The American Debate Association began in 1985 as an intercollegiate debate

Debate

Debate or debating is a method of interactive and representational argument. Debate is a broader form of argument than logical argument, which only examines consistency from axiom, and factual argument, which only examines what is or isn't the case or rhetoric which is a technique of persuasion...

 association. It uses the resolution

Resolution (policy debate)

In policy debate, a resolution or topic is a normative statement which the affirmative team affirms and the negative team negates. Resolutions are selected annually by affiliated schools....

 selected by the Cross Examination Debate Association

Cross Examination Debate Association

The Cross Examination Debate Association is the largest intercollegiate policy debate association in the United States. Throughout the school year, CEDA sanctions over 60 tournaments throughout the nation, including an annual National Championship Tournament that brings together over 175...

 and the National Debate Tournament

National Debate Tournament

The National Debate Tournament is one of the national championships for collegiate policy debate in the United States. The tournament is sponsored by the American Forensic Association with the Ford Motor Company Fund.-History of the NDT:...

. Currently they have 66 member schools. Its current president is Michael Hall, debate coach of Liberty University.

History

The ADA is a 1985 group that broke off from the National Debate Tournament. It was originally not intended to replace the national debate tournament. The ADA attempted to correct the excesses of debate, wanted to emphasize speech elements and provide a training ground for novice debaters, i.e. debaters that had no formal debate training in high school but nevertheless had potential. It was formed in the mid Atlantic region of the United States, in Maryland and Pennsylvania. The group grows and becomes the American Debate Association, for National and Cross examination. The same topics and tie limits from the national debate tourney was used. The exception was that new rules are implemented in the ADA that are designed to protect these ‘novice’ debaters. The only events the ADA attends are policy debates, no persuasive, or other debate forums are used. They attend all National Debate Tournament tournaments, 88 of them a year, and have in the neighborhood of 60 institutions nationwide.

Member Schools

• Liberty University
  Liberty University
  Liberty University is a private Christian university located in Lynchburg, Virginia. Liberty's annual enrollment is around 72,000 students, 12,000 of whom are residential students and 60,000+ studying through Liberty University Online...
  
  
• Brigham University
• Mary Washington University
• James Madison University
  James Madison University
  James Madison University is a public coeducational research university located in Harrisonburg, Virginia, U.S. Founded in 1908 as the State Normal and Industrial School for Women at Harrisonburg, the university has undergone four name changes before settling with James Madison University...
  
  
• George Mason University
  George Mason University
  George Mason University is a public university based in unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, United States, south of and adjacent to the city of Fairfax. Additional campuses are located nearby in Arlington County, Prince William County, and Loudoun County...
  
  
• Wayne State University
  Wayne State University
  Wayne State University is a public research university located in Detroit, Michigan, United States, in the city's Midtown Cultural Center Historic District. Founded in 1868, WSU consists of 13 schools and colleges offering more than 400 major subject areas to over 32,000 graduate and...
  
  
• Vanderbilt University
  Vanderbilt University
  Vanderbilt University is a private research university located in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1873, the university is named for shipping and rail magnate "Commodore" Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided Vanderbilt its initial $1 million endowment despite having never been to the...
  
  
• Emory University
  Emory University
  Emory University is a private research university in metropolitan Atlanta, located in the Druid Hills section of unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, United States. The university was founded as Emory College in 1836 in Oxford, Georgia by a small group of Methodists and was named in honor of...
  
  
• Appalachian State University
  Appalachian State University
  Appalachian State University is a comprehensive , public, coeducational university located in Boone, North Carolina, United States. Appalachian State, also referred to as Appalachian, App State, or simply App, is the sixth largest institution in the University of North Carolina system...
  
  
• University of Richmond
  University of Richmond
  The University of Richmond is a selective, private, nonsectarian, liberal arts university located on the border of the city of Richmond and Henrico County, Virginia. The University of Richmond is a primarily undergraduate, residential university with approximately 4,000 undergraduate and graduate...
  
  
• Plus 56 other unidentified schools

Mission and Policies

The ADA's mission of increasing participation, maintaining a balance between education and competition, and ensuring an equitable and fair activity for all programs, regardless of their size or experience is facilitated by the ADA's rules and is premised on the following assumptions:
1. Debate is a controlled discussion which analyzes the substantive issues raised by a particular policy proposition.

2. Debate is a persuasive, oral communication activity in which debaters assume the obligation to communicate reasons for positions taken in a manner that is coherent, intelligible, and consistent with the limitations on human speech and listening.

3. Debate tournaments will be run efficiently, honestly, and in a manner which promotes the educational values of debating for all participants.

4. Coaches and judges are educators whose job it is to effectively prepare students to debate, to objectively and fairy evaluate rounds of competition to which they are assigned, and to behave in an ethical and professional fashion.

5. Debate is an educational activity to be engaged in by undergraduates who are officially enrolled full-time students in good academic standing at the colleges and universities they represent in competition.

Standing Rules of Tournament Procedure

Follow this link for a webpage of the current American Debate Association debate rules: http://departments.kings.edu/debate/rules.htm
.