Debate Coach Farewell

Check Out our Alumni and Friends of Northwest University Debate page! Join the fun, share some memories and help our team survive in these tough times.
Link in comments below.

SAVE AND STRENGTHEN DEBATE. Your posts needed.

HOW DID DEBATE HELP YOU?
Serious Cutbacks at NU impact debate team.

ACTION REQUESTED: Can you make a post below about how debate helped you in your personal life and career?

GO HERE TO Like our Debate Alumni page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/572904210291976/?multi_permalinks=572937683621962¬if_id=1590263981087003¬if_t=feedback_reaction_generic

NU Decision makers needs feedback concerning the future of the program. Thanks in advance.

MORE
Because of serious budgetary shortfalls the administration at Northwest was forced to cut more than a million dollars.
Professors and staff were released and the chess club (three years old) was disbanded.

The only other student activity that faced budget reductions was the debate team. It was initially completely eliminated and then ended up with a 94% reduction in travel. This effectively stops all travel outside of the Seattle area.

We totally understand that hard decisions had to be made in these challenging times for higher education and feel sorry for those who lost their jobs. We know that for a small school like NU the future is shaky with falling enrollment.

Coach Jacob Witt will do the best he can for the year and is planning a lot of fun local tournaments, show debates with other teams nearby and online debates with top schools.

Should be a great year, although not as intensive as before when NU engaged major universities as a powerhouse at tournaments not only locally but around the nation.

Did you guys know that Jacob is sought out to run tab in New England, at large tournaments in the West and at the national tournament? He is without exaggeration one of the top coaches in the country.

PLEASE take 2 minutes and jot down how you benefited from your time in debate and why you think the program should not only continue but be strengthened. Doesn't have to be a long post.

JOIN THE ALUMNI AND FRIENDS OF NORTHWEST DEBATE PAGE for more https://www.facebook.com/groups/572904210291976/

Glad to be Amazon business partners with former debater Kyle Hamar. Kyle graduated in 2014 a s Communication major. He was chosen as commencement speaker (like 5 other debaters).

He is now a business coach as well as marketing director for Leda Art Supply and Oldboy Longboards.

We are in the top 2 percent of Amazon sellers and have sold more than $1 million since starting in 2015.

Today we did a podcast interview with Stephen Sommers of Marketplace Superheroes as an Amazon seller success story.

Nearly 8000 views of my brief essay about quantum memory.

Window to the Past: The Role of Quantum Entanglement in Memory A blog of essays and poetry by GJ Gillespie. Interests include: theater, art, technology, quantum physics, theology. Jesus, trinity, reasoning.

NU gets two teams in grand finals in Missouri!

September 2018

Last weekend, the Northwest University Debate Team competed in the Georgia B. Bowman Invitation hosted by William Jewell College in Liberty, MO. The teams of Tyler Whitney (SR Poli Sci/English) & Bethany Williams (SR – Psychology) and Benjamin Simila (JR – Business) & Judah Wessel (JR – Music Industry) competed in five preliminary rounds against teams from Kansas State University, Loyola University – Chicago, Mercer, U.S. Air Force Academy, and William Jewell College.

After the preliminary rounds, NU’s teams ranked 2nd and 3rd, allowing them to compete in the grand final. The teams debate well, finishing in the 2nd and 3rd positions overall, with Loyola taking the top position. In addition to team points, the debaters are ranked on their individual performance.

Wessel finished as the 3rd speaker overall and Whitney finished as the 4th speaker. This tournament, the first of our season, was Wessel’s highest finish in open competition in only his second year on the team. Our next competition is taking place at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, OR on October 11th-14th.

Topics this weekend:
Round 1: This house regrets the commercialization of social movements.

Round 2: This house would require companies to provide economic compensation & job retraining to those unemployed by the automation of their work.

Round 3: This house believes that the Democratic Party should move toward socialism in candidate selection and policy platform.

Round 4: Developing countries should ban the entry of charitable organizations that tie aid or services to religious conversion.

Round 5: This house believes that anonymous resistance from inside the Trump administration is a heroic act.

Grand Final: In areas of high crime, this house would impose a curfew on men.

Up Coming Schedule:

Lewis & Clark College October 11-14
University of Denver October 19-21
University of Vermont November 2-5
Linfield College November 15-18
Seattle University December 1-2

The Force of Reasoning: Insight from Physics on the Nature of Argument
By G J Gillespie

“Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion.” -- Democritus (460 -- 370 BCE)

If it is true that persuasion is like momentum in space and time perhaps we might apply other physical laws to rhetoric as well? Let us take the movement metaphor deeper by comparing reasoning to physical forces.

http://gillespiepoems.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-force-of-reasoning-insight-from.html

The Force of Reasoning: Insight from Physics on the Nature of Argument

2018 2nd Annual Gary Gillespie Invitational hosted at ForensicsTournament.net

Hawaii debate trip 2008. I was with a bunch of coaches and suggested "We should have a tournament in Hawaii." A coach at Claremont University organized it and Hawaii Pacific University hosted annual tournaments since then.

Northwest Eagle debate and speech team 1996. Front row far left Amy, Angie, Munia, and Louise middle left, Roger, Christian, Jennifer. Back left Roger, Jacob, Steve, David, Gary Gillespie.