{"id":21289,"date":"2023-11-15T21:08:04","date_gmt":"2023-11-15T21:08:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/160-news\/?p=21289"},"modified":"2026-02-24T20:08:25","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T20:08:25","slug":"macalester-takes-first-at-2023-harvard-debate-tournament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/2023\/11\/macalester-takes-first-at-2023-harvard-debate-tournament\/","title":{"rendered":"Macalester Takes First at 2023 Harvard Debate Tournament"},"content":{"rendered":"

In yet another victory for Macalester Forensics, the Mac debate team started off the year strong with a first-place finish for Jonah Daniels \u02bc27 (Baltimore) and Kat Northrop \u02bc27 (Los Angeles) at Harvard’s 2023 Fall Tournament in the junior varsity division. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I’m proud of the hard work these students have put into this,” says Director of Forensics Beau Larsen. “We were debating a really unique issue, and they had the drive and endurance you need when doing the research and staying up-to-date with current events.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year\u2019s topic was about United States nuclear policy.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt says a lot about how hard Mac students work to prepare for competition,\u201d Larsen says. \u201cIt was their first college policy tournament, so to win the first tournament really just sets great footing for the rest of their debate careers at Macalester.”<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After two days of competition (starting at 6 a.m. and going until 7 p.m.), the two first-years advanced to elimination rounds after six pre-elimination rounds, then to quarterfinals, semifinals, and finally, the final round. The team clinched their win against Samford University on the morning of October 30 after the taxing weekend. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was a little stressful, and pretty tiring\u2014one night we slept on the floor for only three hours\u2014but that win made it all worth it,\u201d says Daniels. \u201cI had been uncertain about whether or not I wanted to continue debate in college, because all those hours take a toll\u2014so being successful in our first tournament, at the start of our college careers? It was the best thing I could\u2019ve asked for.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was awesome to come into college and start a new partnership with someone you work well with in debate rounds,\u201d says Northrop. \u201cGetting to sit with coaches and other teammates, enjoying wins and discussing losses, and feeling the support of the team was really meaningful for me. It feels really nice to find a space here that isn\u2019t just about competing, but also about how the team feels like family.\u201d<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Mac debate team kicks off the year with a first-place finish at Harvard’s 2023 Fall Tournament. <\/p>","protected":false},"author":677,"featured_media":21295,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"fields":{"article_type":false,"flickr_photoset_id":"","youtube_id":"","square_thumbnail":false,"press_photos":false,"story_title":"","story_caption":"","rotations":false,"maps":false,"marker_title":"","marker_text":"","geographic_location":false,"feature_embed":"","custom_link_url":"","news_icon_name":"","image_options":[{"ID":21291,"id":21291,"title":"20231108_DebateWinners1","filename":"20231108_DebateWinners1-scaled.jpg","filesize":1039272,"url":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/653\/2023\/11\/20231108_DebateWinners1-scaled.jpg","link":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/2023\/11\/macalester-takes-first-at-2023-harvard-debate-tournament\/20231108_debatewinners1\/","alt":"","author":"677","description":"","caption":"","name":"20231108_debatewinners1","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":21289,"date":"2023-11-15 17:18:24","modified":"2023-11-15 17:19:11","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":2048,"height":2560,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/653\/2023\/11\/20231108_DebateWinners1-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/653\/2023\/11\/20231108_DebateWinners1-240x300.jpg","medium-width":240,"medium-height":300,"medium_large":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/653\/2023\/11\/20231108_DebateWinners1-768x960.jpg","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":960,"large":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/653\/2023\/11\/20231108_DebateWinners1-819x1024.jpg","large-width":819,"large-height":1024,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/653\/2023\/11\/20231108_DebateWinners1-1229x1536.jpg","1536x1536-width":1229,"1536x1536-height":1536,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/653\/2023\/11\/20231108_DebateWinners1-1638x2048.jpg","2048x2048-width":1638,"2048x2048-height":2048}}],"main_feature_story":"","custom_image":false,"custom_feature_title":"","custom_feature_caption":"","custom_markup":"","custom_markup_link":"","custom_markup_title":"","custom_markup_caption":"","byline":"","post_thumbnail_style":"default","press_downloads":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/677"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21289"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21289\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29927,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21289\/revisions\/29927"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}