VSU Debate Students Continue To Rank Highly In National Competitions

Press Release for VSU Debate Team: Dr. Michael Eaves

The VSU Debate Team has opened their season in an unconventional fashion that has become the norm due to COVID, with season opener tournament schedule exclusively taking place virtually, having competed in the University of Central Florida’s Knight Joust tournament mid-September and, most recently, the University of Arkansas at Monticello’s Weevil Wars Debate Tournament this past weekend. At the Weevil Wars tournament, the VSU debate team saw the following students’ successes:

  • Vanessa Okojie, sophomore and President of the VSU debate team, made it to the final round the Junior Varsity division. She was also ranked fifth place speaker. With this success, Vanessa is in the running for a spot in the top 5 national ranking of Junior Varsity IPDA debaters.

  • Yetunde Oluwadare, sophomore and Vice President of the VSU debate team, finished the tournament as a quarterfinalist in the Junior Varsity Division.

  • Joshua Julian, sophomore, finished the tournament as a semifinalist in the Junior Varsity division, where he had the highest preliminary record on the team for the weekend (5-1).

The team has several tournaments left on the schedule for this semester, which includes tournaments (virtually) held at:

Bowling Green State University                                             October 17

Southeast Arkansas College                                                   October 23-24

Louisiana State University at Shreveport                               November 6-8

Abilene Christian University                                                  December 4-5