Service

March 12, 2025

Over the past two years, I have done roughly 8 hours a week of service for the debate team, in addition to the time I have spent at tournaments:

3 hours a week: team meetings and instructions

3 hours a week: one-on-one meetings with debaters

2 hours a week: miscellaneous administrative tasks, including coordination with tournament directors, the School District, my high school, parents, coaches, debaters, transportation providers, food providers, and sponsoring nonprofit organizations.

Today was my last day of responsibility for the Central Debate Team. At the end of the day, the outgoing cabinet transferred its duties to the incoming cabinet, ending our contribution to the team. Nonetheless, along with my partner Jaden, I tied the record for the longest time serving on Debate cabinet at three years. We oversaw a complete overhaul of the team, from an eight-person team in dissarray that hardly even attended a single tournament to a thriving forty-five-person team that has multiple nationally ranked teams within it, and that has become a powerful social force within the school. This was the product of years of lessons that I often led and planned, and years of paperwork and fundraising that I primarily coordinated. I am incredibly proud of this community that I helped build, and it was only possible through ongoing commitment and collaboration.

I saw the things that we can accomplish by working together with my teammates and supporting them in their journeys, as the team transformed during my tenure. Here, I demonstrated the skills and benefits of working collaboratively with my teammates and the other people on the debate cabinet. (Learning outcome 5)

At the same time, I demonstrated through doing this that I am continuing my CAS engagements for long periods of time. I had regular involvement and active engagement as I continued to collaborate with students, administrators, and other relevant people to make sure that the debate team succeeds over a very long period of time, and I will continue to serve in an advisory role for one year after I graduate. (Learning outcome 4)

January 31, 2025

Total hours, excluding planning: 24

Today, I coordinated, chaperoned, and volunteered as a judge for the Central Debate Team at the Pennsbury Falcon Invitational. This was among our largest tournaments of the year, and as always, was a challenge. In particular, we had a shortage of judges, so I decided to retire early as a debater and serve as a judge instead. But the hours of work that entailed did not absolve me of my other responsibilities in chaperoning the team. I served as a driver, filling my car every single time I went to or from Philadelphia, and even shuttling other debaters that I could not fit in my car to the nearest regional rail station, which was over a mile from the tournament site. As a result, I had to wake up on every day of the tournament at 5am to begin my run of picking up all the debaters I was driving. I would then drive them all an hour to the tournament, at which point I would have to track down everyone else. My day would only end at 11pm on both days of the tournament, when I was finally able to get home after dropping off the last debaters. Nonetheless, this paid off.

I saw the things that we can accomplish by working together with my teammates and supporting them in their journeys, as they dramatically improved at debate even during the course of the tournament. Here, I demonstrated the skills and benefits of working collaboratively with my teammates and the other people on the debate cabinet. (Learning outcome 5)

At the same time, I demonstrated through doing this that I am continuing my CAS engagements for long periods of time. I have regular involvement and active engagement as I continue to collaborate with students, administrators, and other relevant people to make sure that the debate team succeeds. (Learning outcome 4)

December 14, 2024

Today, I coordinated and chaperoned the Central Debate Team at the La Salle Forum Invitational. This was our first major tournament of the year, and by far the largest team we had ever taken to any tournament. My co-captain, Jaden, and I had been assembling this team for years, and it finally paid off as we entered so many people into this tournament that we hit the entry cap. To accomodate all the entries, I served as a chaperone and a driver. I picked up teammates from across the city and coordinated lunch. But more impactful was the work I did in the months leading up to the tournament, fundraising from the school district and filing extremely large and cumbersome amounts of paperwork to get the event approved. I found judges that were willing to volunteer for us and make the event possible, and generally coordinated the entire event. Ultimately, it was worth it.

Here, I demonstrated the skills and benefits of working collaboratively with my teammates and the other people on the debate cabinet. (Learning outcome 5)