U. debate team best in country

At the MIT-hosted tournament, Jason Sheltzer ’08 and David Kwasniewski ’08 placed second, and panel president Daniel Rauch ’10 and Mike Shih ’09 placed fourth, making Princeton the school with the most teams in the varsity elimination rounds. Kwasniewski and Sheltzer also received second and seventh place for varsity speaker awards, respectively.

“We’ve had a very strong season prior to [the national championships]. We were consistently leading in the standings,” Rauch said. Rauch is also a member of The Daily Princetonian Editorial Board.

The College of the Year award is given to reward a school’s aggregate success over the course of the debate season. The University debate panel attended more than 20 tournaments this year, including the World Championships in Thailand and the North American Championship in Ottawa, Canada.

In parliamentary debate, teams take turns proposing topics: Each team chooses its own topic, and the opposing team must think on its feet. Kwasniewski said that the only real way to prepare is to keep up with current events and maintain a wide spectrum of knowledge.

“It’s a very interesting challenge, to come up with arguments about things you never thought about before,” he said.

Rauch credits the team’s success to more than just preparation.

“I think it was because of our organizational structure and support from the University,” he said, adding that novice members of the panel were great assets.

The top-ranked novice debater in league, Zayn Siddique ’11, received the second place novice speaker award. Siddique is also a staff photographer for the ‘Prince.’

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Rush Doshi ’11 received the fourth place speaker award. The team of Doshi and Daniel May ’11 placed second in the novice division.

Doshi said he was very excited to have done so well, explaining that he and his partner had not been able to attend as many tournaments as they would have liked in preparation for nationals, but noted that the duo benefitted from the debate panel tradition of having seasoned teammates train new members.

Unlike younger teammates making their first trip to nationals, this is the second year in a row that Sheltzer and Kwasniewski have reached the finals of the national championship.

“Last year we went in as underdogs. We were juniors ... not that much was expected of us, and we surprised everyone, including ourselves” Sheltzer said. Sheltzer is a former ‘Prince’ columnist.

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“We went into this season with a bit of momentum, and it has carried us throughout the year,” he added.

Sheltzer was pleased to end his debating career on a high note.

“It feels really nice to be able to leave at the top of your game,” Sheltzer said. “We are both so happy to have [had] such a successful run on the circuit.”

Even with senior talent leaving the team, Kwasniewski is optimistic about the panel’s future. “I think [the College of the Year award] speaks more than anything to how much talent we have on the team,” he said.

In addition to all the preparation, Rauch also credits the team’s success to its members.

“Although we have been very successful competitively, the thing I’m most proud of is that, as a team, we are all friends,” Rauch said. “We always help each other out, and I think we are the most cohesive team on the circuit.”

The Princeton Debate Panel is a subsidiary of Princeton’s American Whig-Cliosophic Society.