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Majors & Degrees

DSU to host the 2015 British National Debate Team

November 11, 2015

Dakota State University will host the 2015 British Debate Team on Wednesday, November 18 at 7 p.m. in the Tunheim Classroom Building (TCB) auditorium. The topic of the debate is: “Should the recreational use of marijuana be legalized in the U.S.?” The DSU Team will debate in favor of legalization.

The DSU Debaters are freshman Cyber Operations majors, Garrett Verhoeven and Antony Culhane. The DSU Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Dr. Benjamin Jones, is serving as the moderator and timekeeper for the intercontinental debate.

The Committee on International Discussion and Debate (CIDD) promotes international understanding and the practice of communication through discussion and debates between students from the United States and other nations. The British Team consists of Chessy Whalen and Matthew Wilmore.

Whalen has just finished her 3-year BA in History at Balliol College Oxford. While at university she was an active member of the Oxford Union Debating Society representing Oxford at various national and international tournaments, most recently at the European Championships in Vienna this August where she was a quarter finalist.

Wilmore has recently completed a LLM in Human Rights at the University of Edinburgh. He previously received a First Class Honours from the University of Sheffield in Politics and Philosophy, which also included a year of study at Sciences Po Paris. He has worked extensively as a debating coach and judge for the ESU since September 2013 having run sessions across England, Scotland and Belgium. In addition Matthew has taught in schools in Israel and Nigeria as well as at various Universities across the UK, France and the United States.

The Whalen and Wilmore team have been on tour since the end of September, and their tour schedule took them all across the U.S., from California to Maryland, with South Dakota and DSU being their last stop before attending the National Communication Association Convention in Las Vegas, Nevada. The visitors will visit classes during the day and learn about what DSU has to offer.

The debate is free and open to the public. There will be time set aside for audience members to express their opinions.