Eric D. Albert '98 and Justin D. Osofsky '99 won the American Parliamentary Debate Association (APDA) National Championship held at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., this weekend.
Harvard's winning team beat over 70 teams from more than 40 schools at the annual championship to earn their first win since 1992. In the 16-year history of the competition, Harvard has won more championship titles than any other school, Albert said.
Albert, an Environmental Science and Public Policy concentrator who, has debated for eight years, and Osofsky, an economics concentrator who has debated for six years, received trophy cups for their win and will keep the traveling APDA trophy for one year.
"We basically have what I'd call an aggrandized champagne bucket," Osofsky said.
In order to qualify for the annual APDA national championship, each team had to reach the finals of a regular-season debate contest.
A parliamentary debate consists of two teams, one government team and an opposition team. The government team proposes the topic 15 minutes before the debate, and the opposition team must rebut the proposal without any preparation.
"Parliamentary debate...stresses rigorous argumentation, logical analysis, quick thinking, breadth of knowledge and rhetorical ability over preparation of evidence," according to the APDA web page.
In their final debate, Albert and Osofsky faced a government team from Williams College. Albert and Osofsky argued against the liability of social service departments when such departments are negligent and fail to fulfill their duties.
The Harvard students said they had no prior knowledge of the topic.
"We of course were surprised. You never know what's coming," Osofsky said. "We were comfortable with domestic politics, so we were fine."
"It was a gutsy case for them to run," said Albert. "It's a hard one to win."
Second place in the championship went to the Williams team, a team from Yale University won third place, and fourth place went to a team from New York University.
Competitors stayed for the weekend at the Watergate Hotel in the nation's capital.
"It's probably the nicest place I'll ever stay in," Albert said.
Three other teams of Harvard stu- Osofsky also placed fourth in the speakercompetition, Albert placed ninth and Gallagherplaced eleventh, according to Osofsky, who is theoutgoing vice president of the APDA and theoutgoing president of the Harvard Speech andParliamentary Debate Society (HSPDS). Gallagher isthe incoming president of HSPDS
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