MSU Denver Debate Team 2023

MSU Denver Debate is an intercollegiate and public debating program housed within the Department of Communication Studies that focuses on civic, community, and competitive activities in the Denver, regional, national, and global arenas. We provide co-curricular opportunities to engage in debate as a form of civic education animated by skills development in critical thinking, dialogic ethics, deliberative decision-making, argumentation, and presentational speaking. Through this program, we help our students build leadership skills and argumentative skills that provide them with more opportunities in their future careers. Our primary aim is to promote civic life and democratic culture at MSU Denver.  

Our organization was relaunched in 2019 and is indebted to many generations of debaters and coaches over the last several decades, especially our founding director, Gary Holbrook, who established a tradition of debate at MSU Denver. Since our relaunch of debate activities on campus, MSU Denver Debate has gained local and national recognition for its work.  

Due to our amazing advocates and excellent student leadership, in 2020 MSU Denver Debate students received an honorable mention at the Schuman Challenge, a national competition hosted by the Delegation of the European Union to the United States. This accomplishment was featured in the university’s magazine, MSU Denver’s RED. Our students also published an account of their experience preparing for and competing at this event in the journal Orbis.  

We have had successes like this at numerous other competitions. We have also hosted several public debates for our campus community with partners such as the Denver Urban Debate League, iDebate Rwanda, and the National Communication Association’s Committee on International Discussion and Debate’s British Tour of the U.S. Anyone at the MSU Denver campus is able to participate in MSU Denver Debate and through hosting these events, we are able to encourage more students and staff to engage in civic debate and learn more about its communicative processes.

Your Support
We are asking our friends, colleagues, and other stakeholders to help support our activities by donating to MSU Denver Debate today! Your donations will go to hosting on-campus events, supporting student travel to competitions, and other related activities that benefit MSU Denver as a whole.

Please also consider sharing our project with your social network as we are an ever-growing organization and are always looking for more support as well as new members! Thank you for your consideration and we hope to see you at some of our events this semester!