the first time in history last weekend. Zach Sinkiewicz’s partner dropped due to illness the morning of the tournament, but he was able to find a “hybrid” partner from Georgetown University. The pair went on to win all five of their preliminary rounds, break as the second seed in the octofinals and go on to win every round until a narrow 2-1 loss in semifinals.

Here are the official results from Swarthmore Novice 2013:
Zach Sinkiewicz & Abraham Fairfield [Georgetown] – 3rd Team
Lin Lan & Suraj Oza – 18th Team
Nick Hansen – 15th Speaker

Lan and Oza were one of just two teams with a 4-1 record to miss the break. They won their first four rounds and then dropped just out of the break, repeating the run of Shireen Hamza & Jason Boyle two years ago at this tournament.

Rutgers is no stranger to breaking as a high seed at the Swat Novice tournament, held just before the Novice of the Year (NOTY) rankings begin being tracked in October. Last year, Sean Leonard & Sahil Bambulkar broke as the top seed, but failed to advance past the octofinals. Three years ago, Ashley Novak & Gordon Morrisette also broke as the top seed, but fell in quarterfinals. No prior Rutgers team had ever made it to the semifinals at this tourney.

The novice tournaments held this weekend at Swarthmore and Boston University do not affect the overall national rankings. RUDU stands ranked 6th in the country after the first month of competition. RUDU finished 3rd overall last year, but was not ranked as high as 6th until mid-October.

This weekend, RUDU will travel to Vassar College to revisit the tournament won by Russell Potter & Adam Bomeisl last season. The weekend will mark the opening of the NOTY season and the continuation of the varsity season, both of which will carry on every weekend outside of Thanksgiving, Winter Break, and the North American Championships, until mid-April.

The 2013 Executive Board of the Rutgers University Debate Union

Ashley Novak is the President of the Debate Union. A rising senior majoring in African, Middle Eastern, and Southeast Asian Languages and Literature (AMESALL), Novak joined RUDU in 2010. She finished last season as the 18th-ranked Speaker of the Year (SOTY), one of the highest-ranked women in the league. She broke twelve times in 2012-2013, including a RUDU-record 9th place finish at the National Championships with Chris Bergman. She also finished as fourth speaker at the 2013 North American Championships. Ashley will tell you more about her personal life than you would like to know. She is planning on being a professional translator after her time at Rutgers.

Adam Bomeisl is the Vice President of the Debate Union. A rising senior majoring in History, Bomeisl joined the Union in 2010. He finished 16th TOTY last season with regular partner Russell Potter, breaking seven times that year and qualifying for Nationals. His tournament win at Vassar was RUDU’s first in two years. Adam has never ever been the slightest bit sarcastic. After graduating, he is looking to attend law school.

Quinn Maingi is the Treasurer of the Debate Union. A rising junior majoring in Economics, Maingi started debating for Rutgers in 2011. After winning 3rd Novice of the Year (NOTY) his first season, he broke nine times last year and qualified for Nationals, placing in the top twenty-five with Alex Jubb. He is only the second RUDU debater to both win a tournament and a top speaker award, the first to do both in the same season. Quinn can only see the top of your head. He is hoping to work for the Fed after Rutgers.

Rachel Moon is the Public Relations Chair of the Debate Union. A rising junior in the School of Arts and Sciences, Moon joined RUDU in 2012. She competed in nearly every tournament last season, making several bubble rounds and nearly earning a spot to attend Nationals. A devoted foodie, all Rachel ever wanted was spaghetti. She is currently undecided on her career plans after college.

Deepta Janardhan is the Novice Mentor of RUDU. A rising senior majoring in Economics and Political Science, Janardhan joined RUDU in 2011. She broke for the first time last season, having made several bubble rounds previously with regular partner Henry Phipps. She also served as the 2013 Tournament Director of the annual Rutgers Invitational.Much debate is ongoing within the club about whether or not she is lanky. Deepta is planning on attending law school after undergrad.

Gordon Morrisette is the Alumni Coordinator of the Debate Union. A rising fifth-year senior majoring in History and Political Science, Morrisette started debating for RUDU in 2009. After just missing top ten NOTY his first full year and taking a year abroad in Scotland the next year, he broke five times last season and fell just a half-point shy of qualifying for Nationals, though he still represented Rutgers there. Gordon will almost never be found either clean-shaven or with a full beard. He is still deciding his path after graduation.

