Brooks Quimby Debate Council

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Brooks Quimby Debate Council

The BQDC is Bates College's legendary debate team.

12/09/2025

A couple of big updates from your Batesies as the semester comes to a close: ❗️❗️❗️

-Two weeks ago, Tosca Neumann (senior) and Ari Hahn (Junior) competed at Fordham. At this very large tournament, they broke 8th to octofinals and were awarded a mini statue of Julius Caesar as a trophy! Congrats!!!
-Last weekend, Tosca competed at the Wellesley GM tournament with their hybrid from Wellesley, Emma Chi. They broke 1ST TO SEMIFINALS after winning four consecutive in-rounds, and Tosca placed as the 4TH BEST VARSITY SPEAKER AT THE TOURNAMENT!!!
-The end-of-semester sillies have been upon us in recent practice sessions! We are about to take a rest over winter break, but we will join you again with updates from Worlds in Bulgaria in a few short weeks! Go Bates! 🐾♥️

11/18/2025

“Now, take a silly photo.”

11/14/2025

Did you know that the Bates debate team competed in the first EVER intercontinental intercollegiate debate in 1921?!? 🐾❤️

To participate, your Batesies sailed across the Atlantic to the University of Oxford. ⛵️

104 years later, we keep this legacy alive and are happy to report that we made it to the UK (via flight, of course).😊✈️

Let’s goooo at Oxford IV!!! 🏆

11/14/2025

We ❤️ ProAms!!!

Last weekend, three BQDC teams traveled to Northeastern University, and they aced this tournament!

-Manav Mittal (junior) and Arman Syed (freshman) partnered for a GREAT run. Despite a challenging series of in-rounds (they were on opposition 4 out of 5 rounds), this duo went 4-1 to break 6th to out-rounds, achieving victory in both octofinals and quarterfinals. While their run ended in the semifinal, they finished among the TOP 4 TEAMS of the tournament!!!
-Manav also placed as the 3rd best speaker out of 180 debaters at the tournament! What an elite performance!

Amidst the fun, we forgot to take a team photo, but Charlie and Emily are always excited to show their team spirit! Congratulations to all who attended!

!

11/03/2025

Congratulations to Tosca Neumann (senior) and Tanvir Thamid (senior), who competed at Yale this past weekend and qualified for ESL finals!

It was a spook-tacular weekend of high-level BP debate, hanging out with our besties from Brown University, and showing off our musical talents by drumming with silverware at dinner and carpool karaoke-ing over the long drive. 👻🎃❤️🤎🍴🥁🎤

Thanks to Ari Hahn (junior) for judging and Yale for a great tournament!

10/26/2025

LeBron?🏀 LeBrown?❤️🤎 LeBobcats!!!❤️🐾

Your Batesies are Brown University’s APDA varsity AND novice CHAMPIONS!!!!! 🏆 The BQDC’s Brown tournament highlight reel was nothing short of remarkable:

-Manav Mittal (junior) and his Amherst College hybrid Cecilia Granda-Scott broke 6th to varsity outrounds, soared through octos, quarters, and semis to the final, WHERE THEY WERE CROWNED CHAMPIONS out of the 72 teams that attended the tournament!!! Our whole team had the privilege of watching the final round, and we can confirm: this debate duo was nothing but net.🏀
-Emily Shield and Arman Syed (freshmen) broke as the 4-seed to novice semis, upset the 1-seed, and WERE CROWNED CHAMPIONS of the novice division! Arman was also the 5th-placing novice speaker of the tournament. These two were on fire.🔥
-Tosca Neumann (senior) and Ari Hahn (junior) broke 11th to varsity outrounds, UPSET the 3-seed in octos, and advanced to the quarterfinals to finish among the top 8 teams. What an impressive run! 🏃‍♂️
-3 additional Bates teams attended: James Foleno/Noku Zuze (sophomores), Amy Sun/Thierry Moss (freshmen), and Ishan Reese/Lorenz Soukup. All of these teams picked up at least 2 victories during inrounds! 🏆 (A special shoutout goes to Lorenz; Brown was his first-ever debate tournament!)

This slam dunk of a weekend was a true team effort that speaks to the group’s consistency, comittment, and command of their craft.

Your BQDC debaters are GOATs.🐐
And we’re proud that they’re Bobcats, too.❤️🐾

10/24/2025

On our way to Brown!!! ❤️🖤

10/08/2025

The Brooks Quimby Debate Council ventured to Boston University last weekend for an incredible novice APDA tournament. 4 Bates teams competed in the event, 5 varsities attended to judge, and every single team picked up at least one win in what was most competitors’ first try at collegiate debate. We are so proud of our novice cohort!

A special congratulations goes to Arman Syed and Emily Shield, who despite starting the tournament at an 0-1 deficit, rallied to win 4 straight inrounds, broke 11th to octofinals, and made it all the way to SEMIFINALS on a 6-round win streak. They finished among the top 4 teams out of over 100 teams that attended the tournament.

! ❤️🐾

09/29/2025

The BQDC has had a busy and fun couple of weeks!

Two weekends ago, we kicked off the APDA season by hosting at Bates, where top debaters were awarded iconic Halloween ducks as trophies. A huge shout out goes to Tosca Neumann (senior) for directing the tournament and Ari Hahn (junior) for running tab. They get an A+ for creativity!

This past weekend, we brought four teams and two judges to Tufts APDA for our first competition of the year, and we had amazing success!

-Tosca and Ari Hahn (junior) broke to varsity quarterfinals!
-Arman Syed (freshman) and Emily Shield (freshman) broke to novice semifinals!
-Arman was the 4th best novice speaker!
-Tufts was the first EVER collegiate debate tournament for Catherine Gooding (freshman), Charlie Lechowicz (freshman), Arman, and Emily!!!

Congrats to all who attended for a fantastic start to the year! The BQDC is lucky to have so many incredible debaters.

02/16/2024

There have been 0 participation to Bates Debate this semester and the BQDC Board have decided to resign.

This letter outlines our broad equity concerns with how the team is currently being run by the new Director of Debate, Professor Sammi Rippetoe.

We are sorry that the situation have escalated to this. Bates debate was our home for the past years, but we felt the need to outline these important concerns.

Letter attached.
Ex-BQDC Board

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1w7MxYOEAzNFItQ4NX4dh8YzDiGb-63IzrHw-zWN68zU/edit

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Lewiston, ME
04240

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http://www.bates.edu/debate/

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