North American Debating Championship

The North American Debating Championship is one of the two official university debate championships of North America. It is sanctioned by the national university debating associations in the United States and Canada, the American Parliamentary Debate Association and the Canadian University Society for Intercollegiate Debate. It has been held each winter on an alternating basis between the United States and Canada since 1992. The host university arranges all judging and is not allowed in the competition. The most frequent hosts have been the University of Toronto and McGill University, which have each hosted the championship three times. Bates College, Cornell University, Johns Hopkins University, and Queen's University have each hosted twice. This tournament, often abbreviated as NorthAms, is not to be confused with the North American Universities Debating Championship, abbreviated as NAUDC, which is hosted separately in the fall of each year as a British Parliamentary Style tournament. The two events are coordinated such that each is hosted by a different country, the United States or Canada, in a given year.

The most recent iteration was held by the Odette School of Business in January 2025. The current North American champions are from the University of Chicago.

Results

Since 1992, the most successful university overall has been Yale University with nine championship victories, including three of the last four. Following it is the University of Toronto with seven wins. After that, Princeton University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University and McGill University have two championships each, and no other university has won more than once.

No team has ever repeated as the top team at the championship. Five individuals have won the top team award twice. Most recently, Matthew Song won in 2022 and 2024, representing Yale University. Matthew Wansley of Yale University won back-to-back championships from 2005 to 2007. Prior to that, Nathan MacDonald and Robert Silver won first together for the University of Western Ontario in 1997–1998, then MacDonald for the University of Guelph in 1998–1999, and Silver for the University of Ottawa in 1999–2000. Three people have won the top individual debater award twice: Casey Halladay of the University of Ottawa in 1997–1998 and 1999–2000, Rory Gillis of Yale University in two consecutive years from 2004 to 2006, and Kate Falkenstien of Yale in two consecutive years from 2010 to 2012.

Year	Host	Champion Team	College	Top Debater	College
2025	Odette	Alessandro Perri & Roy Tiefer	UChicago	Elizabeth Li	Stanford University
2024	UChicago	Justin Kim & Matthew Song	Yale	Ryan Lafferty	Dartmouth College
2023	Western	Ye Joo Han & Matt Mauriello	Harvard	Matt Mauriello	Harvard University
2022	Brandeis	Cameron Chacon & Matthew Song	Yale	Devesh Kodnani	University of Chicago
2021	Penn	David Edimo & Eva Quinones	Yale	Eva Quinones	Yale
2020	Waterloo	Gautier Boyrie & Chris Pang	Toronto	Samuel Arnesen and Shreyas Kumar	Princeton
2019	Rutgers	William Arnesen & Xavier Sottile	Yale	Sophia Caldera	Harvard
2018	Toronto	Harry Elliott & David Slater	Stanford	Christopher Taylor	Yale
2017	Middlebury	Megan Wilson & Kyle Hietala	Yale	Nathan Raab	Princeton
2016	Queen's	Anirudh Dasarathy & Brian Litchfield	Princeton	Denizhan Uykur	McGill
2015	NYU	Juliana Vigorito & David Israel	Hopkins	Shomik Ghosh	Michigan
2014	Ottawa & Carleton	Kaya Ellis & Louis Tsilivis	Toronto	Michael Barton and Veenu Goswami	Yale and Toronto
2013	Syracuse	Coulter King & Josh Zoffer	Harvard	Coulter King	Harvard
2012	Toronto	Simon Cameron & Romeo Maione	Carleton	Kate Falkenstien	Yale
2011	Fordham	Nate Blevins & Pam Brown	Yale [1]	Kate Falkenstien	Yale
2010	York	Adam Goldstein & Bill Magnuson	MIT [2] [3]	Richard Lizius	Toronto
2009	Amherst	Grant May & Andrew Rohrbach	Yale	Mark Samburg	Harvard
2008	Carleton	Jon Laxer & Jason Rogers	Toronto	Josh Bone	Yale
2007	Bates	Dylan Gadek & Matthew Wansley	Yale	Ian Freeman	Carleton
2006	Toronto	Ben Eidelson & Matthew Wansley	Yale	Rory Gillis	Yale
2005	Cornell	Joanna Nairn & Melanie Tharamangalam	Toronto [4]	Rory Gillis	Yale
2004	Queen's	James Renihan & Gordon Shotwell	McGill	Greg Allen	UBC
2003	Hopkins	Phil Larochelle & Patrick Nichols	MIT [5]	Emily Schleicher	NYU
2002	McGill	Rory McKeown & Aaron Rousseau	Toronto [6]	Ranjan Agarwal [7] [8]	Ottawa
2001	Cornell	Storey Clayton & Adam Zirkin	Brandeis	David Silverman	Princeton
2000	Queen's	Casey Halladay & Robert Silver	Ottawa	Casey Halladay [8]	Ottawa
1999	Smith	Nathan MacDonald & Averill Pessin	Guelph	Jason Goldman	Princeton
1998	McGill	Nathan MacDonald & Robert Silver	Western	Casey Halladay [8]	Ottawa
1997	Hopkins	John Oleske & Niall O'Murchada	Princeton	John Oleske	Princeton
1996	Toronto	Matt Cohen & Jamie Springer	McGill	Ron Guirguis	Guelph
1995	Penn	Jeremy Mallory & Neal Potishman	Swarthmore	Michael D'Abramo	Toronto
1994	Dalhousie	Randy Cass & Avery Plaw	Toronto	Avery Plaw	Toronto
1993	Bates	Jason Brent & Thomas Meehan	Toronto	Marc Givens	Queen's
1992	McGill	Marc Givens & Elicia Maine	Queen's	Ted Cruz	Princeton

