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China Debate Academy 2013-14

Students from schools across China will meet in Beijing from October 1-7 to participate in an annual debate program and school competition.
 

Students will:

  • Learn the discipline of debate
  • Engage in disciplined dialogue
  • Research and weigh evidence within and across subjects
  • Learn to distinguish fact from opinion
  • Present well-considered arguments
  • Develop strong critical thinking skills
  • Gain greater self-confidence and the ability to present ideas clearly
  • Develop skills most favorably viewed by U.S. admissions staff

Student Videos

Sherry  Daniel

“According to the Wall Street Journal, college admissions directors are relying less on grade point averages and standardized test scores, and are relying more on success in academically related extracurricular activities such as speech and debate.”

-Prof. Minh Luong, Forensics and College Admissions, Yale University

Faculty

Professor Alfred Charles Snider – University of Vermont

Alfred C. Snider:  is the Edwin W. Lawrence Professor of Forensics at the University of Vermont. He has degrees from Brown University, Emerson College, and the University of Kansas. HE teaches courses in debate, argumentation, persuasion and rhetorical analysis. He is the Director of the World Debate Institute and the Lawrence Debate Union.

Dr. Snider has spent over forty years promoting debate and critical communication as an alternative to violence and conflict. He has done formal debate training in forty countries and has trained debaters from over forty-five nations at the World Debate Institute’s sessions in the USA, Korea, Qatar, Iraq, Cameroon and Slovenia.  He has directed the debate program at international conferences in Turkey, Estonia, Qatar and Slovenia attended by scholars from over thirty-five nations.

Bojana Skrt: Director ZIP (National Debate Program of Slovenia), three times WSDC EFL World Champion coach, 2010 ESL WSDC Champion coach, founder of International Debate Academy Slovenia.

Four debate coaches will also join the summer 2013 program and be assigned to work with debate teams.

Each participating school may select 3, 6, 9 or 12 students to participate

Fee: Includes the 8-day debate program in Peking University, Beijing; room/board will be paid by each student to our host university (cost to be determined); plus transportation to Peking University. For more information on fees, please inquire about this program.

Registration: Students should contact their school for details.

“At the high point of their 2011/12 season, The University of Vermont was ranked seventh in the world by the International Debate Education Association, just behind Cambridge, Oxford, and Yale and ahead of the likes of London School of Economics, Harvard, and Stanford, all in an elite top thirty among hundreds of competing institutions.”

-Vermont Quarterly Magazine

About UVM

The University of Vermont combines faculty-student relationships most commonly found in a small liberal arts college with the resources of a major research institution. The university is home to 10,459 undergraduates, 1,540 graduate students, 449 medical students and 1,471 full- and part-time faculty. Located in Burlington, Vermont (perennially voted one of America’s most exciting small cities), UVM‘s setting in a valley on the shores of Lake Champlain, between the Adirondack and the Green mountain ranges, inspires visitors and residents.

Rankings

Want to know more about what makes UVM so special?

UVM Viewbook

Read the UVM viewbook (PDF).

How UVM Ranks: Top 100 National Universities Category
Source US News & World Report

  • #22 UVM’s faculty rank among research universities with enrollments under 16,000, a circle that includes many of the nation’s foremost schools.
  • #7 UVM rank for most classes with under 20 students.
  • #5 UVM’s rank among doctoral universities for the percent of its undergraduates who study abroad
  • #7 The UVM Lawrence Debate Union’s world-wide Inter­national Debate Education Association ranking.

 

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