Kevin D. Kuswa, Ph.D.

Director of Debate
Whitman College
Hunter Conservatory #309
345 Boyer Avenue,
Walla Walla, WA 99362
April 2015

Dear Whitman Pioneer,

While I am deeply saddened by the suspension of the Whitman College debate team, I am also
particularly proud of the Whitman Parliamentary debate team who earned 3rd place in the nation
this year and has been free of incident. A vital core of Whitman's intellectual tradition has always
been its debate program, and many of its very successful alumni and alumnae are debaters.
Overall, the collegiate debate community is a positive influence on its participants and its host
institutionscompetitive debate can be engaged safely and productively. Given the upcoming
suspension, I will only remain as the Director through the duration of the semester. I am sad to
leave the many students, faculty, and staff I have had the privilege to work with over the past two
years.
I have built my reputation as a Director on encouragement, inclusion, and supportive learning
practices. One of my first initiatives here was to write new team guidelines to help promote a
positive team environment. In addition to the guidelines, I restricted potentially offensive group
music, provided an anonymous comment box, and required team members to present various
articles and concepts to the team on diversity in debate. Whitman College has been extremely
supportive and generous in assisting the team in complying with Title IX. They have shown their
support by hiring national experts for extensive all-day training sessions. This work on ensuring
equal opportunities for participation has been very successful overall. The College prepared a 90page report detailing our findings, guidelines, and progress that I am happy to share or
summarize, and as a result we received a public commendation from a prominent Title IX
attorney for our exceptional leadership on the inclusivity issues. The recent issues leading to the
programs suspension are about students and assistant coaches allegedly violating team policy;
primarily our alcohol policy.
Debate is a competitive activity that requires coaches to make difficult decisions. It is never easy
to tell a debater that they will not be attending a tournament, but budgetary constraints make it
impossible to travel every member to every tournament. All travel-related decisions were made

according to our team policy which was crafted with, and approved by, the Whitman
administration. It is not for me to question the feelings of individual debaterswe teach students
to express themselves, even when doing so is contentiousbut I can say that we have worked
extremely hard to provide coaching and support to all of our students. Our team guidelines,
signed by every member of the team, outline the terms of team travel:
No one is guaranteed tournament travel, but the team will strive to make at least three tournaments a semester
or six a season available to all active debaters who prepare with a high level of effort as determined by the
coaches. Travel opportunities may not always be balanced between teams or formats but the coaches will do
their best to provide opportunities for competition commensurate with the skills, efforts, and teamwork of all
the members of the team. Occasionally, round-robin representation may be supported and criteria will be as
transparent as possible with an emphasis on submitting the team that deserves to attend based on work effort,
support for the larger squad, and that teams potential to succeed at the tournament. Some individuals and
two-person teams will earn particular travel privileges based on competitive level and potential ability to
succeed, available tournament opportunities, and individual and collective work efforts.
Travel decisions will be made by the coaches based primarily on the following factors:

Available resources
Consistency in attending meetings, practice sessions and helping other members of the team
Contribution to the High School tournament and other hosting obligations
Expectations of success
General efficiency in completing assignments
Record at competitions
Support for an inclusive and encouraging team environment
Value of completed work to the whole team
Work effort
Years on the team

In terms of travel and coaching, we have proactive and inclusive practices. We have travelled
over twenty students to dozens of tournaments. We sent Margaret Rockey to the only Round
Robin, a very exclusive and prestigious tournament format, the team attended. We sent Avery
Miller, a sophomore, to almost every tournament we attended. Danica Wilbanks, a first-year,
with her partner Duy Tran was ranked in the top 50 teams in the country, along with Margaret
and Avery who ranked in the top 16 with their partners, Zac Parker and Arthur Shemitz. These
are truly amazing women and incredible debaters who have worked hard to improve and
maximize their educational opportunities.
Women and non-male debaters have been especially accomplished at Whitman. Those
individuals include:
Danica Wilbanks
Kendall Dunovant
Emma Thompson
He Yue
Marlene Anderson

Meritt Salathe
Lauren Hauck
Emma Newmark
Draco Liu
Wenjun Gao

Audrey Thimm
Margaret Rockey
Avery Miller

Many things about our team make me proud. One example illustrates the depth of our
commitment to inclusivity. At the Sacramento State tournament two first-year males went 6-0,
undefeated in preliminary rounds. This team selflessly stepped aside and allowed two of our

upper-class women with a 4-2 record to continue debating when the two teams met against each
other in bracket style eliminations. These two women went on to win the tournament. That is a
testament to our inclusivity; an undefeated team magnanimously took a loss to encourage
womens success on the team. This uncharacteristically altruistic behavior shows how
exceptional Whitman is at creating an inclusive environment.
It is not just the training sessions, the financial and other support we provide to the Womens
Debate Institute, the Regional Fora on Ethics and Gender we host for College and High School
students, the predominantly female recruits who were planning to join Whitmans class of 2019,
the extra drills and practice sessions we offered, or the number of women who have competed
successfully on the team; it is the fact that we are constantly reflecting on, contemplating,
critiquing and testing ideas about identity, subjectivity, gender, inclusion and what it means to
really generate support for one another. The Whitman team had started to make progress on
these issues before I arrived and I can say with confidence that I helped to continue that progress.
In the meantime, we encourage all other programs to continue to put safety, inclusion, and
support first. I wish the College, its former, current, and future students nothing but the best. It
has been an honor and a privilege to direct debate at Whitman.
With respect and gratitude,

Kevin D. Kuswa, Ph.D.

Director of Debate
Whitman College

Whitman Debate; 345 Boyer Ave.; Whitman College; Walla Walla WA 99362