Debate Group

The Harvard Speech and Debate Society, a parliamentary-style, extemporaneous debate organization, will begin its first year with a tournament at Fordham this weekend.

Approximately 80 College and graduate students have signed on as members of the society, which will join the American Parliamentary Debate Association, graduate student Thomas Rozinski, president of the society, said yesterday. There are similar association in Britain, Australia, and Canada, and other American colleges, among them Yale and Princeton, already field extemporaneous debate teams.

It's a type of debate which emphasizes creativity, wit, humor, analysis, and persuasion." Rozinski said yesterday, adding the society is an alternative to the more formal single-topic format of the Harvard Debate Council.

In extemporaneous debate tournaments, the teams, comprised of two people, have only 15 minutes to prepare a speech on a given subject. Topic debating, the more traditional format at Harvard, emphasizes exhaustive research; only one resolution is debated all year.

"The future's terrific. We have the largest program of any debate team, as far as I know, in the Northeast," Rozinski said. "It should become a substantial part of the extracurricular scene at Harvard," he added. The first Harvard extemporaneous debate tournament is scheduled for October 23 and 24.