MVC Debate Team Successful at JCCC Tournament (Two Students Qualify for the National Tournament)

The MVC debate team competed at the Johnson County Community College debate tournament this past weekend. Ethan Hofer-Cassiani took first overall and Gracyn Bristow took second overall; Gracyn placed second overall despite being new to MVC in January, having just graduated from Marshall High School in December.

The division of debate that MVC competes in sets their qualification for their national tournament as any debater who takes first or second at a tournament, as long as there are at least four schools present. Therefore, both Ethan and Gracyn became the first qualifiers to the national tournament from MVC. The national tournament will be held in Santa Ana, California on April 18-22.

Ethan won seven debates overall losing only one debate at the competition. To close out the tournament he picked up a big win against a debater from Missouri State arguing that the United States Cyber Command would be a better government agency to help fight internet exploitation than other agencies like the Department of Homeland Security.

While Gracyn started out slow, she picked up steam winning four of her last five rounds, including a big win in the last round against a debater from Kansas City Kansas Community College. In this particular round Gracyn used knowledge that she had gained from her MVC philosophy class about epistemology. This information helped her to combat the KCKCC debater’s claim that the knowledge claims Gracyn made were problematic.

“One of the things that really helped the team turn the corner this weekend was that they did a lot of work creating arguments that other schools hadn’t heard yet,” said Chris Roberds, head debate coach. “The amount of research they did regarding current events allowed them to have evidence that was both newer and higher quality than that of their opponents.”