Program description:

The Stanford Parliamentary Debate program returns this summer from August 13 - August 20. This camp brings the same professionalism to parliamentary debate that SNFI has brought to policy debate and LincolnDouglas debate for the past 16 years. Serious student of parliamentary debate wanting to take their activity to the next level are encouraged to attend, as are those just beginning in this style of argumentation. A special Advanced debate section is planned for this summer. Small group activities ensure that students of all experience levels can be accomodated.

Stanford Debate has a long history of success in parliamentary debate; its parli teams have finished in the top 10 in the American Parliamentary Debate Association Nationals and the overall Team of the Year rankings over a dozen times in the last 15 years. This year alone, the Stanford squad has cleared in varsity parli at the tournaments at Brown, American, Oxford, Fordham, Bowdoin, and the North American Championships. In addition, last year Stanford had the 1st and 2nd place teams at Oxford University’s tournament in England, and the 3rd and 6th US teams at the World Championship tournament held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

This exclusive one-week program will feature:
- A low ratio of staff to students - averaging 1 staff to every 8 students or better
- Excellent national-level debaters and coaches to learn from The program is directed by Bruce Jordan of the Bentley School. Mr. Jordan is well known on the circuit for the success of his teams at major tournaments. Guest seminars and judging by accomplished college parliamentary debaters are a regular feature of the program
- A great number of practice debates - half of the total instructional time will be spent on conducting practice debates
- Seminars on brainstorming, constructing and supporting arguments and theory of argumentation from the ground up
- Topic analyses on a number of commonly used parli topic areas through a spirited examination of current events
- Living and working on the Stanford University campus in a stimulating and secure environment
- Videotaping of speeches for review and analysis of speaking styles, cross examination techniques and argument selection

The camp is held in an intimate setting that allows plenty of question and answer sessions and one-on-one interaction with instructors, not just rote learning. Students are allowed to develop in a relaxed and supportive atmosphere with excellent supervision. Students will emerge from the program as more confident public speakers and as experts on the rules, style, and strategies of parliamentary debate, ready to compete in the fall.

The Primary Faculty:
Bruce Jordan is the Director of Debate at the Bentley School in California, and the Director of Parliamentary Debate at the SNFI. Mr. Jordan has a Masters in History and has finished his coursework for his Doctorate in Applied History and Social Science at Carnegie-Mellon University. This academic background makes him an ideal instructor for Parliamentary Debate. Mr. Jordan has founded debate programs at four different schools: Savannah Country Day School in Georgia, Shady Side Academy in Pennsylvania, Christ Church Episcopal in South Carolina, and the Bentley School in California. At all four schools he has qualified students to the state tournament. He has coached policy, LD, and parliamentary debate and has had students in state finals and qualified students to NFL nationals. While coaching parliamentary at Bentley, his teams have cleared to elimination rounds at every tournament that they have attended since the program began in 2000. The Bentley teams have closed out the MLK tournament at Logan high school, and have won the Stanford tournament, the Santa Clara Fall and Spring tournaments, and the University of the Pacific tournament. This will be Mr. Jordan’s second year running the SNFI Parliamentary Program.

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