The Southeast Missouri State University Debate Team came home victorious after a debate tournament at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh from Sept. 30 to Oct. 1.

Southeast sent two debate teams to the tournament, which was low compared to other teams that brought at minimum at least four or five. Team one consisted of sophomore Gregory Johnson and team two included seniors Collin Ritter and Jo Nell Coughill.

Johnson won third team and first place speaker, Coughill and Ritter won third place team as well, and the university overall received the second place sweepstakes award.

The second place sweepstakes victory accounted for all of the victories overall. The two teams at the tournament won more awards than the other teams in the tournament combined. Southeast won this award while facing around 20 other universities, and most were able to send more than five teams.

“It was a success for the team for the first meet of the year, especially considering we are now in a varsity division,” Johnson said.

The topic debated at the tournament was, “The U.S. should prioritize the humanitarian needs of refugees,” and was operated by the National Educational Debate Association (NEDA).

This was the first debate tournament of the 2016-2017 year for the team and follows a National Championship performance last March at the NEDA’s National Debate Tournament at Fullerton College.

In preparation for the first debate of the year, Avery Henry, director and faculty adviser of the debate team, said, “(We) went through the meetings every week, we discussed the topic and we all did research on various issues, everyone wrote their own arguments, and we draw all the resources together into a centralized document to help everyone along and practice debate.”

“We’re happy with our results, and we have nothing but upward trajectory to go,” Ritter said.

With this first debate tournament a success, the team's outlook for the year is both positive and optimistic.

“We did really good for the first tournament. Ideally we’re looking to get back on top and to win as many tournaments as we can,” Henry said.

Under NEDA guidelines, the debate was organized in a crossfire style. The topic was chosen based on values of competitive and educational debates the organization looks at to decide which topic would be most appropriate to use.

Judges for NEDA events are at least 50 percent not specialized in debate, but rather members of the general community with essentially no knowledge of the topic at hand. These people are brought in to give the teams competing a goal to persuade them one way or another.

The coming events for the team to participate in this semester will be a tournament at Anderson University in Anderson, Indiana, sponsoring a guest lecture at the end of October and likely another tournament at the University of Dayton in Dayton, Ohio.

As for the spring semester, the schedule is still yet to be determined.