Photos: 2015 US Universities Debating Championship

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Noah Kirsch, left, and James Latimer of Tufts University in Massachusetts confer during the 15 minutes of prep time that precedes each debate at the 2015 U.S. Universities Debating Championship on Monday morning, April 13, 2015, at the Hotel Captain Cook. They were to argue the proposition: "This house believes that adults who wish to have children and are financially able have a moral obligation to adopt rather than have biological children."

In the world of collegiate debate, Harvard, Yale, and the University of Alaska Anchorage are peers. Anchorage's hometown debate team perennially ranks among the elite.

Between Saturday and Monday evening, UAA hosted the 2015 U.S. Universities Debating Championship on its campus and at the Hotel Captain Cook in downtown Anchorage. It was the first time the premier national college debate tournament has been held in Alaska. The field included teams from such prestigious universities as Stanford, Brown and Cornell.

"(At other tournaments) we'd come back with trophies and press releases," said Steve Johnson, who has coached debate at UAA for 20 years. "But nobody was seeing what we did."

So how did the Seawolf Debate Team become a national powerhouse?

READ MORE: How did UAA's debate team become a national powerhouse?