Photo by Sarah Holland/College of Humanities and Social Sciences
Two first-year George Mason University students brought home not one but two national debate titles in a pair of March competitions.
Nathan Stolzenfeld, who is a government and international politics major at the Schar School of Policy and Government, and Global Affairs student Megan Rodak finished their first collegiate season as the top novice duo in the country after securing victories at the American Debate Association National Championship at Georgetown University and the Cross Examination Debate Association JV/Novice National Championship at West Virginia University.
In total, they won six of the nine tournaments that they attended this season. Stolzenfeld was voted Novice of the Year at the American Debate Association National Championship.
The debate style Stolzenfeld and Rodak compete in is “policy debate,” said longtime Mason director of debate Warren Decker. “It’s well known to be the most difficult debate event to excel at even with four years of high school policy debate experience under your belt, let alone pick up during college.”
This year’s topic of debate was “Legal Personhood”: “The United State should vest legal rights and/or duties in one of more of the following: artificial intelligence, nature, nonhuman animal species.” It was at topic that no one on the debate team had prior knowledge of researching or discussing.
The team spent the summer researching, compiling, and synthesizing evidence from peer-reviewed sources, resulting in thousands of pages of notes.
“There are definitely tense moments and incredibly hard debates,” Stolzenfeld said, “but I'm glad to have had a great partner to get through it all with, and amazing coaches to help prepare for challenging debates.”
“Thinking about the fact that I had no idea what policy debate was a few months ago, it's incredibly rewarding to know how far I have come in this activity,” Rodak added. “Each of these tournaments presented their own unique challenges. But through it all we had our coaches and older members of the team helping us through each and every tournament. Seeing that the work we do does in fact, pay off, it makes me excited for the years to come with Mason debate.”
Beyond the knowledge debate provides, the activity of debate also trains students to become quantum thinkers who can think through issues to the fifth and sixth levels of analysis. And a debater learns to become an accomplished public speaker. Former Mason Debate alums have become environmental lobbyists on the Hill, judges in district circuit courts, professors, physicists, class action attorneys, graduate students, politicians, and key professionals in other fields.