Debate Club Profile
The two co-founders of Reed College Debate Club might surprise you. While Julio Scherer ‘27 is a Words Championship debater, Alex Diamond ‘27 had no debate experience prior to founding the club. As it turns out, their different debate backgrounds exhibit many of their core philosophies in running the club. Diamond and Scherer want to make the club a community open to anyone who wants to talk about anything, a goal at the heart of the identity they’re cultivating for Reed Debate.
Diamond and Scherer recognized early on that there was a niche in the Reed community that Debate Club, a new club as of this semester, could help fill. Scherer explains “Debate is a really unique activity because it gives you a lot of freedom to learn about new things, and really build this mental muscle of learning how to intuitively argue. It's one of the most important things that's ever happened to me, and if I could put it in a sentence, debate teaches you how to think. Reed is just such an intellectual community. We saw that demand and we’re trying to supply.”
Diamond and Scherer's approach to meetings and choosing topics reflects their concern with making Reed Debate open to everyone. Active practice debating a wide variety of topics is a big focus. Diamond mentioned “Our goal is to be debating, we don't want you to come in and just want to talk but you get stuck behind all the nitty-gritty,” to which Scherer added “The best way to learn is to do it.” Interested in debating what the team wants to debate, club members were asked what topics they had the most fun debating in the past/would be interested debating in the future. Thus far, the club has tackled the topics, “This house regrets the celebrification of politicians” and “This house would hold parents legally responsible for the crimes of their children.”
When asked about those less concerned with learning the rules of debate but more interested in the secondary skills that come along with it, Diamond replied that debate is an activity that could benefit anyone, saying debate fosters quick thinking. The ability “to break down not even just an argument but a piece of information. To be able to block it out and better understand it. That's a great thing about debate as a secondary skill, I really think it gives you the opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of ideas.” Building off that thought, Scherer mentioned that “a very underrated benefit is it gives you a lot of confidence. When you can stand in front of a room of 10 people and convincingly argue something, it really gives you that kind of confidence in both public speaking as well as more intense levels of private speaking.”
Reed Debate focuses on a British Parliamentary (BP) style, with intentions to expand to other formats as the club grows. The decision to choose BP went beyond being the format Scherer is most experienced in. Diamond comments, “British Parliament has minimal prep time, which aids in the idea that this space is for club members. There's no expectation outside of that one hour during practice, you don't need to go through and come up with a full statistical report of all your topics. It's a much more of a logic-based form of debate, which allows for that intellectual exercise that we're looking for.” Scherer adds that “BP teaches you how to think, having an hour or two to prepare a case and having to pull that out quickly. I love to think of it as a muscle. The more you exercise that muscle, the faster you can come up with these ideas. And the faster you can come up with it in a prep room, the faster you can come up with it in conference, or in arguing with someone about anything really.”
One of the additional benefits Diamond has noticed from starting everyone with BP is that “it has kind of reset everyone. We have people in this club, who were their club leader in high school in [another debate format] like policy, but they're still sitting next to someone who's never done that before and they're both learning and they're both practicing new things.” Eventually, both Scherer and Diamond hope to expand the number of debate formats practiced at Reed. Scherer elaborates, “Right now we're a small club. As we become bigger, we want to expand our bandwidth to include as many other formats so that if people want to keep doing the format they've done in high school they can continue working on that. But also, if they want to learn a new format, we’ll have that diversity of experience.
Moving forward, Diamond and Scherer have both internal and external goals for Reed Debate. They both hope to contribute to Reed as a community and an institution. Scherer mentioned thinking “It'd just be so cool to see Reed teams in the leaderboards, for people to see that Reed has this capacity for debate.” Diamond adds “Super idealistic is we get to go to the World Championships. If by the time we graduate Reed has gone to Worlds or is in the conversation, we will be incredibly proud, incredibly happy. But larger than that, I think we both just want to maintain a positive community for Reedies. Personally, I felt like I really lacked that engagement with my fellow students in the first semester. I think the end goal for Reed Debate is to function as a positive community outside of class that is still able to stimulate those thinking muscles that can keep you sharp.
Debate club meets every Tuesday from 7:30pm to 9pm. If you are interested in learning more you can reach out to Alex Diamond at alexdiamond@reed.edu, to Julio Scherer at schererj@reed.edu, oran c scan the QR code listed below. Diamond also offered “If you want to just sit down with one of us, we're happy to talk to anyone. You just don't need to show up to a meeting cold if that makes you uncomfortable.”
To wrap up the profile, Diamond and Scherer wanted the student body to know that “Debate is really cool” and “Sometimes we get food.”
