By Omer Ashruf ’17

University School’s Speech and Debate Team has once again seen another successful season. Students from the debate team competed in Public Forum Debate and Lincoln Douglas Debate; the topics ranging from the necessity of a carbon tax to whether the United States has a moral obligation to ban handguns. Students competing in speech competitions wrote and memorized a speech that they presented to a panel of judges.

This past weekend, the University School Speech and Debate team successfully qualified 10 students for the statewide competition to be held at Princeton High School on March 3, 2016. Students competed on February 7th in the Cleveland District OHSSL Tournament at Berea-Midpark High School for the opportunity to represent the school at the State tournament.

In Speech events we will be sending 2 students to the state tournament: Ashwin Veeramani and Rahul Jagetia, both competing in International Extemporaneous Speaking. This event focuses on research and on the spot speaking regarding international topics.

The debate team had 8 state qualifiers in two categories: in Public Forum debate, the team of Dunadel Daryoush and Akash Salgia as well as the team of John Mino and Akshat Chowskey. In Lincoln Douglas Debate, all 4 students were able to prequalify for the State tournament: Andrew Gilmore, Omer Ashruf, Karchen Lhatoo, and Isaiah Paik.

There is still a possibility of an increase in the number of students who will advance to the State Championship Tournament. The US Speech and Debate team members will have a chance to compete in the upcoming national qualifier tournament on February 19-20 at Saint Ignatius High School.