North American Public Speaking Championship

Every year from 1992 to 2001, and biannually from 2003 to 2007, individual public speaking was also an event at the championship. It was run as a parallel tournament, with a grand public speaking final before the final round of debate. After 2007, it was discontinued as APDA had shortened debating tournaments and discontinued public speaking as a regular event at US tournaments. No individual ever repeated as North American Public Speaking Champion. McGill University and the University of Ottawa each had three public speaking champions, the most of any university.

Year	Winner	College
2007	Vinay Kumar Mysore	McGill University
2005	Jason Rogers	McGill University
2004	Stuart Savelkoul [9] [10]	Dickinson State University
2001	Aidan Johnson	University of Toronto
2000	Jeremy Holiday	Middlebury College
1999	Mark Bigney	McGill University
1998	Michael Podgorski	Queen's University
1997	Jordan Mills	University of New Mexico
1996	Shuman Ghosemajumder	University of Western Ontario
1995	Marika Giles	Concordia University
1994	Jake Irving	University of Ottawa
1993	Michael McKneely	Colgate University
1992	Awanish Sinha	University of Ottawa

References

1. "APDAWeb - Results - Fordham NorthAms (2010-2011)". apdaweb.org. Retrieved 2016-07-24.
2. "News + Video | MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering". meche.mit.edu. Retrieved 2016-07-24.
3. "www.yorku.ca/mediar/archive/Release.php?Release=1811". yorku.ca. Retrieved 2016-07-24.
4. "A Way With Words | World University Debating Championship 2006, U of T Award Winners 2006 | Summer 2016 | University of Toronto Magazine". magazine.utoronto.ca. 18 March 2006. Retrieved 2016-07-24.
5. "2003 CUSID-APDA North American Debating Championships Final Round on Vimeo". vimeo.com. Retrieved 2016-07-24.
6. "Not Just Black and White | U of T at North American Debating Championships, Aaron Rousseau, Rory McKeown | Summer 2016 | University of Toronto Magazine". magazine.utoronto.ca. 2 June 2002. Retrieved 2016-07-24.
7. "Fulcrum 091108". scribd.com. Retrieved 2016-07-24.
8. "Home | Faculty of Law - Common Law Section | University of Ottawa". commonlaw.uottawa.ca. Retrieved 2016-07-24.
9. "Signal Butte" (PDF). 2009. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2010-05-27.
10. "40 Under 40 - Stuart Savelkoul | North Dakota Business Watch". Archived from the original on 2009-11-30. Retrieved 2010-05-14.

External links

• CUSID Summary of Past Championships