Exeter’s Public Speaking Clubs Are No Strangers to Success
Exeter is renowned for the strength and dedication of its student clubs, and its public speaking groups are no exception. Showcasing skills akin to participating around the Harkness table, these clubs continue to thrive, attracting regional and national attention in interscholastic competitions. Exeter’s Mock Trial team is set for the state competitions this weekend and the Ethics Forum team is preparing for regionals. Model United Nations (MUN) has just returned from a successful trip at the competitive Harvard MUN conference, and the Daniel Webster Debate Society has returned from a competition at Choate. Beneath the accomplished exterior of these clubs are teams of close friends who sacrifice a large amount of time, all in agreement that the camaraderie makes debate fully worth it.
“I don’t call Mock Trial a club; I call it a team,” senior and co-head Anna Clark said. The group is smaller than most as trial competition only allows for thirty-five participants, but within that framework are members who are “very, very close for months on end,” according to Clark, especially when the teams are broken down further into groups of eight or twelve. The mock trial team was showcased in their performance during assembly last Tuesday. The team tried to “dispel rumors [that] the club was elite, and to make people see the humorous side of mock trial as well as all the hard work that goes into it,” Clark said.
Unlike many clubs which meet weekly, Mock Trial is more concentrated, with fewer meetings in the fall and spring but near daily meetings of two or more hours each during the championship season of February through May. However, these hours spent honing the team’s skills pay off in the end. “Competitions are thrilling,” Clark said. “Every trial is three hours of adrenaline. It’s so exciting to enter a completely different world, where different facts reign.” For Clark, one of the most exciting parts of Mock Trial is seeing students from all across the state exhibit passion for one case.
“There are a lot of obstacles we have to overcome.”
Exeter’s Model UN team also has its share of long hours, grueling competitions and an award-filled legacy. “It depends on the tournament,” MUN Secretary General and Vice President senior Julia Goydan said, “but HMUN [the Harvard Model UN competition] is special in particular because it’s one of the most difficult tournaments that we attend throughout the year.” The Harvard competition features teams from as far away as Costa Rica, providing a true global presence to a competition based on the debate and resolution of international issues. In addition to tournaments such as these, the club also organizes and hosts the annual PEAMUN competition on Exeter’s campus each October, inviting over 500 high school students from the surrounding area.
Members meet on a weekly basis for roughly one hour to practice mock assemblies debating different issues. As competition season nears, meetings frequent to two or three times each week to prepare Exeter’s delegates.
For well-known competitions such as Harvard Model UN, not every member is able to attend. “Because we’re only given a certain amount of spots for each conference, we have to pick and choose the students that we bring to each one. This year, there were 11 spots available for Exeter students. That means we do have to have some sort of selection process,” Director of Training Michael Garcia explained. “So the board takes upon [itself] to choose which students are able to go to each conference. HMUN is more competitive; it’s considered one of the top three in the country, if not the world, so we tend to select from more experienced candidates for HMUN. But we also do want to have some underclassmen representation so we have a strong team in the future,” Garcia said. He noted that candidates’ experience, age, unique profile and commitment to the club are the board’s main considerations.
The process that goes into choosing the best candidates can be contextualized by the rigor of the conference. “There are a lot of obstacles we have to overcome,” co-head Dhruva Nistane said. Nistane noted that the committee sessions at HMUN are extremely long—each of the four days of HMUN consist of three to seven hours of speaking. “It’s almost like a marathon—you’re always speaking, you’re always working on writing your paper, you’re always talking to other delegates. You’re always doing something so it’s almost making sure you stay engaged,” Nistane said.
Goydan cherishes Exeter’s 2017 seizure of the “Best Small Delegation” award at Harvard. Larger teams have 15 or more members, but Exeter’s modest group impressed the judges with only twelve members. “It means that overall, our combined awards did the best out of the groups with less than 15 people. So that was very cool to be in this room of over 1,000 people and have them call Phillips Exeter, and we got to go up and get our award,” she said.
Garcia had hoped to repeat this success at this year’s Model UN to establish the team’s presence in the New England and American Model UN circuit, but the team did not receive the award again. However, according to cohead Nistane, out of eleven candidates sent, seven delegates received awards, with Garcia and senior Elly Lee awarded Best Delegate, Tim Han awarded Outstanding Delegate, Nistane and lower Chai Vankireddy awarded Honorable Mention, and upper Mark Blekherman and lower Audrey Vanderslice awarded Verbal Commendation. Nistane says that this is still impressive—especially given that the current Model UN team is young.
On the other end of the spectrum, Exeter’s Daniel Webster Debate Society, founded in 1818, is the oldest secondary school student debate union and literary club in the United States, and its tradition of excellence in public speaking continues. The team performed well at the recent tournament at Choate. “Our novice team swept, which usually happens at tournaments,” lower Janalie Cobb said. She added that the advanced teams didn’t do as well as they had hoped, but the team still had some talented debaters who are sure to excel in the future. Debate co-captain and senior Grace Huang said that many newer students were able to have their first experience debating in tournaments. In the end, Exeter’s combined teams placed third.
According to co-captain and senior Sagar Rao, Choate is a formidable opponent. Rao explained that the Choate tournament is a “parliamentary debate format, extemporaneous and unprepared” where there the sides for debate are assigned by a coin toss.
Despite the difficulties faced in their competitions, Huang remains optimistic about the club. “We have had really good retention of new people, and the club is expanding. It’s been a great year,” Huang said. This year, the Society has expanded into public forum debate on the national speech and debate circuit. “It’s not just the local circuit but nationwide as well, so that’s been pretty fun.”