Help Send Debate Union at UCLA to Nationals

The Debate Union at UCLA is UCLA's only intercollegiate competitive debating organization that is both student-run and funded. This year we have 31 active members who attend practices and attend tournaments. Our team competes in the British Parliamentary (BP) debate format at the local, national, and international levels. We have been training year-round to prepare for major tournaments like USUDC (United States Universities Debating Championships) AKA Nationals which is set to take place in October 2023. Apart from debating, our team is devoted to creating a family-like community. When we aren’t practicing our technique or competing at tournaments, we enjoy spending time with each other (like at the beach or bowling alley). Our organization allows debaters to develop their critical thinking, analytical, and speaking skills while providing a community where members can create lifelong friendships and professional connections. 

The Debate Union is facing a tumultuous period. In the summer of 2022, the Communications Department, which we have long been affiliated with, officially cut ties with our program and halted funding. This made us a student organization for the first time ever, and the first time having to deal with a complex financial bureaucracy. While we have received some funding from these entities, it has simply not been enough for us to punch our weight on a national level. The lack of funding has made it so that we are unable to send our members to many prestigious tournaments, causing us to miss out on the ability to win titles. The Debate Union is filled with talented, hard-working members, and they shouldn’t have avenues for competitive success closed on them simply due to a lack of funds. A big competition coming up in the fall of this year is USUDC, the United States Universities Debating Championship, the largest national competition for British Parliamentary Debate. We’d love to send as many UCLA teams as we can so we can show the entire country our argumentative prowess, and bring home some hardware. 

Almost as old as UCLA itself, the Debate Union at UCLA was founded in 1920. During this time the Debate Union has shown its competitive prowess by being 9-time National Champions and breaking at countless tournaments. Despite our difficult financial circumstances, our team has excelled at major tournaments in recent years. In 2020, one of our teams was the National Novice Champions at the US Universities Debating Championships (USUDC). This year, we had open semi-finalists and novice semi-finalists at USUDC 2022 as well as two novice semi-finalists at North American Universities Debating Championships (NAUDC) 2023. With your help, we can continue to increase our team's competitiveness. 

The best way a donor can help is by chipping in - any amount a donor feels comfortable with is fine with us. The money a donor puts into this campaign gives us the funds to do many things. It’ll allow us to pay for tournament registration fees, airplane tickets, ground transportation, food, and lodging. But once a donor has sent in money, the next best thing they can do is raise awareness for this campaign. This can be through sharing it with friends and family, posting about it on social media, and more. The more people know about this campaign, the more likely people will donate to it. We think that once people understand the importance of competitive debate and how it builds up critical skills for students, they’ll chip in so that the hard work of our team is actualized.  

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