The 2014 Event Director of the Rutgers University Debate Union

Alex Jubb is the Tournament Director of the 2014 Rutgers Invitational, to be held next February in New Brunswick. A rising senior majoring in Urban Planning and Public Policy, Jubb joined RUDU in 2011. She broke four times last season, making two final rounds and winning the Albany tournament with Quinn Maingi. She and Quinn also finished 23rd at the 2013 National Championships. Alex is the shortest Tournament Director in Rutgers history. She is undecided on her future after her studies at Rutgers.

The 2013 Coaching Staff of the Rutgers University Debate Union

Storey Clayton is the Coach of the Debate Union. A graduate of Brandeis University in 2002, Clayton began coaching at Rutgers in 2009. During his APDA career, he won the North American Championship (2001), was the 2nd ranked speaker (2002), part of the 3rd Team at the National Championships (2001), 3rd ranked novice (1999), and part of the 5th ranked team (2000). Prior to coaching debate, he worked in non-profits in the Bay Area, including the Seneca Center for Children and Families and the Glide Foundation. Since his arrival at Rutgers, the team as a whole has gone from unranked in the prior eight years to 24th in 2010, 5th in 2011, 9th in 2012, and a record-high 3rd in 2013. Storey is currently coaching full-time and writing novels on the side, one of which was published in 2003 and two more of which have been completed in the last two years. He gets a haircut at least once every half-decade.

Chris Baia is the Assistant Coach of the Debate Union. A graduate of Johns Hopkins University in 2008, Baia started coaching in 2012. During his APDA career, he was President of the league (2008), 2nd ranked speaker (2008), on the 6th ranked team twice (2007, 2008), 8th ranked novice (2005), and finished 12th at Nationals (2008). Prior to his arrival at Rutgers, Baia coached the Collegiate High School team in New York and earned his Juris Doctor at American University. He was recently admitted to the New Jersey State Bar Association and became engaged to his long-time girlfriend, also a former APDA debater. RUDU finished 3rd-ranked in the nation during his first year as an Assistant Coach. He is the third Chris B. to participate in RUDU, but a fourth has since joined.

If you would like to hold the E-Board accountable to their campaign promises, you can compare them here.

Past E-Board Descriptions for this page:
2012
Fall 2011
2010-2011

Past Officers of the Rutgers University Debate Union

2012
President: Chris Bergman ’13
Vice President: Bhargavi Sriram ’13
Treasurer: Ashley Novak ’14
Public Relations Chair: Henry Phipps ’14
Novice Mentor: Kurt Falk ’15
Alumni Coordinator: Alex Jubb ’14
Tournament Directors: Adam Bomeisl ’14 & Bhargavi Sriram ’13
Coach: Storey Clayton, Brandeis ’02
Assistant Coach (Fall): Chris Baia, Johns Hopkins ’08

Fall 2011
President: Chris Bergman ’13
Vice President: Nisha Kumar ’13
Treasurer: Ashley Novak ’14
Public Relations Chair: Stephen Yellin ’13
Coach: Storey Clayton, Brandeis ’02

2010-2011
President: David Reiss ’11
Vice President: Farhan Ali ’11
Treasurer: Kyle Bomeisl ’11
Public Relations: Krishna Kavi ’12
Tournament Director: Christopher Bergman ’13
Webmaster: Gordon Morrisette ’13
Coach: Storey Clayton, Brandeis ’02

2009-2010
President: Eric Knecht ’10
Vice President of Operations: Barbara Silber ’10
Treasurer: Brian Canares ’11
Novice Coach: Eisha Chopra ’10
Secretary: Lorraine Belostock ’10
Public Relations: Kyle Bomeisl ’11
Tournament Director: David Reiss ’11
Webmaster: Roy Antoun ’10
Coach: Storey Clayton, Brandeis ’02

2008-2009
President: Eric Knecht ’10
Vice President – Executive: Barbara Silber ’10
Vice President – Finance: Lorenzo Calinawan ’10
Novice Coach: Eisha Chopra ’10
Tournament Director: Akbar Ahsan ’10
Chief Technology Officer: Kyle Bomeisl ’11

