2 PHC teams finish in top 3 at Paris debate competition

At the Transatlantic Dialogue competition in Paris last month, PHC teams earned 2^nd and 3^rd place. Wyatt Trull, Abigail Spivey, and Matthias Todd’s team took second place, and Hannah Bruck, Ben Spivey, and Caleb Helsing’s team took third place. The students also earned 5 of the top 10 individual speaker awards.

Tyler Dunning (EBA ’22), PHC's Debate Program’s head coach, said, “What made our teams stand out in the preliminary rounds was the undistracted focus of their cases and the polished confidence of their delivery.”

This was because in the weeks leading up to the tournament, the students invested time in running practice rounds, refining their arguments, and honing their delivery. Over that time, their cases came into focus, and their strategy in approaching the debate topic was taken to the next level.

“By the time they stepped into the first round of the Paris tournament, they hit the ground running,” Dunning said.

Between the broadness of the topic (how Western democracies should counter misinformation and disinformation) and the format of three teams debating against one another in each round, it was easy for the debate to become spread thin across too many arguments in too little time. But the PHC teams distinguished themselves by narrowing their proposals down to what they believed were the highest-leverage policies in addressing the issue, rather than attempting to offer a comprehensive solution. 

For senior Matthias Todd, Freedom's Foundations I & II were the core classes that proved most helpful in equipping him to debate on that particular topic. "It gave us the fundamental understanding of what democratic values are as well as their importance for democracies," he said.  

“The competition was a success overall. I think we were all a little bummed not to get first and second places instead of second and third. But that's just a testament to the high standard we all hold ourselves to,” said junior Wyatt Trull.

Trull heard about the competition in the summer of 2024, when PHC was announced as the winner that year. When he had the chance to participate this year and go to École de Guerre, he jumped at the opportunity.

One of Trull’s and other team members’ favorite memories from the trip was an after-dark visit to the Eiffel Tower. They took the elevator to the top level and gazed at the stunning nighttime view of the Paris cityscape.

They looked out over the various places they had been over the prior week, from École Militaire (where the tournament was hosted) situated directly across the Champ de Mars to the distant Gothic spires of Sainte Chapelle, a church with ceiling-to-floor stain glass windows of imagery that recites the story of the Old and New Testaments.

 Patrick Henry College exists to glorify God by challenging the status quo in higher education, lifting high both faith and reason within a rigorous academic environment; thereby preserving for posterity the ideals behind the "noble experiment in ordered liberty" that is the foundation of America.