In the Summer 2018 issue of International Debate, Miriam Kohn (LearningLeaders, Rochester '17) and Chris Perkins (Rochester '17) published an article titled "Fair Play: Proposals for Reform to the Break System in British Parliamentary Debate." In said article, they discussed the possibility to replace team breaks on speaks with a point-based break and additional bye-based elimination round. AchteMinute (AM): First off, so lucky to be chatting with you, Miriam & Chris. Can you tell us briefly about your background in debate? Miriam Kohn (M): Thanks for taking the time to chat with us! My high school didn’t have a debate team, so ...

[caption id="attachment_34639" align="alignright" width="400"] The top two speakers and champions of this year's HWS IV: Aditya Dhar and Tejal Patwardhan - © Eric Barnes[/caption] The HWS IV 2018 was won by Harvard DP (Tejal Patwardhan, Aditya Dhar) from Opening Government. They debated the final on the motion "This House believes that the state should curb assortative mating" against Yale CP (Ko Lyn Cheang, Lorenzo Pinasco) in Opening Opposition, Brandeis/Northeastern SS (Ravi Simon, Dennis Su) in Closing Government, and Rochester FO (Ben Frazer, Warish Orko) in Closing Opposition. The final was chaired by Buzz Klinger with Alexander Beaumont, Allie McGowan, Dan Yoon, Daniel Berman, Shani Bennett, and Steph White.  The Novice Final of the tournament was ...

Note by the editors: This article will be updated to reflect the top novice speaker & Spanish division motions when such information is released. [caption id="attachment_31574" align="alignright" width="400"] left: Pan-American Champions Miriam Kohn & Chris Perkins. right: ESL top speaker Syed Reefat Aziz - © Brady Fletcher.[/caption] In the English division of the 2017 Pan-American Universities Debating Championships, the team Rochester PK (Miriam Kohn, Chris Perkins) emerged victorious from Closing Government on the grand final motion “This house prefers a world where American and Canadian Multi-National Corporations in South America adhere to the environmental and labour standards of their home countries." They debated against ULV LM (Kandin ...