To paraphrase Abe Lincoln's comment about his best Civil War general, find out what the UAA debate team drinks and send a case to the hockey and basketball teams. The University of Alaska Anchorage debaters rank 12th in the world, tied with Harvard and St. Andrews of Scotland. Only Yale, ranked third, is higher than UAA in the United States. Only three other U.S. schools -- the University of La Verne, Colgate and Princeton made the Top 20.
UAA earned this distinction based on points scored in the last five world debate championships.
Seawolf prowess in debate is long established. The team has won both national championships and international competitions, and since 2005 has focused on the World Universities Debate Championships, where competition is stiffer, livelier and comes from all over the globe.
So Alaska debaters have traveled the world to compete with the best from Oxford, Cambridge, Sydney and the Ivy League -- and beaten them.
The team describes its success this way:
"We genuinely value opportunities to engage in reasoned discourse, we understand world events and the context in which they occur, and we work exceptionally hard."
Those are good standards to live by in a representative democracy.
BOTTOM LINE: Don't argue with these Seawolves.