Tiana Bellamy is a Augsburg student and Bonner intern at the Minnesota Urban Debate League. Tiana has extensive experience as a debater, achieving success on the national circuit. On October 23rd, Tiana led a workshop on performance debate and wrote an essay about the workshop:


Tiana with her debate partner

Tiana (right) with fellow Central High School debater Dua Saleh (left), both now Augsburg College students.

On October 23rd, I had the pleasure of leading one of the breakout sessions for the Urban Debate League’s very own workshop!

When I debated for Central High School, my partner and I used a style of policy debate known as performance debate, which is all about acknowledging the importance of where knowledge comes from. So, naturally my workshop was focused on what performance debate is, and how to do it.

I had some brilliant participants in the workshop with me and we had a great time playing games and learning from each other about how to have a meaningful debate with someone who debates differently. We even had an expert on domestic surveillance policy, the Chief Privacy Officer of Deluxe Corporation, Linnea Solem, come and speak to the participants and answer any questions they had.

I know I learned a lot and that the participants did too. In summary, it was a great night!