The university's debate team hosted the Wake Forest Dixie Classic debate tournament last weekend, which has been labeled by some as the "Cannes Film Festival of the debate world."

The tournament, which accommodated over 200 university debate teams from across the country, began in 1956 and has been held annually ever since. Over the years, the Dixie Classic has come to be known as one of the most important debate events in the academic world and has a reputation of being run efficiently and fairly.

"We offer unique hospitality and a fair atmosphere," senior debator Patrick Speice said. "The number of compliments that we get is second to none. In fact, the Dixie has been rated as the best tournament by the college debate community for the past two decades. People love to come to the Dixie, and the quality of the tournament is demonstrated by the rising numbers of debate teams that request to attend each year."

Freshman debater Patrick Jackson said the Dixie Classic tournement has had an incredible amount of interest.

"The interest far exceeded what we were able to accommodate," Jackson said. "The best teams in the country come here to take advantage of the service we offer and to compete with the other great teams."

The established national intercollegiate debate topic, which was used in the tournament, focused on the possible ratification and implementation of a number of treaties on subjects of weapons of mass destruction, greenhouse gases, civil rights and abortion. The tournament kicked off with eight preliminary debates, pitting two, two-person teams to debate over the topic at hand. Affirmative teams, which must argue for the implementation of one of the five treaties in the topic, debated against negative teams, which argue against the ideas presented by an opposing affirmative team.

Each two-person team had to argue on the affirmative side for four debates and on the negative for the remaining four. Before the tournament, each team had to declare either an affirmative or negative position in regard to the topic.

To minimize the already tedious task of researching their debate topics, the university's debate team gathered this information from participating schools and distributed it electronically to all teams in what they call a "case list."

"To compile information from each team was a ton of work, but it is something that benefits the entirety of the community," Speice said. "This 'case list' is an innovation that was begun by Wake Forest for the (Dixie Classic)."

In addition to heading the "case list" innovation, the Dixie Classic has also, according to Speice, brought about some changes into intercollegiate debate as a whole.

"The Dixie was the first tournament to experiment with different lengths of time for the speeches, some of which have become institutionalized in intercollegiate debate today," he said.

In the Dixie Classic finals, debaters Geoff Garen and Tristen Morales of Northwestern, with a negative stance, defeated debaters Jason Regnier and Brent Saindon of Fort Hays State University on a 3-0 decision vote by debate judges.

"The tournament went off very well. Everyone went home happy, so far as I've heard, except for a few minor incidents," Jackson said. "Of course, I didn't sleep the entire weekend, but sometimes you just have to take one for the team," he said.

Because of the rich history and tradition of the Dixie Classic and the university's debate team, the tournament is sure to be held next year, again in mid-November.

"I can't imagine that the Dixie wouldn't happen again next year. It is a fabulous experience and is second to none," Speice said.