On a late winter Sunday afternoon, more than a dozen members of the student-run Parliamentary Debate Team gathered at the Rockefeller Center to prep for March tournaments at Yale and in Mexico City. In one drill, amid much laughter, debaters competed to shout out answers as they were quizzed by Ryan Lafferty ’26. 

The team, which practices and holds mock debates twice a week, has recently notched an impressive record. Last December at the World Universities Debating Championships in Vietnam, Lafferty and debate partner Madeleine Wu ’26 tied for fifth place among 300 two-on-two teams from around the world, and Dartmouth finished first among Ivy schools. The debaters also won the North American Universities Debating Championship last year. 

The College has the highest-ranked debate team in the country among those with no official coach. “We just don’t have the money,” says co-president Natalie Keim ’25. “But not having a coach is actually part of our charm. A coach can shift the focus to winning. For me, it’s more about community.” 

Just under half of the nearly three dozen team members hail from abroad, including Singapore, Pakistan, Vietnam, Panama, Bangladesh, Hong Kong, and Brazil. The team holds auditions each fall, when 70 to 90 students vie for eight to 10 openings. “We look for people who can think on their feet and form an argument quickly,” says Keim. “Good argumentation, good public speaking skills, team energy, coachability—we look for that way more than we’re looking for previous debate experience.” It takes five weeks to get a novice ready to compete, she adds.

In parliamentary debate competition, pairs of debaters get 15 minutes to muster their arguments on a topic—which can be as serious as the pros and cons of Japanese remilitarization or as zany as whether Santa Claus should face prosecution for forcing elves to work. Then each debater speaks for eight to 10 minutes. “It’s really about being able to just get up there and go,” says Keim. At some tournaments, debaters prepare a case in advance.

“Wacky topics can be fun,” Lafferty says. “Once in a while you get a topic and think, ‘I have zero idea.’ ” Sometimes everything clicks. “You get those moments, that euphoria, that ‘I do know what I’m talking about.’ ” 

Top row, from left: Rebecca Ronai ’25, Tajreen Nushba ’27, Nathan Tamkin ’26, Mackenzie Wilson ’27, Ann Tran ’25, Natalie Keim ’25

Bottom row, from left: Josh White ’26, Aina Nadeem ’27, Madeleine Wu ’26, Ayushya Ajmani ’24, Peyton Jackson ’27, Christian Chantayan ’26