EAST LANSING, Mich. -Two members of the Michigan State University debate team recently reached the final four of two national championship tournaments.
The tournaments were the Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA) tournament held at Middle Tennessee State University and the National Debate Tournament (NDT) held at Baylor University.
The duo consisted of Austin Carson, an international relations junior from Grand Rapids, and Calum Matheson, a social relations sophomore from East Lansing, both of James Madison College, who reached the semifinals only to lose to the eventual champions, the State University of West Georgia and University of Iowa.
Also, debaters Greta Stahl of Shelby Township and David Strauss of East Lansing, both James Madison College freshmen, were the first MSU freshman team to reach the final 16 at CEDA and place in the top 25 at NDT.
"Success at debate requires a great deal of confidence," said debate director Jason Trice. "If you doubt you can win, you won't. I think we had a realistic chance of winning CEDA, and I was disappointed that our run ended in the semifinal. We lost to an excellent team from West Georgia, who went on to win the tournament for the second consecutive year."
The MSU debate team has reached the final four at one of the two national tournaments in seven of the past eight years, and it won CEDA in 1995. MSU is only one of three teams in the history of collegiate debate to reach the final four of CEDA and NDT.
"After being the first team in history to reach the final round of both CEDA and NDT we lost four seniors, had no seniors this year, yet we returned to be only the third team in history to reach the final four at both CEDA and NDT in the same year," Trice said. "It speaks volumes about the hard work and strength of the debaters we have at MSU."
In addition, Matheson and Carson were recognized for their individual efforts. Matheson was named sixth top speaker at CEDA and NDT, making him the youngest MSU debater to receive such a high individual speaker award at NDT. Carson also was recognized as the 19th top speaker at CEDA and the twentieth speaker at NDT, making him the first MSU freshman to have ever received an individual speaker award at either tournament.
"Overall, I am very proud of our team's performance," Trice said. "They all rose to the occasion and continued an excellent streak of performances by MSU at the national tournaments."