IDEA -- BFSU International Debate Tournament

Willamette University

December 16 - 18, 2011

Click here for list of confirmed entries. This excel spreadsheet contains 4 tabs, one each for English debate, Mandarin Debate, Moot court, and Judges.

Join us for an amazing experience in culture and debate as we hold this sixth annual international university tournament from December 16-18, 2011 at Beijing Foreign Studies University in the heart of China's capital city. This tournament will feature an English division, a Mandarin division, and a Moot Court division.

We are setting an entry deadline for December 1, 2011. Furthermore, due to space limitations on the BFSU campus, we will have an entry limit of 100 teams; 60 in English and 40 in Mandarin. If the team capacity is reached prior to the deadline, then we will be forced to close registration.

IMPORTANT: Each university is initially allowed to register 2 teams/4 debaters. Universities will be allowed to enter 1 additional English team for each Mandarin team they enter. Registration will be conducted through forensictournament.net. If your school does not have an account on this site, you will need to create one before registering. Please remember, when adding your school and competitors on forensictournament.net, you will need to use last name as family name and first name as given name. Please type your names in pinyin as the program is not yet able to accept Chinese characters. Also, I am trying to get Chinese provinces added to the list of locations, but if that is not there when you register, you can simply say that your school is from Oregon.

Judging: Each university must enter a minimum of one judge. Each university must enter 1 additional judge for each 2 teams. Thus if your university has 4 teams, you will need to have 2 judges. For 6 teams, you need 3 judges, etc.

The official format of the tournament will be British parliamentary debate. Training sessions for judges, debaters, and moot court advocates will also be available immediately before the tournament. IDEA trainers will conduct all training sessions.

Each university is initially allowed to register two teams in each of the three divisions. Universities will be allowed to enter one additional English team for each Mandarin team they enter.Students do NOT need to register as a team. They may register as individuals and IDEA will help find partners for these individual debaters. The registration deadline is December 1, 2011, at 9:30 pm Beijing time.

In addition to excellent debating, our tournament site offers students an opportunity to see the historic and modern sites of Beijing, from the Forbidden Palace and the great Wall of China to Tiananmen Square. Tours can be arranged locally.