2007-2008
President: Sam Zeidman ’08
Executive Vice President: Eisha Chopra ’10
Vice President of Finance: Lorenzo Calinawan ’10
Novice Coach: Simon Burger ’08
Tournament Director: Ed Fu ’08
Chief Technology Officer: Ed Fu ’08

2006-2007
President: Sam Zeidman ’08
VP: Rebekah Lee ’07
VP Finance: Dan Ahn ’07
Varsity Coach: Prashant Iyer ’07
Novice Coach: Carl Kunda ’07
Tournament Director: Ed Fu ’08
PR Officer: Cindy Huang ’08
Chief Technology Officer: Ed Fu ’08

2005-2006
President: Carl Kunda ’07
Executive VP: Dan Ahn ’07
VP Finance: Prashant Iyer ’07
Novice Coach: Ross Mazer ’06
VP Operations: Ryan Gogol ’06
Tournament Director: Rebekah Lee ’07
Community Debate Director: Meredithe McNamara ’07
Chief Technology Officer: William Mon ’06

2004-2005
President: Ross Mazer ’06
Executive VP: Carl Kunda ’07
VP Finance: Dan Ahn ’07
VP External Relations: Zack Matusheski ’06
VP Operations: Rebekah Lee ’07
Chief Technical Officer: William Mon ’06

2003-2004
President: Ross Mazer ’06
Vice President: Dan Ahn ’07
Treasurer: Zack Matusheski ’06
PR Officer: Joy Kwon ’04
Secretary: Ryan Gogol ’06
IT Officer: William Mon ’06

2002-2003
President: Ross Mazer ’06
Vice President: Danielle Cirelli ’06
Treasurer: Carl Kunda ’07
Secretary: Joy Kwon ’04
PR Officer: Zack Matusheski ’06
IT Officer: Marat Denenberg ’03

2001-2002
President: Samuel Kim ’03
Vice President: Peter Choi ’03
Treasurer/PR Officer: Evan Luce ’03
IT Officer: Marat Denenberg ’03
Member at Large: Ross Mazer ’06

This post was written on February 25, 2014, to archive the information on the outgoing 2013 Executive Board, and listed as being posted on January 1, 2014, for posterity.

The Rutgers contingent and friends after Quinn Maingi qualified for Nationals with a 6th place finish at George Washington University. Left to right: Dan Cobos [GW Tournament Director], Sean Leonard, Luana Wang [UAlbany], Suraj Oza, Alex Jubb, Zach Sinkiewicz, Rachel Moon, Adam Bomeisl, Arbi Llaveshi, Victoria Disla, Quinn Maingi, Storey Clayton, Josh Pomerantz, and Henry Phipps.

The Rutgers University Debate Union (RUDU) held steady at 5th in the nation after making the quarterfinals at both American Parliamentary Debate Association (APDA) tournaments this weekend. Quinn Maingi & Sean Leonard finished 6th at George Washington University to qualify Maingi for Nationals for the third year in a row. The junior is the fourth RUDU debater to clinch a spot at the prestigious season-ending Championships, joining senior Ashley Novak (qualifying all four years), junior Russell Potter (second qualification), and sophomore Leonard (second qualification). Last year, Rutgers qualified a team-record seven debaters for Nationals.

Meanwhile, at Providence College, Ashley Novak also earned sixth team honors to go with fifth overall speaker at the tournament to maintain her personal ranking as the 8th individual speaker on APDA. Novices Nick Hansen and Vidhaath Sripathi also earned points for the Novice of the Year (NOTY) rankings with top-seven finishes.

Here are the official awards earned by Rutgers at each tournament:

GW
Quinn Maingi & Sean Leonard – 6th Team
Josh Pomerantz & Zach Schaub [Pittsburgh] – 3rd Novice Team [dropping in finals]

PC
Ashley Novak & Maddie Powell [Boston] – 6th Team
Ashley Novak – 5th Speaker
Nick Hansen – 3rd Novice Speaker
Vidhaath Sripathi – 7th Novice Speaker

Pomerantz’s run to novice finals with his hybrid partner came in just his second tournament ever for RUDU after he competed at Columbia’s tournament in September. A novice team broke to varsity out-rounds, making the final a clash for 2nd place, but the entire RUDU contingent attended and some even offered floor speeches for the Rutgers/Pittsburgh pair.

