EWU Speech and Debate Club is Back in Action

With the help of a few dedicated Eagle students, Anthony “Tony” Penders, an adjunct faculty member in history, has revived EWU’s previously moribund speech and debate team. Now he hopes to expand the team and establish long-lasting roots in the university community.

Penders, who previously directed the debate program at the University of Indianapolis, has seen firsthand how speech and debate skills help students succeed in college and beyond.

“People think speech and debate is all about speaking,” Penders says, “I always tell people it’s really more of a listening event.”

Penders’ own roots in speech and debate can be traced back to his undergraduate years at Gonzaga University, where he first found his love for argumentation in an educational setting.

Not only does participating in speech and debate provide students with invaluable tools for communicating more effectively, Penders says, but oftentimes, it also serves as a “foot in the door” for leadership and career opportunities going forward.

Another benefit, he adds, is the experience of competing against students from other universities who share team members’ love of formal disputation. At the end of January, for example, Penders and the Eagle team participated virtually in a speech and debate tournament based in New York City.

During the event Seamus Mahoney, a junior majoring in environmental policy and planning with a minor in pre-law, placed second overall. Mahoney is also EWU’s speech and debate club president.

“Beyond the amazing community I’ve found,” Mahoney says, “the activity itself also helped immensely as I began college; the skills of research, argumentation, presentation and rhetoric are all invaluable in academic settings.”

Mahoney transferred to EWU from Lower Columbia College, a two-year community and technical college located in Longview, Washington. He says he arrived at Eastern with a plan in place to start a speech and debate club. “Not because I like going to other colleges to argue—though I do enjoy that,” Mahoney jokes, “but because of the community that it fosters within the institution and the connections that I can make beyond.”

The club will host a competitive debate on EWU’s campus in April (dates to follow), during which club members will display some of the many skills they’ve acquired — especially the power of disagreeing with respect. The event will be free to EWU students, faculty and staff.

Weekly club meetings are held on Tuesday evenings from 4–8 p.m. in Room 225 of EWU’s Communications Building. The speech and debate club welcomes all Eastern students, either to join or just try it out. Looking to learn more? Email Tony Penders at apenders@ewu.edu.

**Story written by Rachel Weinberg.