Seawolf Debate

09/27/2026

We kicked off the high school season in Anchorage this weekend with the UAA Drama, Debate, and Forensics Camp and “Learnament.” In total, we had 54 students and 12 educators from 9 Anchorage schools running around the UAA campus.

Over the course of 3 days we hosted multiple workshops on best practices in debate, dealing with anxiety, introductory debate games, improv games, and many others.

When we were done with workshops, we turned our attention to the first tournament of the year, placing an emphasis on accessibility, learning, and growth.

In addition to the nearly 300 hours put into the event by members of the Seawolf Debate Program, we had multiple assists from area coaches, Seawolf Debate Alumni, and some of my formers debaters at South HS!

We are especially grateful to the Atwood Foundation for its support of events like this!

Finally, devils club pottery provided lunch for all the participants (students, coaches, and volunteers) today!

09/24/2026

This past weekend, the Seawolf Debate Program hosted its annual retreat. We had 28 students join us at this year’s event. By my memory, that is one of our largest ever.

“The Retreat” serves as a two-day debate camp for UAA students interested in exploring academic, competitive debate. Most of those students choose to become a part of the Seawolf Debate Program.

Over the course of the weekend we explored debating strategies and tactics. Our students also had five practice debates in which they explored current controversies.

Many thanks to Assistant Director Mckayla Montgomery for helping pull off the event and Ryan Davis/Casi LeBlanc for leading workshops and judging debates. Thank you to Vice Provost Ray Ball, and alumni: Matt Fox, Nathan Burns, and JT Taylor for serving as judges, too!

Last but not least, many thanks to the Atwood Foundation for its continued support of Seawolf Debate!

08/11/2026

This weekend, 4 Seawolves participated in India’s Pre-Asian BP online tournament. Forty-five teams from around the Pacific Rim/Asia participated in the tournament.

At the end of preliminary rounds, the team of Andora Ovsepyan & Brooke Earle distinguished themselves as the 7th overall seed and earned a spot in elimination rounds!

06/26/2026

Seawolf Debate Service Roundup

The Seawolf Debate Program had a monster year supporting civil discourse in Alaska. In total, members of the program spent 3,046 hours serving our community. (Edit: This number goes up significantly if you count the hours of alumni who helped us pull off many of these events.)

Highlights from AY26 include:

684.5 hours supporting middle school debate
- Co-hosted & Directed 3 tournaments for the Anchorage School District
- Judged 1 tournament for Fairbanks
- Hosted the Alaska 529 Middle School State Championship

1,824 hours supporting high school Drama, Debate, & Forensics
- Hosted a DDF camp & the first tournament of the season
- Judged at 4 local tournaments
- Co-hosted & Directed the ASAA State Championship

400 hours directly supporting the university and its students
- Moderated & served as panelists for the Chancellor Search Forum
- Hosted the Cabin Fever Debates, UAA’s intramural debating championship
- Served as readers & facilitators at Commencement

137.5 hours (other)
- Hosted a public debate against the #1 ranked debate team in the nation: the US Air Force Academy

Our students are phenomenal, averaging more than 140 hours serving the community.

We also thank our sponsors & donors who help make these events happen!
Atwood Foundation
Alaska 529
Mooses Tooth
Kaladi Brothers
Starbucks
Forty Ninth State Brewing
Frontier Alaska Soda
Little Italy

06/19/2026

This week, I had the privilege of accompanying 25 high school students from Alaska (12 from Anchorage) to the NSDA national championship. Qualifying to nationals already means the students are in roughly the top 3-4% of speech & debate competitors in the nation. Advancing to elimination rounds puts them in the top 1%.

Alaska, arguably, had one of its best showings ever. Although no one “walked” the stage this year, the breadth of success rivaled any year in decades.

Prose: Swiss Berestoff (Kodiak) advanced to the third elimination round, placing in the top 29 out of 420 students.

Extemporaneous Debate: Jasper Davis (West) advanced to the third elimination round, placing in the top 127 out of 1,071.

Extemporaneous Debate: Ken Fine (Soldotna) advanced to the second elimination round, placing in the top 214 out of 1,071.

Alaskans also had 4 near misses:

Policy Debate: Zach Day & Katrina Nelson (West) went 7-5 and missed advancing to elimination rounds by a single ballot.

Public Forum: Madeleine Bass & Samuel Lagerquist (Juneau Douglas) went 7-5 and missed advancing to elimination rounds by a single ballot.

World Schools Debate: Jaxson Cook (Chugiak), Adelina Elliot (West), Grace Yang (West), & Sam Fineman (West) went 3-3 and missed advancing to elimination rounds by a single ballot.

Congressional Debate - Senate: Wayne Barnum (AMCS) was the highest placing senator not to advance to semifinals, meaning he was the “next student up.”

06/03/2026

We have video for the UAA - Air Force exhibition debate on May 4th. The program starts at 20 minutes into the video. Part 2 is posted in the comments.

Exhibition Debate between UAA and Air Force on May 4th, 2026. Topic...

06/01/2026

Exciting news! Former Seawolf Debater Zac Johnson is running for Lt Governor! Good luck Zac!

05/06/2026

Last night we hosted an exhibition debate against the #1 ranked debate team in the nation (Fallon Eggett & Audrey Neukomm) from the US Air Force Academy. We had a fantastic evening in which the Seawolves beat my own undergraduate institution on a 2-1 decision (although Air Force won the audience poll).

Casi LeBlanc did an excellent job representing UAA in her final appearance as a Seawolf Debater. Ashton Bednar also did an excellent job, but returns for a couple more years of debating.

On the judging panel, we were fortunate to have Jon Bittner, Joelle Hall, and Seawolf Debate alumnus Zac Johnson.

Several Seawolf Debaters worked backstage reviewing audience-submitted questions, which were then presented by Jay Badalich, Wayne Barnum, & Colton Henry.

Shout out to Forty Ninth State Brewing & Frontier Soda for feeding the UAA & USAFA students and the stage crew before the event.

A special thanks to the Atwood Foundation for supporting events like this throughout the year. Without their support, we wouldn't be able to support the community the way we do. Thanks to them, our program was able to spend nearly 2,700 hours of time in service of the community, when we weren't representing the UAA: University of Alaska Anchorage and the state of Alaska in intercollegiate debate competitions.

04/30/2026

We are excited to announce our three guest judges for the UAA vs Air Force exhibition debate on May 4th.

Jonathan Bittner - President & CEO of the Anchorage Economic Development Corporation
Joelle Hall - President of the Alaska AFL-CIO
Zac Johnson - Anchorage Assembly

Buy your tickets now!
https://aac-uaa.evenue.net/events/SB050426

04/28/2026

This past weekend, we hosted the Alaska 529 Middle School State Debate Championship on the UAA campus. In total, there were 128 middle school students engaging in civil public discourse, with an additional 17 high school students working alongside our debaters as judges.

We spent more than 175 hours in service of these exceptional students take part in one of the largest middle school state championships. By all accounts from the judges, the quality of debate was the highest they had seen in recent years.

Many thanks to Alaska 529 and the UAA: University of Alaska Anchorage for making this event possible.