SOPHOMORE WINS DEBATING CHAMPIONSHIP

When asked their greatest fear, most people say it's public speaking. Not Travis Partney.

"I kind of like it actually," he says. "I have their complete attention. I can really communicate with them."

Recently, Partney won the National Educational Debate Association's national championship in Lincoln-Douglas Debate in Kankakee, Ill.

The Southeast team of Vickie Devereaux and Beth Knight placed fifth in team debate among eight teams.

The debate team, coached by second-year assistant professor Dr. Larry Underberg, is credited by speech professor Dr. Tom Harte with restoring the strong debate tradition at Southeast, which extends through him to professor emeritus Dr. Fred Goodwin.

Underberg has aligned the university with a debate organization that doesn't condone the rudeness, hostility and liberties with evidence he says can be found in some debate competitions. He helped found NEDA and wrote the mission statement.

In NEDA debates, the rounds are judged by guest critics who may or may not have debate backgrounds. "It reminds us we have to make sense to a wide variety of audiences," Underberg says.

The organization stresses communication skills and researching topics of current interest. The topic this semester is whether the privatization of prisons should be increased. Last semester's debates focused on free speech on the Internet.

A third of the members of the Southeast team are speech majors. Many are interested in politics and law, some have experience in drama. Anyone willing to make an effort is welcome on the team.

Underberg says good debaters have intellectual curiosity, enjoy research and are not afraid to expose their views to the scrutiny of others.

They are required to debate both sides of an issue. "The only way to test your beliefs is to be able to explore some of the arguments against them," Underberg says.

Partney, a sophomore speech communication and philosophy major from Hillsboro, originally planned to go to the University of Missouri until he found out Mizzou didn't have a debate team and Southeast did.

Debating has helped him in a number of ways, he says.

"Whenever you're discussing a topic with anybody, you're looking at how rational the views are," he says. It streamlines the conversion. Academically it helps me clearly say what I want to say."

He plans to go to law school.

Knight is a senior from St. Louis who joined the debate team only in January. She had never done any public speaking, but she and Devereaux won their first tournament as a team. "It was very scary, but when we won the public speaking award I wished I had joined earlier," she said. "I feel like it's going to help me." She plans on going into public relations.

Devereaux, A St. Charles junior, was a competitive athlete in high school. Now she thinks she'd like to become a motivational speaker. "I have always loved to get in front of people and talk. It's a really big rush for me," she said. "But I decided to get out of theater and do something more practical."

Underberg grew up in a South Dakota town of 200 people who were proud of their debate team, which won three state high school championships while he was a student. One-fourth of the 100 students in the school were on the debate team.

"On occasion we held debate pep rallies," he says. "The town was really behind the team."

Debating won't completely cure the fear of public speaking, Underberg says. "I don't think anybody gets over nervousness about speaking in public. But you do learn to control it a bit."