![\"Chris](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2013\/12\/chris-crum-debate_0131.jpg\")
<\/a>Chris Crum ’17 of Littleton, Colo., and fellow debaters get ready for yet another van ride, this time to Harvard in October. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n
The team of Taylor Blackburn \u201915 of Atherton, Calif., and Jac Stewart \u201914 of Keene, N.H., won the Brandeis Intervarsity Debate Tournament, while the first-year team of\u00a0Dmitriy Redkin of Pittsburgh, Pa., and Noah Levick of Narberth, Pa., won the novice division.<\/p>\n
Another first-year team, Zoe Seaman-Grant of Brooklyn, N.Y., and Matthew Kahn of Newington, Conn., conclude the fall as the first- and fifth-ranked novice speakers in the nation, while the duo of Blackburn and Matt Summers ’15 of Short Hills, N.J., are ranked fourth<\/a> in the U.S.<\/p>\n As a squad, the Brooks Quimby Debate Society is ranked sixth in the nation.<\/p>\n “One of the premier debate teams in America.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The team has done well at both the varsity and novice levels, says Hovden, and in both American and British parliamentary styles. (The Brandeis debate was in the British style, which can be tricky for U.S. debaters.)<\/p>\n “The hard work of team members has established the BQDC as one of the premier debate teams in America,” Hovden says. “I couldn\u2019t be prouder of my students, and I look forward to continued success throughout the rest of the year.”<\/p>\n The team of Taylor Blackburn ’15 and Matt Summers ’15 is ranked fourth in the nation. Both are headed to the World Universities Debating Championship at the end of December. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n In a couple weeks, next phase of the 2013-14 campaign begins on another high note.<\/p>\n The team of Blackburn and Stewart \u2014 fresh off their British parliamentary win at Brandeis\u00a0\u2014 join the team of Summers and Stephanie Wesson \u201914 of Mont Vernon, N.H., at the British-style World Universities Debating Championship<\/a> in Chennai, India., from Dec. 27 to Jan. 4.<\/p>\n Other late-fall debate highlights included two November trips to England, strong performances at Wesleyan<\/a> and Brown<\/a>, and, on campus, a Halloween-week debate.<\/p>\n Decked out in period garb procured from the Bates costume shop, debaters played characters from the American Revolution, including Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson, and debated American interests, identity and freedom.<\/p>\n A week later, at Oxford on the weekend of Nov. 8, the Bates squad got to see former Bates debate standout Colin Etnire \u201912, a former White House intern now living in San Francisco and doing graduate work at Loyola Marymount, win the Oxford University Intervarsity tournament.<\/p>\n<\/a>