Students revive debate team

After a 23-year break, the debate team is back and on track after high placings in a recent competition.

The Oklahoma Christian University debate team disbanded more than two decades ago. According to Professor of Communication Brian Simmons, sophomore Megan McKinley contacted him during the summer of 2014 about starting a debate program on campus.

“I actually didn’t know there ever had been a debate team,” McKinley said. “I did debate all through high school, and I really wanted to continue it while I was at school.”

Simmons said he was glad to help McKinley plan the new future of the team.

“The two of us got excited about resurrecting the debate team,” Simmons said. “My philosophy has always been to help my students in any way that I can, and especially I always try to help them start something.”

Simmons was a member of the Oklahoma Christian debate team while he was a student. He said the team had once been the third ranked debate program in the U.S. but fizzled out over time.

Simmons said he hopes what McKinley and the other nine current members are developing now will be something that they can be proud of years down the road.

“I want them to feel as if they are building something,” Simmons said. “I want them to feel that what they are building here is a legacy, so that they can look back and say ‘I built that, it’s still going.’”

Simmons and McKinley established specific goals they hope to meet during the early stages of the team.

“We quickly decided that we wanted to compete in a college tournament, we wanted to try and do some debate related things on campus, and then we also wanted to try and create some debate workshops to offer to home-school students or to private schools in the Edmond area that don’t have a debate opportunity,” Simmons said.

McKinley is now the president of the team. She said some members had no previous debate experience, so the students work together to learn the process.

“When we originally started it, I kind of did some coaching and stuff,” McKinley said. “[Now] it’s really we all just get together every single week and we practice our debate skills, we try to come up with a resolution [and] we organize stuff.”

Sophomore Cody Milner hadn’t debated before coming to Oklahoma Christian, but placed fifth out of 21 competitors at the team’s first tournament in February.

“I really went to this tournament with no expectations,” Milner said. “I just went for the experience to get my feet under me so I could move forward in the future, but then I got lucky.”

Milner said one of the greatest things about starting the team over is having the freedom to determine how they want to achieve their goals without being bound to an old system.

“The best thing about starting up a new team is that there have been no expectations for the last 20 years, so in a way we have free reign to try to implement whatever we think is best to try to grow the program right now,” Milner said. “We’re able to add some new things that maybe not everyone would think of as customary to a debate team but we think is going to help us out.”

The team presented a sample debate during an Honors Symposium and now plans on holding a debate once a month during chapel time about a religious topic. Students may observe the debate and receive Ethos credit.

According to McKinley, the team hopes more students from all areas of campus will join in the future.

“Right now, because it’s so small, we’ve really been thinking we want it to be as big as possible, so we would love more students to come in,” McKinley said. “It’s a really great opportunity and I want everyone to have a chance to learn how to do it.”

McKinley said debate is beneficial to any student because it provides a basic set of critical thinking skills.

“It really forces you to think about issues, because you have to debate either side of an issue regardless of how you personally feel about it,” McKinley said. “It often helps you strengthen what you believe, because you consider the other side and you have to find a reason to not agree with it.”

McKinley said she wants students to join the team and gain valuable skills while also having a fun time.

“People can show up with zero experience and you can learn and you can grow and it will be helpful no matter what you do,” McKinley said. “It’s really fun [and] you’ll learn a lot.”

For more information about the debate team, email Brian Simmons at brian.simmons@oc.edu.