Meanwhile, both Arbi Llaveshi & Adam Bomeisl and George Alukal & Vidhaath Sripathi narrowly missed the elimination rounds, each dropping “bubble” rounds whose victory would have placed them in the break at GW and PC, respectively. For the latter pair, it would have been their first individual break and the former, a qualification for Nationals for one or both. But with a dynamic start to a new semester, most of these accomplishments seem assured for future tournaments.

The APDA season continues for RUDU this weekend at local neighbor The College of New Jersey (TCNJ). Rutgers will be sending one of its largest contingents of the year.

The Rutgers contingent at Providence College is all smiles after winning records for all participants. Left to right: Ashley Novak, Nick Hansen, Russell Potter, George Alukal, and Vidhaath Sripathi. (Not pictured: Stine-Oksana Soomai)

The extensive Rutgers crew at TCNJ gathers for the photo to document the trip. Left to right: Grisam Shah, Becky Ratero, George Alukal, Lin Lan, Storey Clayton, Nick Hansen, Maxwell Williams, Deepta Janardhan, Gordon Morrisette, Russell Potter, Josh Pomerantz, Adam Bomeisl, Soham Shukla, Henry Phipps, Quinn Maingi, Zach Sinkiewicz, Chris Bergman, Suraj Oza, Rachel Moon, Vidhaath Sripathi, Ali Ismail, and Nimit Jindal. (Not pictured: Arbi Llaveshi, Victoria Disla, and Jason Boyle.)

The Rutgers University Debate Union (RUDU) maintained its national fifth ranking with another top ten performance at The College of New Jersey (TCNJ) last weekend. Rutgers made appearances in both varsity and novice elimination rounds and Henry Phipps won 5th speaker to join the Speaker of the Year (SOTY) rankings for this first time this season.

Here are the awards RUDU earned at TCNJ:
Henry Phipps & Rachel Moon – 8th Team
Henry Phipps – 5th Speaker
Suraj Oza & Vidhaath Sripathi – 4th Novice Team
Nimit Jindal – 8th Novice Speaker
Zach Sinkiewicz – 9th Novice Speaker

The break for Oza & Sripathi to novice out-rounds was their second as a team, after they did the same at the William & Mary tournament last semester. They dropped a narrow 2-1 decision on Gov against Yale.

Meanwhile, the varsity elimination round appearance was the third for Phipps & Moon. All three, at William & Mary, Penn, and TCNJ, have resulted in 8th place finishes. The pairing is the 40th ranked partnership on the American Parliamentary Debate Association (APDA) circuit.

Phipps joins the SOTY rankings as the 46th ranked speaker on APDA. He joins five teammates on that board, led by 8th-ranked Ashley Novak, who is hoping to finish the year as the first Rutgers debater ever in the individual top ten at season’s end. She was ranked as high as first at one point this year, the first time a Rutgers debater has achieved that distinction.

The novice speaker awards were the third for Jindal and second for Sinkiewicz, both just narrowly outside the Novice of the Year (NOTY) rankings. Jindal and his partner George Alukal just missed the varsity break this weekend with a “bubble round” loss to American University, the second straight weekend for Alukal bubbling with a novice partner.

Rutgers will be hosting APDA for the tournament this weekend, the thirteenth annual Rutgers Invitational. For the second year in the last three, it will be a major “unopposed” tournament, being the only one on the schedule for the league and hosting a meeting of APDA’s governing body.

The official seal of the Rutgers University Debate Union, adopted in 2012.

The Rutgers University Debate Union (RUDU) held its thirteenth annual Invitational tournament last weekend, the second in three years to be an “unopposed” on the American Parliamentary Debate Association (APDA) schedule. The tournament treated APDA members to the hospitality of New Brunswick turned winter wonderland as snowstorms arrived on the Thursday prior to the tournament and the Saturday of elimination-round competition.

