“We’re not bankrupt, but we’re not well-off,” Kedem said.

Kedem said a dearth of resources has made HSPDS unable to send its members to the Parliamentary World Championship in South Africa since he has been at Harvard, even though HSPDS is the last American team to have won the competition—in 1986.

“We do well when we go,” Kedem said, “but we haven’t been able to.”

This year, HSPDS is working to expand its operating budget and hopes to send competitors to “Worlds” this winter, according to current HSPDS President Angela E. Kim ’03.

The outlook for HDC is much different.

“We’re living kind of large,” said HDC member Todd D. Fine ’03. “We’re flying across the country for competitions, staying in hotels, kind of like one of the sports teams, but without the direct oversight.”

HSPDS members, however, said they usually drive to tournaments, sleep in the dormitories of host schools and pay for their own meals.

Kim said she would like HSPDS to make more money from the Harvard Invitational in order to better fund its activities.

“We make a small portion of the overall profit,” Kim said. “The amount the tournament grosses is out of this world.”

Kim also indicated that she feels HSPDS is unnecessarily relegated to HDC in the context of the competition.

“We’re like employees,” she said.

But Kedem called the relationship between the two groups “symbiotic” and said that the groups “always negotiate about prices but come to an agreement in the end.”

Either way, Kedem said that he wished HSPDS had the money to send “anyone who’d like to go” to debate tournaments.