KnightTimes | Fall 201436

DEBATE FUQUA MATCH

Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! host Peter Sagal does a lot of talking during his popular pod-cast—at the rate of about 160 words per minute (wpm). And that’s pretty normal. Between 150 and 200 wpm is a comfortable speaking and comprehension rate for the average person. But Pace debaters are anything but average. In fact, many debaters can speak and comprehend the spoken word at upwards of 300 wpm.

“It feels like the difference between people playing speed chess and the guys playing in the park,” says Pace debate team alumna PEYTON LEE ’09, who completed under-graduate studies at Northwestern University and now attends Harvard Law School.

Why is that so impressive? Not only are these students able to speak faster than most auctioneers, but they express substantive ar-guments surrounding complex topics—and since its start 42 years ago, Pace’s team has won 36 state championships.

Members of Pace's illustrious debate team

A Legacy of Achievement: “Arguing as an Elective”

THE FUQUA DEBATE

CHALLENGE MATCH

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DEBATE FUQUA MATCH

The late philanthropist, businessman and politician J.B. FUQUA, whose granddaughter FRANCES FUQUA ’12 attended Pace, recog-nized the significance of such major accolades coming from a small program at a relatively young independent school. Believing in the long- and short-term merit of students’ access to debate, in 1999, Fuqua made a tremendous gift that would fund the J.B. Fuqua Chair of Public Speaking and Debate, enhance op-portunities for Pace students in the areas of public speaking and debate, and benefit local and national debate initiatives through tour-naments and programs offered at Pace.

“Debate has been, arguably, the most suc-cessful program at Pace,” says SHUNTÁ JORDAN, the current J.B. Fuqua Chair of Speaking and Debate. “It is one of the only programs for which the school is known on a national level. Maintaining a competitive and successful program allows us to attract students with various interests, from differ-ent backgrounds and academic levels. This feeds the cycle of building and sustaining a successful program that will continue to at-tract great students.”

In order to secure future success, in May of 2012, the trustees of The J.B. Fuqua Founda-tion approved a four-year challenge grant to endow Pace’s debate program.

To meet this challenge, Pace must

raise $250,000 to match The

J.B. Fuqua Foundation’s endowed gift,

for a total of $500,000.

Since 2009, the squad’s membership has doubled, and Jordan says it will continue to grow in the foreseeable future. Open to all interested students in the Upper School, Pace offers a yearlong advanced debate course and semester-long courses in both intermedi-ate debate and beginning speech and debate. Middle School students can take a yearlong elective debate course, which teaches the fun-damental concepts and then allows students to put them into action once a month at Atlanta Middle School Debate League compe-titions. Mentoring opportunities are a built-in component of the curriculum that allow Upper School debaters to work with Middle School debate students, bridging a gap between divi-sions and fostering meaningful relationships.

When asked how debate has impacted them as students and/or professionals, both current and alumni debaters were consistent across the board—Pace’s program changed who they were as critical thinkers and as global citizens.

Senior ERIN RAWLS says debate has opened doors intellectually and academically for her, as well as equipped her with lifelong skills like effective time management, public-speaking confidence and research abilities. Students also become well versed in current events and complex global problems.

“[Debate] also enhanced my knowledge about the world to the point where I can scare my family with the amount of information about which I can speak confidently—I mean past the point of cocktail party knowledge,” says Rawls. “In terms of personal develop-ment, I can now understand things in a way that makes me more accepting of different cultures and forms of thought.”

Junior REID FUNSTON has enjoyed trav-eling to tournaments across the country and plugging into the greater debate community. Funston says learning how to express his ideas persuasively and effectively speak in public has been a major self-confidence boost and has changed his view of the world. He joined the team in the eighth grade because he says, “I liked the idea of arguing with people as an elective.” It’s hard to argue with that.

Perhaps most significant to any educator or parent is the resounding sense that the debate team at Pace is a family and a support system whereby students learn skills that equip them for college and well beyond.

“Competing in debate gave me the confidence to speak in any setting, about anything,” says Jordan,who joined Atlanta’s Therrell High School’s debate team, one of the first urban debate teams in the country, in the ninth grade. “Critical thinking and communica-tion are valuable skills that only increase in value after students leave [Pace]. The Fuqua Challenge funding will be used to sustain our program, make it available to more students and positively impact our surrounding community.”

Support a Debate Endowment: The J.B. Fuqua Foundation has committed to doubling any gift made to the Pace debate program until the end of the 2016 school year in an effort to endow the program. To double your gift towards a Pace Debate Endowment, visit www.paceacademy.org/debate-give. For more information, please contact HEATHER WHITE, director of Advancement, at 404-240-9107 or hwhite@paceacademy.org. •