Sixty-five teams from twenty-six colleges and universities competed. Here are the results:

TOP TEAMS
1. Yale (Zach Bakal & Michael Barton)
2. Brandeis and Brown (Shira Almeleh & Alex Mechanick)
3. Columbia (Joe Eddy & Adele Zhang)
4. Harvard (Josh Zoffer & Shomik Ghosh)
5. Brown (Jean McCabe & Young Seol)
6. Brandeis (David Altman & Russell Leibowitz)
7. George Washington (Jordan Dale & Priyanha Nadanasabesan)
8. Chicago (Leighton Huch & Kyle Painter)
9. Yale (Eric Brooks & Diana Li)
10. William & Mary (Aaron Murphy & Thomas Mattesich)
11. American (David Stauffer & Randi Saunders)
12. Johns Hopkins (David Israel & Juliana Vigorito)

TOP SPEAKERS
1. Josh Zoffer (Harvard)
2. Jean McCabe (Brown)
3. David Altman (Brandeis)
4 Zach Bakal (Yale)
5 Michael Barton (Yale)
6 Shomik Ghosh (Harvard)
7 Russell Leibowitz (Brandeis)
8 Joe Eddy (Columbia)
9 Aaron Murphy (William & Mary)
10 Eric Brooks (Yale)

TOP NOVICE TEAMS
1. William & Mary and Columbia (Andrew Kropp-Sullivan & Kunal Shah)
2. Princeton (Nathan Raab & Sarah Battat)
3. Brown (Yidi Wu & Tezzy N.)
4. Yale (Megan Wilson & Zach Young)
5. Columbia (Tanner Terry & Kyle Misquitta)

TOP NOVICE SPEAKERS
1. Kyle Grigel (Penn)
2. Anirudh Dasarthy (Princeton)
3. Ariana Israel (NYU)
4. Harry Zhang (Johns Hopkins)
5. Frankie Orrico (American)
6. Kevin Guo (Chicago)
7. Danny Jaffe (Brandeis)
8. Andrew Bowles (George Washington)
9. Nathan Raab (Princeton)
10. Megan Wilson (Yale)

This is the third straight year that Yale, the top-ranked program in the country, has won the Rutgers Invitational. The pairing of Barton and Bakal have entrenched themselves as the second-ranked pairing in APDA, behind Zoffer and Ghosh, while recently crowned World Champion Zoffer extended his lead for top Speaker of the Year (SOTY) by winning the traditional helmet (award for top speaker) at Rutgers.

RUDU remains ranked fifth overall on APDA, just barely ahead of Brown, Bates, and Columbia and not far behind Johns Hopkins. This weekend upcoming will be the second “pro-am” weekend of the season, where all competing teams will be composed of one varsity and one novice.

The Rutgers contingent at the Franklin and Marshall College “Pro-Am” tournament celebrate many wins of prizes, including some M&M candy. Left to right: Suraj Oza, Vidhaath Sripathi, Deepta Janardhan, Storey Clayton, Lin Lan, Zach Sinkiewicz, Becky Ratero, Alex Jubb, Nick Hansen, Sean Leonard, Josh Pomerantz, Gabi Cozzolino, Daimler Vadlamuri, Jason Boyle, Henry Phipps, and Quinn Maingi.

The Rutgers University Debate Union (RUDU) made the elimination rounds at a “Pro-Am” tournament for the fifth time in five years this weekend, this time at Franklin & Marshall College (F&M). Sean Leonard and Vidhaath Sripathi finished 8th in the second Pro-Am of the year, which is a tournament where all teams are comprised of one varsity and one novice partner.

Here are the official Rutgers results for the tournament:
Sean Leonard & Vidhaath Sripathi – 8th Team
Sean Leonard – 1st Speaker
Suraj Oza – 7th Novice Speaker
Vidhaath Sripathi – 10th Novice Speaker

The top speaker title for Leonard is his third ever in just his fourth semester of debating for Rutgers, giving him the most top speaker awards of any Rutgers debater in history. He surpasses the still-active senior Ashley Novak, who has two career top speaker awards, both won earlier this year. Farhan Ali ’11, Chris Bergman ’13, and current RUDU President Quinn Maingi each have earned one.

Sripathi, meanwhile, becomes the thirteenth debater with points toward Nationals qualification this year for Rutgers. RUDU set a team record last year with fourteen debaters on this list, including a record seven who qualified for Nationals. Currently, Leonard, Novak, Maingi, and Russell Potter are qualified, though five more debaters are over halfway to clinching the points necessary to qualify.

