Guilford student debater advances in Oxford

Tamara R. Bucknell-Pogue of Guilford, Conn., a Bates College debater, recently advanced as one of two undergraduates selected to the semifinal round of the Oxford Union Inter-Varsity Debating Competition in Oxford, England.

As one of 78 teams from the United States, Canada and Europe, Bucknell-Pogue and Bates senior Liam D. Clarke of Grand Rapids, Minn., advocated the proposition, “This house would keep its promises,” in a debate against law students from Cambridge, Dublin and Gray’s Inn.

“The Bates team’s advancement was very significant,” said Robert Branham, professor of theater and rhetoric and coach of the debate team at Bates. “This is the most important tournament of the year in Great Britain, and the top British teams are generally law or graduate students.” The Bates debaters were the only American pair to advance as far as the semifinals.

Bucknell-Pogue, a junior rhetoric major and dean’s list student, received the Oren Nelson Hilton/Almon Cyrus Libby Award for excellence in first-year debate and competed in the Wesleyan Parliamentary Debate Tournament in 1996. A former member of the Bates equestrian team, she spent Short Term ’97 in Belgrade and Zagreb and is currently spending a semester studying in Jordan and Israel.

A 1995 graduate of Gould Academy in Bethel, Maine, she is the daughter of Susan Bucknell and Donald Pogue, 12 White Top Lane.