BY JUNE LIN
How a small group of people turned into a national circuit – history of the New York Parliamentary Debate League
Before the pandemic, my experience with parliamentary debate was limited. As a Connecticut resident, my team was geographically isolated from surrounding Parli circuits. Two years later, I find myself on the board of the New York Parliamentary Debate League— a circuit that would, in any other year, be a three hour train ride away. The NYPDL has grown immensely since the beginning of the pandemic. Once a small local league, it now attracts debaters from all over the country and beyond. To look into how the NYPDL has grown over the years, I spoke with a few key figures: Rodda John, the league’s founder, and Michael Ding, executive director of the league during the peak of the pandemic.
Rodda, despite having graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 2017, continues to be involved with monthly tournaments. He is now a student at Columbia University. To obtain some insight into the league’s history, I asked him a few questions:
Q: What year was the NYPDL founded?
“I believe Spring 2014– I could be off by a term, but that’s my recollection.”
Q: Why did you found the NYPDL?
“I was trained, in middle school, by members of the Columbia APDA team in parliamentary debate. When I arrived in high school, I found the other evidence-based formats completely lacking any educational value, so I decided to add parliamentary debate to the mix both due to its emphasis on logical argumentation, but also its spontaneous topics.”
Q: Considering how you are still actively involved with the league, how do you think it has changed since you started it?
“Some brief thoughts: the league's mission has changed drastically over the course of its existence. It started out to allow a small group of people (from maybe 5 schools) to do parliamentary debate. Now its mission is more proselytizing and about expanding to different parts of the country (CT, NJ, upstate NY, PA, in addition to CA, etc.) on the basis that its form of parliamentary debate and student-run experience is what makes it successful. The league is completely no frills -- it tries to handle no money, hire no judges, etc. -- it exists to run tournaments, grow, and provide free resources to the parliamentary debate community (it is used to teach students on both coasts in at least four states that I've heard of) -- this is a benefit and a course, but it's leaned into this the older it gets. Most of these vibes are probably my fault originally, but they have worked really well with how the league has developed and how it wants to live. The league now is unrecognizable to the league of 5 years ago, and I couldn't be more excited for where it's going.”
Q: Has the league always been student-run?
“Yes. In fact, the least student-run it has ever been is likely now due to my oversight. Tournaments, outreach, resource generation, and policy is all generated and executed by students, with some light oversight by me.”
Like other circuits and formats all over the country, the pandemic has reshaped the NYPDL circuit. To discuss recent changes, I spoke with one of the league’s most recent executive directors, Michael Ding. Michael graduated from Trinity High School in 2021 and is now (also) a student at Columbia.
Q: How has the league changed after going online?
“My leadership of the league was defined by our transition to a virtual format. In May 2020, after the onset of the pandemic, the NYPDL had a chance to run an end-of-year virtual tournament over Discord which Claire Marchand (the Executive Director at the time), Rodda John (who has generously dedicated much of his time to ensuring our league runs smoothly), and I (a Treasurer and Equity Officer for the league at the time) organized, sort of as a trial run, you could say. To my memory, the tournament went pretty smoothly considering the circumstances, and it was a good sign that we could run more virtual tournaments in the 2020-21 year if we had to (at that point, there was still some optimism that COVID would be gone after the summer).
When I took over in the summer of 2020, it became clear that the debate season would have to start off online. We spent much of our time in board meetings planning out the new virtual format for the league, considering new initiatives that we simply didn't have the time or headspace to pursue during the chaos of the spring. Responsibilities for each of our teams changed drastically now that we were online [...] Looking at other teams within the Board, the equity team also pursued a number of new initiatives. Especially in an online format, ensuring a safe environment for debaters has been a huge priority for the league. We developed a new Code of Conduct and equity guide for debaters and judges, and made sure to have equity officers available throughout each tournament. We also made sure to revamp our website to make these resources (as well as other useful information like the schedule and info page) more widely available.”
Q: What was the most difficult part about adapting to online platforms?
“Of course, adapting tournaments to an online format was itself a huge challenge. While we had success during our trial run in May, converting a one-time success into a consistent format was difficult early on in the 2020-21 year. In fact, my very first tournament in September had a huge delay — at this point, I forget from what, but it could've been anything from a lack of understanding of MIT Tab (a new tab software that we had not used before), malfunctions in the bot that we used on Discord, or simply general misunderstandings about the new format from debaters, judges, and tournament admin alike. Mistakes during that first tournament were definitely an unfortunate way to start the year, but very necessary and helpful as we continued to refine the online format into a system that ended up working smoothly as the year went on.”
Q: What is the biggest merit of online tournaments?
“..outreach, for example, was no longer constrained to the New York metro area — we could reach out to Parli teams from NY all the way to the West Coast, and indeed this huge surge in participation and geographical diversity has been one of my favorite benefits from online tournaments. It was amazing to be able to watch debaters from schools that were "regulars" of the league (i.e. Trinity, Stuyvesant, Horace Mann) compete against — and more importantly, be able to meet and even befriend — new debaters from Connecticut, California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and more. Arguably the most significant impact that online tournaments had on the league, this huge expansion is also going to be one of the league's most difficult challenges once the pandemic no longer prevents the league from hosting in-person tournaments — will the league switch back fully to in-person tournaments, barring most non-NY debaters from competing regularly? Will there instead be some hybrid setup that allows some debaters to compete virtually? Will the NYPDL itself expand to other regions to allow for some of our newest yet most dedicated teams (like BOW) to continue to compete regularly with the league? This was a big question that I had imagined would be deliberated by the next NYPDL Board, led by Ariel Kirman, but it seems like COVID will continue to prevent in-person tournaments through the 2021-22 season.
Overall, COVID drastically reshaped the league. In many ways, we have no longer been the "New York" Parliamentary Debate League over the past two years. Hundreds of new debaters from schools across the country have joined the league and adapted to this virtual format. The league itself, like many institutions during the pandemic, has made greater use of the virtual space, publicizing resources like our round recordings or Parli training guides on our Youtube and website and making them widely available. The current Board has done a fantastic job keeping up the success of our virtual tournaments this year, and I'm eager to see what initiatives they pursue in preparation for a hopefully-not-so-distant time when in-person tournaments become viable again. For now, though, I'm thrilled that debaters from California to Connecticut continue to log on every month and debate with the NYPDL.”
After being given insight into the NYPDL’s evolution over time, it has become clear that the league has undergone significant change since its inception. While debate all over the country has adapted to the pandemic, the New York Parliamentary Debate League is unique in its entirely student-driven inner workings. As a debater and board member in the league myself, I continue to be impressed by the board’s ability to run high-quality tournaments without funding or formal oversight. Having participated in debate circuits all over the country, such as Connecticut, the California and the West Coast, and even the Midwest, the NYPDL continues to be one of the friendliest and most welcoming leagues I know. Like Rodda and Michael, I eagerly look forward to what is in store for the New York Parliamentary Debate League in the future.