Join the Team

Thanks for your interest in the team! We welcome members with all levels of experience in debate, so whether you've been doing circuit policy for several years or are completely new to debate, we invite you to check us out! Come see us at Calpalooza, or message us here or on Facebook for team and application information.

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About the Team

The Parliamentary Debate at Berkeley team is a student run organization that has a long history of success that has made the program one of the best in the nation. In 2013 the team was able to have debaters Andrew and Ryan have a competitive season and rank nationally as the 21th best. In 2014, debaters Jake and Ryan were able to continue the organization’s success with their duo being ranked 22nd and the second team of debaters Andrew Chang and Ryan Hang being rank 4th in the nation. The next year in 2015 the team continued its success with the duo of Kevin Yanofsky and Jake Glendenning being ranked 7th and debaters Taha Ziaee and Alice Lin being ranked 10th in the nation. That year Berkeley was the only school in all of Parliamentary debate that had 2 teams being ranked within the top ten. In more recent history the club has had the best success in terms of competition with having 3 teams that qualified to compete in the National Parliamentary Debate Association (NPDA) and 4 teams at the National Parliamentary Tournament of Excellence (NPTE), both are the national championships for the circuit. The greatest success comes from debaters Tom Kadie and Henry Tolchard wining both national tournaments. Besides having both national champions the Duo of Amanda Miskell and Isabella Riezler finished their season being ranked 3rd at NPTE and 5th at NPDA. The many accolades represent the long history that the organization with its competitive nature.

With being a competitive organization, the club has also had a long history hosting some great tournaments for many teams to compete including the club itself. In 2014, the team began hosting the National Parliamentary Debate Invitational (NPDI) and has continued to host it every year. The tournament is one of the nation’s top competitions for high school parliamentary debate. Besides this tournament, the team for several years has hosted the Golden Gate Invitational, which similar to NPDI is a highly competitive tournament that many across the national come to compete in college parliamentary debate. More recently the organization hosted the National Round Robin that is a more selective tournament that has some of the best debaters compete including, some of our own debaters.

Whether competing or hosting a tournament the organization exceeds in all the circuit and its history represents such a description.