Bates student Taylor Blackburn achieves top-10 national ranking in debate

2014 Mar 5

Taylor Blackburn, a member of the Brooks Quimby Debate Council at Bates College, has been ranked among the top-10 U.S. collegiate debaters this year.

Blackburn and teammate Jack Stewart of Keene, N.H., won the Yale Inter-Varsity Debate Tournament on October 4, 2013, and the Brandeis Inter-Varsity Debate Tournament held December 6-7, 2013. At both tournaments, Blackburn and Stewart defeated some of the world's best collegiate debaters from Yale, Harvard, Brown and McGill.

In mid-November, the pair competed at Cambridge University in England, where Blackburn finished as the sixth-place speaker, outranking more than 250 internationally acclaimed debaters from Oxford, Stanford, Harvard and Yale. In early January, the pair competed in the World Universities Debate Championships in Chennai, India, where they were ranked 21st in the world.

Blackburn and Stewart's performance at this year's American Parliamentary Debate Association tournaments, as well as their success at international events in the U.K. and India, helped drive the BQDC to its sixth-in-the-nation ranking earlier this year.

"The hard work of team members has established the BQDC as one of the premier debate teams in America," said Jan Hovden, director of debate and lecturer in rhetoric at Bates. "I couldn't be prouder of them, and I look forward to continued success throughout the rest of the year."

The Brooks Quimby Debate Council at Bates College is one of the world's premier debating societies. Bates debaters are routinely ranked among the best in the U.S. while also competing internationally, including annually at the World Universities Debating Championships. The Brooks Quimby Debate Council is distinctive in that the club does not hold competitive tryouts but is open to all interested students, often developing top debaters who have had no prior experience. Alumni of the Bates program include Bob Goodlatte '74, U.S. Congressman and chair of the House Judiciary Committee; Joyce White Vance '82, U.S. Attorney for Northern Alabama; Edmund S. Muskie '36, U.S. Senator and author of the landmark Clean Water and Clean Air acts; and Benjamin E. Mays '20, civil rights leader and longtime president of Morehouse College.

Blackburn, who is majoring in rhetoric at Bates, is a 2011 graduate of Menlo School in Atherton, Calif. She is the daughter of Jill C. Wetzel of Atherton, Calif., and Leonard A. Blackburn of Atherton, Calif.

Located in Lewiston, Maine, Bates is internationally recognized as a leading college of the liberal arts, attracting 2,000 students from across the U.S. and around the world. Since 1855, Bates has been dedicated to educating the whole person through creative and rigorous scholarship in a collaborative residential community. With a commitment to affordability, Bates has always admitted students without regard to gender, race, religion or national origin. Cultivating intellectual discovery and informed civic action, Bates prepares leaders sustained by a love of learning and zeal for responsible stewardship of the wider world.