The Ethics Debate Team qualified to compete in the national championships in Washington, D.C. for the first time.
The team debates on ethical issues in broad topics. Topics include pregnant women flying to the U.S. so their children will be citizens and doctors participating in enhanced interrogation techniques.
“It’s not a normal debate team, it’s less competitive and more collaborative,” said Sylvia Hayes, the team’s president. “We talk about the issues without tearing the other teams down.”
The team is given the questions in advance to prepare for the competition. Two teams debate at a time, one team begins with a seven minute presentation followed by a short rebuttal by the other team and a final rebuttal by the first team.
OCU’s team competed in the state competition in October and the regional competition in November where they qualified for the national championships and finished in third place.
“I really enjoy ethics debate because it’s all about considering real world problems and issues and whether or not they are justified in a moral sense,” said Joshua Hertz, political science sophomore. “It allows me to understand viewpoints of others around the nation on the same issue. Sometimes we disagree, but surprisingly it is more likely that we will agree.”
The team received funding for the championships from OK Ethics, the ethics organization of Oklahoma, $2,000 from the Student Senate, a GoFundMe page created by the team and the remainder was covered by a fund from the Meinders School of Business.
Five students from different majors will go to D.C. to compete.
“It’s really interesting, we have science majors, a religion major, business majors it’s really diverse,” Hayes said.
The competition will be Feb. 21 and the team will stay there Friday through Saturday. It’s too late to join the team for this year, but students can join the team next year.
For more information about the debate team, email Hayes at schayes@my.okcu.edu.
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