Rutgers’ first break to elimination rounds in its recent revival of the last five years was at the Pro-Am tournament in the fall of 2009, at American University. There David Reiss ’11 joined Bergman in the Pro-Am break, finishing in quarterfinals. Bergman was later on the varsity end of a semifinal appearance with Maingi at the 2011 contest, while Novak and Leonard made semifinals the next year at American as well. Novak and Lin Lan made octofinals earlier this fall at American, making it four straight Pro-Am breaks with this weekend’s performance by Leonard and Sripathi.

RUDU will be competing at two of the three tournaments this weekend on the APDA schedule, including a non-Pro-Am at American and the second annual Albany tournament, where Rutgers is defending champion.

Rutgers debaters at the second annual University at Albany tournament celebrate making finals there once again. Left to right: Zach Sinkiewicz, Lin Lan, Nimit Jindal, Ali Ismail, Alex Jubb, Deepta Janardhan, Storey Clayton, Rachel Moon, Quinn Maingi, Nick Hansen, Russell Potter, Becky Ratero, and Chris Bergman.

The Rutgers University Debate Union (RUDU) broke three teams to quarterfinals at the University at Albany this weekend, with the dynamic duo of Rachel Moon and Nick Hansen running all the way to finals and an ultimate second-place finish. Meanwhile, Nimit Jindal and Ali Ismail broke to novice semifinals and won both out-rounds en route to a second-place novice-team finish.

Here are the myriad accomplishments notched by Rutgers at Albany’s second annual invitational:
Rachel Moon & Nick Hansen – 2nd Team
Russell Potter & Quinn Maingi – 5th Team
Deepta Janardhan & Alex Jubb – 7th Team
Russell Potter – Top Speaker
Quinn Maingi – 6th Speaker
Deepta Janardhan – 7th Speaker
Alex Jubb – 10th Speaker
Nimit Jindal & Ali Ismail – 2nd Novice Team [won novice finals]
Zach Sinkiewicz & Rose Cote [Syracuse] – 4th Novice Team
Nick Hansen – 4th Novice Speaker
Nimit Jindal – 6th Novice Speaker
Ali Ismail – 7th Novice Speaker

With the finals appearance, Moon qualified for Nationals for the first time in her career at RUDU after four previous semesters of competition. Partner Hansen now stands on 11 of the necessary 14 points toward qualification, where he is joined by a crowded field of Rutgers debaters nearing the mark. Arbi Llaveshi stands at 12.5, Henry Phipps at 11.25, and Janardhan bumped up to 11 with her quarterfinal appearance this weekend. Moon is the fifth Rutgers debater to qualify for Nationals this season and Rutgers is tied for sixth in the league with that mark. Top-ranked Yale leads the field with ten qualifications.

At American University this weekend, Sean Leonard and Phipps made partial octofinals and narrowly missed the chance to qualify Phipps with a win in that round.

Here are the Rutgers awards from American:
Sean Leonard & Henry Phipps – 11th Team
Sean Leonard – 7th Speaker

Jindal & Ali easily won both of their novice elimination rounds at Albany after compiling a 3-2 record in in-rounds that put them just 1.5 speaker points out of the varsity break. They beat Fordham on a 3-0 decision and Yale on a 4-1 in finals to win novice finals and finish only behind a Yale team that made the varsity break in the novice division. They both won speaker awards, putting Jindal on the Novice of the Year (NOTY) board for the first time, where he is now ranked 76th in the country.

Potter becomes the second top speaker in as many weekends for RUDU and the sixth Rutgers debater to earn that honor on the American Parliamentary Debate Association (APDA) circuit. He now enters the Speaker of the Year (SOTY) rankings at 38th. He finished 49th in those standings last year.

Rutgers overall returns to the 5th ranking overall in the College of the Year (COTY) standings after a brief dip to 7th last week. With this being the best weekend in some time for RUDU, there’s optimism about further rises to come in the standings. RUDU will send teams to West Point and Stanford this weekend to try to qualify more debaters and further improve their rankings. There are six weeks left in the regular season before the National Championships at the University of Pennsylvania in late April.